Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.I am 6 feet tall, and even if I had been wearing a top hat or high heels, I still could have stood upright in the Sprinter cargo van I test drove Thursday morning.
The 2012 Sprinter is best in class in interior standing height at 6 feet 6 inches. It's also best in class in payload capacity, cargo capacity and the size of the rear and side door openings among full-size commercial vans, according to Automotive News.
Considering its size, it gets superior gas mileage, about 18 mpg, a number that several Omaha small-business owners who own Sprinters confirmed. It is also broadly considered to have superior quality and lower emissions compared with its competitors.
It is not, however, exciting to drive, particularly powerful or packed with luxury amenities. I didn't feel sexy driving the van around Omaha, nor did I get the sense that anyone considered me unusually successful for being at the controls of the thing. The Sprinter basically looks like an airport shuttle. Blah.
A fairly bare-bones Sprinter like the one I drove costs about $41,000. With modifications to fit various jobs, the price usually hovers around $45,000. Reviewers nationwide, and those owners in Omaha, generally consider the vehicle to be an excellent value considering its interior space, versatility and gas mileage.
I was test driving the Sprinter because the City of Omaha will soon be purchasing a nearly identical Sprinter to be used as a sort of mobile maintenance shop for repairing disabled parking meters. Because of the Sprinter's spaciousness, meters will be able to be fixed on site rather than hauled back to the maintenance facility. That will save fuel, which I support, while getting the parking meters working more quickly, which I do not support. The city will pay $44,899 for the Sprinter.
Some Omaha taxpayers have argued that the vehicle is too fancy for the city to buy.
I wanted to experience its fanciness firsthand. However, I found nothing but exceptional practicality in this boring vehicle, which has been sold in the United States under three different company names since 2001, Dodge being the most common.
OK. There is one little bit of bling on all Sprinters built since 2010.
It's the big chrome steering-wheel-looking emblem of the vehicle's actual maker, Mercedes-Benz.
Apparently Mercedes-Benz and some Omaha taxpayers mix like oil and water.
Indeed, city officials asked the people at Mercedes-Benz of Omaha if it would be possible to remove the Mercedes emblem from the van's grille.
"We were just trying to figure out a way to make it less conspicuous," said the city's traffic engineer, Todd Pfitzer.
No, the emblem would come with the vehicle, city officials were told. Might it disappear later? Who knows?
Much ado about nothing.
The best solution here is for "The-City-Bought-a-Mercedes?" folks to actually go kick the surprisingly ugly little tires of one of these things. Run the numbers. Maybe talk to someone who uses one in his business. They're definitely out there. I counted more than three dozen while driving 26 miles through Omaha on Thursday.
While test driving the Sprinter, I came up behind another Sprinter, an older one sporting a Dodge emblem, and followed the truck until it pulled into the parking lot of a bank.
I wanted a review of the van from its driver.
Mike Brewer, warehouse distribution manager for Omaha Magazine, said he had driven the truck about 80,000 miles and described it as "by far the best truck out there" in its class.
"Awesome gas mileage — we hit about 18 mpg — tons of space, drives nice, you can get in and out of it with stuff easier than any vehicle like it," he said. "It's a little touchy on ice — you have to be a little more careful — but that's the only complaint. It's been worth every penny."
I caught up with Doug Leiner, who owns his own small construction company, outside Oak View Mall. He knows the Sprinter well.
"I work with a lot of Pella (window installers) and they're always talking up these things," he said as I opened the van's sliding side door for his perusal. "I almost bought one of these a few years ago when the thing still said 'Dodge' on it."
I drove up to 20 people Thursday, stepped out of the van and asked them if they thought it was appropriate for the city to buy this vehicle for $45,000 to use as a mobile parking-meter workshop.
Eight had heard about the city's purchase, five of whom described their initial reaction to be negative.
Fourteen of the 20 accepted my offer to inspect the vehicle. (Two people said they were in a hurry; four others — wonder why? — seemed leery of a stranger asking them to peek inside his big white van.)
In the end, 17 of the 20 people surveyed either said initially, or decided after an inspection, that the van was, at the least, as one man said, "a pretty good deal."
Those giving the most positive reviews of the decision were the five men who had some level of prior professional experience with the Sprinter.
All three who remained opposed to the purchase were among those who refused the offer to more closely inspect the vehicle and its spec sheet.
The trend from this small sample group:
The more you know about the Mercedes Sprinter, the more attractive it becomes as a purchase for, as one person described well, "any sort of job that needed this kind of space."
"Price out trucks sometime apples to apples," contractor Ronald Smith of Omaha suggested. "I'm not calling the thing a bargain. It's just a pretty fair price for what it is."
Contact the writer: 402-444-1129, robert.nelson@owh.com
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
