Ex Royal Mail van

[robinh73]

Morning all. I am in need of a van for my business. I would like a high top (h2) and a load space big enough to get a ride on mower in. I have seen a few ex Royal Mail vans come up, Citroen Dispatch with the 2 litre diesel. I have found a very good tidy 2014 one with low miles and the MOT history online is very good. However, I realise that they are fleet vans and probably had a hard life. Would this deter anyone or would you go ahead and be prepared for a few bills in the future?

[GiantEnemyCrab]

Have you ever seen a Royal Mail van driven like it WASNT in touring cars?

[robinh73]

GiantEnemyCrab said:

Have you ever seen a Royal Mail van driven like it WASNT in touring cars?

This is my concern. They don't get an easy life but is the maintenance sufficient enough to cope with this.

[s p a c e m a n]

Here is a year old reddit thread with posties talking about the state of their vans, I'm going to say no

https://www.reddit.com/r/royalmail/s/kZ7G8yujwH

[Vsix and Vtec]

The oily bits are generally well looked after as those aren't the responsibility of the driver. If you can find one that doesn't look like it's been dragged down the side of every row of parked cars in the area you'll be fine, certainly no worse off than an ex Centrica or Openreach van.

[Simon_GH]

It can’t have had too harsh a life to still be alive after 12 years.

[Pica-Pica]

They do operate a very stop/start life.

[A500leroy]

Postie here, we all want the enterprise hire vans instead of the red fleet as we stand a chance of not getting stranded.

Maintenance and repairs are done as cheaply as possible and if the vans due to be disposed of it's made to just about run enough to get it out of the gate.

[sherman]

Royal Mail self insure and self service their vans. Everything will be done to the cheapest it can be.

[Wheel Turned Out]

Having dealt with some through my own work and seeing how they're treated, I wouldn't touch one with a bargepole.

Any savings you make via an attractive price can be instantly obliterated in one garage visit.

[MattCharlton91]

My best mate is a senior tech at RM. He always says them posties know how to break things DIFFERENTLY! 😂 Kerbs are used as ramps.

He says there are were Vauxhall combos on the fleet around the same age (at this time 8/10years) that had covered anything from 50k, to 250k +. It also wasn’t uncommon to see Merc Sprinters with over 400k on them.

The low mileage ones were always the more problematic ones due to the very stop start nature of their life, which is something to bare in mind.

[Truckosaurus]

Looking at the vehicles in the Royal Mail depot at the end of my road, they either seem to be brand new vans (short term leases?) or 10-15 years old.

[robinh73]

Thanks for all the replies chaps. I have decided against the van in question and am hopefully getting a Ford Transit this weekend.