The small Transit Scooby is talking about has so far only been available here with a gasoline motor. And, it's small, you'd have a hard time fitting anything longer than about 4' inside if you have a bulkhead.
The Daimler Sprinter pretty much has the market to itself, diesel wise here. Bad parts logistics for commercial use though - a 500K km Sprinter came into my buddy's shop, spewing fuel. Can't remember it's designation, but it was the fuel pump in front, towards the top of the block.
A new pump was crazy money, you had to send in the core, and PRE-pay the huge $. That wasn't the worst part - the turnaround was 6+ weeks - Daimler Canada would just send them out for rebuild in batches, no pumps were stocked !
The problem was that most of the mounting screws had vibrated loose on the main backing plate on the pump. Replaced what O rings could be easily changed, loctited the screws back in place, and prayed. Fortunately for the customer, the repair worked.
Otherwise, the truck would have been down for a ridiculous amount of time.
I'm also hearing about problems on the NV diesels that Chrysler is using in Jeeps and Cherokees here. Bearings etc.... that shouldn't be going at this life-stage. Too many stories like these shore up the argument that "Diesels are hard to repair, and very expensive" - personally, I don't want to see these stories gaining any more momentum, even as Urban Legends.
There is a fantastic range of diesel light-vehicles available in Europe, commercial and other wise. I'd like to see more of them here. Some manufacturers we don't have at all (Renault) at this time, but just GM and Ford alone have many offerings.
I'm in Canada, but still... the biggest impediment to broader use of diesel is the EPA. Plenty of rants on here already on that subject, mine included....
Enjoy the broad diesel selection that you have, we can't at the moment.
Rgds, D
