Best van for a courier business?

Part 1 in the discussion – what is the best van for a courier?  And we’ll deal first with the King of the Road when it comes to white vans;

 

The Mercedes Sprinter!

The Mercedes Sprinter is seems to be the van of choice for most courier companies.  You can be pretty much guaranteed that the shiny new van charging around town delivering parcels all day will be a spanky new Mercedes.  But why is this?

On behalf of couriers, and fantasy couriers, around the world, we have been undertaking research into precisly this question.  Stopping and questioning every van driver that didn’t run away when we accosted them with our questions.

Now, we know that the Sprinter is not the cheapest of vans, in fact, if you compare all of the usual white van suspects, the Mercedes Sprinter is probably the one that will come out the most expensive.  So what does it offer that makes it worth it?

Well, it’s got that Street Cred, when you pull up in a Mercedes people take you seriously.  The badge is there for all to see, and everybody knows you have a Mercedes.  True enough, it’s not a S-Class, but it’s still a Mercedes, and it earns buckets more respect than a 10 year old LDV.  And this factor must not be underestimated.  Your average courier/van driver will be spending between 8 and 12 hours a day in his van, it is important to him or her what it looks like.

Next, SPEEEEEEEEEED!  Does the Mercedes Sprinter really sprint?  Or is it more of a long distance marathon runner.  Well, our guys on the road say YES, the Mercedes Sprinter will out sprint every other van on the road, and leave them standing.

However!!!!!!!

The Sprinter does this by using a lot of Fuel!  And Fuel is becoming more expensive daily.  How much more fuel?  We estimate that it uses approx 15% more fuel than most of it’s competitors.  Also, servicing and parts costs are high, and insurance too.

Maybe, all of the drivers we questioned were employed, and therefore they got all the benefits of looking cool, and driving fast, with none of the draw backs of shelling out for diesel and tyres.

So.  The conculsions of our research;

The Mercedes Van is definitely the Van for you is somebody else is buying it, and paying the running costs.  If however it’s you that needs to pay the bills you need to work out whether that extra respect that you will get for running a Fleet of Mercedes Sprinters (and being the envy of all your competitors) is worth the extra initial cost, the extra running costs, and the speeding tickets!