Hello all from the UK.
I am a tradesman here in England and one of my most important resources is my cargo van.
Here in Europe vans are becoming more and more unreliable with tiny over stressed diesel engines strangled by emission reduction technology and now many engines have a wet composite timing belt setup which are causing premature total engine failure.
I last changed my van in 2018, I decided to import a 3.5 Ecoboost Transit from the States.
It has been a good van so far but of late has started to suffer from coolant loss which apparently is an Ecoboost trait and not easy to resolve.
I am also well aware the Transit has many many electronic sensors which as the vehicle ages will no doubt cause me trouble.
I can get parts fairly easily but not quickly, the joys of deciding to run an import.
so, I'm here because I'm considering importing an Express before 'they' stop making them as I'm under the impression the 6.6V8 is reliable and under-stressed along with the rest of the van being simple, reliable and straight forward to maintain.
I'd be really interested to hear your opinion?
I'm expecting the Express would feel agricultural in comparison to the Transit but I am happy to trade comfort for rugged reliability.
Also here in England the climate is harsh on untreated steel with salt spread on the roads in winter, would I need to spend some time when the van arrives to spray all the underneath with stone chip protection along with injecting all the body cavities with a rust protection product?
Thanks in advance for everyone who takes the time to comment.

 

One thing to note is that the 6.6L duramax was only offered until the 2016 model year. I dont have one, but the duramax is regarded as quite a beast, definitely understressed on the van (derated from the pickup truck version, in fact, so as to avoid blowing up the transmission - i think you can undo the derating with tuning, but do so at your own risk); but as a modern turbo diesel engine it is inherrently quite complex and can experience some issues, especially depending on which version/year you have. They are also fairly hard to find, perhaps because they were quite expensive to purchase when new. I think it took quite a bit of engineering to shoehorn it into the relatively compact engine bay of the Express.

If you truly want simplicity, but still plenty of power, the 6.0 (L96; 2010-2020) or 6.6 (L8T; 2021+) gas (petrol) v8s are a good option, although I confess I don't understand if the diesel/petrol tradeoffs are weighed differently across the pond than they are here.

I can't speak to rustproofing as I live in an area that only sees snow 1 or 2 times a year.

 

Hey thanks for the reply!
It would be the gas 6.6V8 I'd go for, with all the emission BS these days diesels are punished in the UK. US imports are classed as emission zone exempt in the UK, plus sat in the UK passenger seat whilst driving avoids the AI cameras now in the UK to catch you on your phone. US imports are win win.