Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Van MPG

Since 1995, Mercedes-Benz has been building a commercial van called the Sprinter. It's a big deal overseas, having won the '98 EVY. That's European Van of the Year, which may be something the Germans made up, because who here is going to check such a thing? In mid-2001, the built-in-Düsseldorf Sprinter finally made it to America, sold as a Freightliner. After much discussion, the Freightliner guys decided to call it a Sprinter. And now Dodge has a version, too. They've gone out on a limb and called their van the Sprinter.

It's available in three wheelbases-118.0 inches, 140.0 inches, and 158.0 inches-and two roof heights. Ours is the 10-passenger intermediate-wheelbase Tower of Pisa model. All are powered by a five-cylinder 2.7-liter Mercedes turbo-diesel that is a champ. It's quick to start, doesn't stink, and idles relatively smoothly and quietly. After a couple hundred miles, you forget it's a diesel. It produces 154 horsepower at 3800 rpm and 243 pound-feet of torque between 1600 rpm and 2400 rpm. That's not a lot, but it's sufficient to propel this 5381-pound Frigidaire to 60 mph in 13.1 seconds. That's 4.4 seconds behind, say, a Chevy Express AWD, but it's exactly the performance of a Porsche 911 Turbo if you stop along the way to pick up wholesale plumbing supplies.

Fact is, the Sprinter is destined to ferry not only plumbing supplies but also a mess of airport passengers, who are always nervous and stressed and willing to front cash to expedite their progress. To test the van in its milieu, I launched Johnny P's NU-WAY Airport Shuttle. (Our motto: "Make me an offer, and I just might drive you there.") This was working well, and I was especially popular among pregnant women and would have been even more popular if I'd figured out where the remote parking lot was located. Then a Romulus cop asked if I had an airport vendor's license or a commercial driver's license or a chauffeur's license or a wheelchair ramp. "Jeez oh Pete, " I replied. "Whatever happened to free enterprise and the good ol' entrepreneurial spirit?" and he told me it didn't exist in Romulus and I had five minutes to find a new city in which to shuttle, which was approximately enough time for the Sprinter to reach its top speed of 90 mph, which it did.

One of the Sprinter's most endearing traits is a smart, silky-shifting five-speed automatic that can also be shifted in manumatic mode: tip left for downshifts, right for upshifts. You can probe 350 revs deeper with the manumatic, and it's quicker than the automatic at grabbing more earnest gears during uphill climbs. Given the diesel's 18.0:1 compression, manumatic downshifts also work swimmingly as brakes. In a commercial van, it's hard to imagine a better transmission.

Bystanders kept shouting, "Hey, that's a cool bread van." So I applied a Panera Bread logo on the door. (Our motto: "We cook whole wheat, no mold, WHILE WE DRIVE!") Rising bread was ensured, I figured, because the Sprinter's A/C is hard pressed to cool front passengers, never mind the cargo. (Wait until a plumber in Phoenix discovers this. Talk about a quick way to butt-weld your PVC elbow joints.) Panera must have been interested in my scheme, too, because I got a call from its copyright department. They wanted my address, my counselor's address, everything.