Mercedes Performance

Get out there and test drive one is the best advice we can give! You will be absolutely amazed! The breeding of this marque even shines through in the truck range. First gear initially feels very gutzy and you only need it to get going. This can however be misleading as it easily runs out of puff in some situations. We have a steep drive with a nasty gutter at the start. If we attack this too gingerly it will stall! You definitely need to be aware of this otherwise you could get yourself into some tricky situations. It is our MAJOR criticism of the Sprinter For comparison our previous Mazda would crawl up this slope on IDLE! Second takes you up to 30 kph, third up to 60 kph. Overdrive is fantastic. It is not at all happy plodding along in 60 kph streets. Fully laden you can come down the Newcastle Expressway in 5th and 4th. Now these are very difficult hills. You only need 3rd for about 200 metres on that dreadful climb out of Peats Ridge, on the other side of the Hawkesbury River Bridge. You overtake all trucks with ease which is rather unusual for a motorhome don't you think? This vehicle is happiest around 110 kph and always seems to want to stretch it's legs just like a racing thoroughbred! One problem though is you are always going faster than you think and lots of braking is sometimes required to get round that turn off! Of course fuel consumption jumps up to 15 litres/100 at expressway speeds. Our normal touring speed of 90 yields a very respectable 14.1 or better - not bad for 4 1/2 tonnes of vehicle with a 2150 cc tiny motor. To put this in perspective it is POSITIVELY BRILLIANT when compared with caravanning with a similar sized rig where one can only achieve 18L/100.

So what makes this motor class leading? It has a system developed in conjunction with Bosch called Common Rail Injection. Normal diesels inject the fuel at varying pressures as they rely on engine revolutions. The Bosch system using common rail sets the pressure at an astounding 37,000 PSI regardless of engine revs. Simply explained, common rail refers to the single fuel injection line on the CDI engine. Whereas conventional direct injection diesel engines must repeatedly generate fuel pressure for each injection, in CDI engines the pressure is built up independently of the injection sequence and remains permanently available in the fuel line. More at ....... Autoweb.

Coupled with the intercooled turbo, performance is superb. There is almost zero turbo whine. In talking about whine, if you have acutely sensitive hearing and you are interested in the Isuzu it could pay you to really give it a good test drive, as it is very high pitched. Back with the Sprinter - this is a vehicle you really want to get out there and drive as it is just so much fun. Noise wise the Sprinter is dissapointing as it runs in. On expressways in 5th cabin noise is acceptable. Working hard in hilly country in 2nd and 3rd it is your typical noisy deisel and it can be very tiring on both passenger and driver. The bonnet has a layer of insulation but it seems to be innefective. The Iveco for instance has zero insulation and is much quieter.

Sprinter Ride, Brakes and Handling

This vital design area is very weak in Sprinters with cab overs due to the extra weight over the front axles. After a very short period of time the bump stops rest on the wish bones severly reducing suspension travel. The 2003 models will be available with what is called an RV Suspension kit in an attempt by Mercedes to address this short coming. It took us three phone calls and an email to Mercedes to get a precise definition of what this actually does. It turns out that it has even larger torsion bars and stronger shock absorbers. Only time will tell if this makes the ride harsher at all. Winnebago are supplying the kit as standard on all 2003 production, so they obviously give it the thumbs up. Looking at the pictures below you can get a fair idea of the durability. The 2002 torsion bars are huge anyway. Stability in high cross winds is very poor. The ride is very car like and the steering wheel is not in the usual horizontal truck position. The lack of suspension travel makes for an "interesting" ride when cornering on undulating surfaces. You need to exercise extreme caution. At speed it regularly bottoms out - it just sort of slow bounces for want of a better term! Iveco also use torsion bar suspension, however their system is easily adjusted by the user simply by winding a ratchet. You do not even need to raise or jack up the vehicle - a brilliant system. The Transit has far longer suspension travel. Mercedes need to look at their front suspension if only to bring it up to the standard of their competitors.

The Sprinter uses high tech low profile tyres running at 65 PSI. It is very hard to guess at tyre pressures just by looking at these tyres as they have a very large footprint on the bitumen. Believe it or not the rear valves come fitted with valve extenders as standard! At last a manufacturer who thinks of the end user! The ride stability for passengers travelling in the rear is a long, long way from ideal as it is quite harsh as is fairly common in many motorhomes. Rear suspension travel is quite good and the springs look very robust.

The overhang ratio on this rig (60% rule) is well within tolerance - our Freeway was very marginal. However like everything it is NOT absolutely perfect as there have to be trade offs. In this case the trade off for a relatively soft ride is severe pitching and rolling at slow speeds when negotiating gutter type driveways and on grass surfaces. This really shows up on gutters with gradients such as a home driveway. If you approach at speed the pitching is most severe and can easily frighten the life out of passengers. First gear is not particularly brilliant at "creeping" up steep gradients. Overall though you will enjoy driving the 413 cdi provided you realise and drive to the limitations of the front suspension.

On brakes these are in a word "different"! It is a bit like squeezing a big spongy donut. The brakes do not inspire confidence due to the extremely long travel before anything at all starts to happen. Having smaller wheels than say the Ford Transit the swept area has been reduced. To compensate the Sprinter has a very large servo. Being a turbo engine, compression has been reduced so that you do not get as much engine braking. Exhaust brakes aren't even offered as an option, which is a bit of a shame, as in our view they should be compulsory on this vehicle. Being four wheel disks means that the hand brake operates on a separate drum. On this vehicle when fully applied it would not hold the vehicle on a 20% gradient unless in gear. This gives us serious cause for concern, as it means that you do not have another braking system up your sleeve in emergencies. On long descents the efficiency of the hand brake reduces even further. The hand brake is VERY hard to reach as you have to lean over and bend a little. It really needs to be raised up about 2 inches to be perfection. Maybe German truck drivers have longer arms than Aussies! It is particularly hard for the fairer sex! One excellent feature is a beeper that goes berserk if you don't release it completely. It's very clever in that it doesn't start until you have moved a few feet. So much better than your normal idiot light on the dash.

Onboard Entertainment

Wonderful news here - this is a truck at last with a CD player as standard. None of the other vehicles presently offered by Winnebago come with this. It has some interesting features in the radio department. Initially it is a bit like trying to program your video difficulty wise, but you only need to learn about the bits you really need. For touring motorhomers it's the ability to tune 24 stations automatically simply by holding down "sens" for two seconds. In practice when a station fades away do this trick and any in the area get dumped in the memory buttons automatically. A fantastic system. You really do not need to replace this stereo as it will satisfy all but the most discerning owner. The CD performance is very good indeed. You can fit rear speakers if you so wish. Yes it is "quirky" and you absolutely DEFINITELY need to read the manual! All Winnebago's now have the high gain radio aerial mounted on top of the Luton Peak and this also works brilliantly.

Diesel Filling Access

Magazine reviews seem to never mention this vital area - maybe they never have to fill up. As most of us are getting on in years it is a very important point, as you should not have to bend over or even worse, kneel on the ground. The manufacturer has got it 100% right if you can refuel your motorhome in your bowls club whites! Refueling is fantastic on both the Mercedes and the Ford and requires zero bending at all. Simply opening the passenger's door allows easy access to the fuel filling point. The best in the business! All other cab/chassis manufacturers (particulaly Iveco) should perhaps look at this system, as it really is brilliant and totally foolproof, in that you don't even need keys. With the Mercedes you also get feedback from the sound it makes and high flow pumps with large diameter nozzles aren't a problem either. You can if you wish fill right to the top if you are trying to get accurate consumption figures. (Mercedes don't encourage this though) The cut out doesn't keep dropping out. There are some interesting gadgets mounted on the centre fitted plastic fuel tank. We have yet to work out what these do! It is a very high tech set up.