I'm tentively looking around for possibilities for our next van.

[RichardHelen262]

This any good ?

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[Pudsey Bear]

I like the van, but it's a sprintshift, not a real automatic. But that's the year they switched to real auto.

 

[wildebus]

The Mohican is also a >3.5t van and downplating would be struggle to maintain a usable payload.

 

[mark61]

I like the van, but it's a sprintshift, not a real automatic. But that's the year they switched to real auto.

Thought the was a W903 up for sale recently with a conventional auto? May have been an Autotrail too.

It's not that they switched to a conventional auto, they were always an option. It's when the sprint shift was dropped.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

They became more common on Mercedes-based motorhomes 06> as you say, when they dropped the sprintshift.

I asked Google why, and it was as I suspected, although some owners found it ok.

Mercedes dropped the Sprintshift semi-automatic transmission in 2006 with the introduction of the NCV3 Sprinter generation.
They discontinued it because the electro-hydraulic system was prone to expensive, complex failures (like failing pumps, slave cylinders, and sensors) and customers complained of jerky gear shifts. Mercedes replaced it with traditional, smoother torque-converter automatics.

Why the Sprintshift Was Dropped

• High Maintenance and Unreliability: The Sprintshift was an automated manual (not a true automatic). It used an external electro-hydraulic pump and sensors to actuate the clutch and change gears. Issues with the hydraulic pump, relay switches, and clutch slave cylinders often immobilised the vehicle, requiring expensive repairs and specialised diagnostic tools.
• Poor Shift Quality: The system could be jerky or clunky, especially in heavy traffic or when heavily loaded, lacking the smooth performance of a traditional torque-converter automatic.
• Shift to Superior Automatics: Consumer and commercial demand heavily favoured smoother, fully automatic transmissions, leading Mercedes to introduce more refined traditional automatics (like the 5G-Tronic and later 7G-Tronic) in their commercial vans.

 

[mark61]

VW continued with the sprint shift option up until the current Crafter was released.

The traditional auto was also a cheaper option on the NCV3's by quite a few hundred pounds, but best of all, 4x4 option dropped from about a 16/17+ k option to about £5500.