Maybe if these narrow vans were made wider, MB wouldn't have
to resort to gimmicky fixes. How I miss the old Ford E series
vans.....

Agreed Richard. These rinky-dink eurovans are made narrow to navagate medieval European streets and made ugly to shame you into taking public transportation. Almost gone are the days of full-size stylish vans built on truck chassis with truck engines and running gear. GM and Nissan have full size vans but they are ugly, especially the Nissan. You used to be able to park a brand new passenger van in the driveway and be proud to drive it around. These days people say "WTF is that thing!?!?" and unless you tell them you are a plumber and it's your work can they question your choice of hideous vehicle.

Nobody wanted skinny tall eurovans, not even the Europeans who hate them. We already had plenty of choices from small and large trucks to full size vans to minivans and even small cars with panel sides to cater to whatever your needs were. That's the free market. However the government and enviro-brown-shirts decided we had too much freedom and "coerced" manufacturers to sell these things that are ugly, underperform, are more expensive, and generally suck a big giant bratwurst.

Anyway.... Crosswind assist function? Only the vehicle equivalent of a freeway billboard with wheels would need such a thing. The fact that you need sensors to apply the brakes when the wind whipping you around means that you designed something that is too tall, too narrow, and with comically small skinny little wheels like pizzas. You know what else that was designed like that that also sucked? The Volkswagen van, which was at least cute and affordable. This isn't.

My company has a fleet of buses/coaches for tourism & we have many of these (vary from 11-18 seats).
We recently invested in a couple of Ford Transit's 3500 3.2 TD 15 seat versions to try out.

Besides the Ford's were about 12-15 000 USD cheaper, in the end, even being Mercedes & higher price tag; they were not any better than the Ford's machanically (many issues, mostly electronic & the turbo) plus wear-tear of shocks.
The Transits now going on 2 yrs & holding well & no major issues so far. The negative rumors of the 3.2 not holding up well under heavy loads has so far being proven wrong. Driver's prefer the power delivery of the Transits too plus more luggage space. Their only complaints were Ford's seats were narrower otherwise the ride is as good or better than the Mercs.

My company has a fleet of buses/coaches for tourism & we have many of these (vary from 11-18 seats).
We recently invested in a couple of Ford Transit's 3500 3.2 TD 15 seat versions to try out.

Besides the Ford's were about 12-15 000 USD cheaper, in the end, even being Mercedes & higher price tag; they were not any better than the Ford's machanically (many issues, mostly electronic & the turbo) plus wear-tear of shocks.
The Transits now going on 2 yrs & holding well & no major issues so far. The negative rumors of the 3.2 not holding up well under heavy loads has so far being proven wrong. Driver's prefer the power delivery of the Transits too plus more luggage space. Their only complaints were Ford's seats were narrower otherwise the ride is as good or better than the Mercs.

Ford Transits sell poorly here. Sprinters do well. Surprise for a Euro sourced Van and the Transir falls into that catergory is the Renault Master which sells very well.

@ Robert; each market/country is different so you can't compare Aussie land with the US or any other country - I believe Transits are No. 1 in sales in the US which is excellent for a brand new van released only 2 yrs ago...

@Lio
As well you do not have the other choices from.Europe (Master is one)and Asia in the US. That you do have here.Also people are traditional buyers in the US and would gravitate to the Transit a replaxement for the Econoline.

Our family with our 9 children love our Sprinter 4x4. That thing rides very smooth with the diesel motor. We love the room to move around the cabin on long trips. The old vans were terrible with people needing to duck under seatbelts to get through the isle. We think it actually looks really nice and get stopped all the time at gas stations with people asking about the Sprinter.

Why is this article on here. They dont even run articles on suvs but we do on vans. Waste of my time, you ruin my life, bustin my balls

Slow weekend....chirp....chirp....chirp. (crickets)

@Robert Ryan; we have all the European choices here & the Renault Master is the top seller followed by Sprinter. My reference was the US market...

The news today is the F150 diesel, when will it be on here?

-CT

Low interest rates have been the New Normal since 2009. Not a sweetheart deal. Ford's an important global corporation with sterling credit. They have no problem borrowing money, trust me.