I am very excited about my new van!! I am a Finish Carpenter/Contractor, and I've been looking for the perfect combination of: smaller size, car like driving manners, and good mileage. I've been driving trucks for years, and knew that a van was a much better use of space for a trades person. I have been in an 06 Silverado extended cab, which has held up ok mechanically, but is a barge to drive around, and sounds like it's trying to rattle itself apart with 130k miles on it. Seeing this article on "Van Racking" from an English carpenter cemented my need for a work van:
http://www.thisiscarpentry.com/2011/07/15/van-racking/
I have considered every cargo van out there, but could not put 15K miles a year on an econoline or similar. For me, they are too prehistoric feeling to live with on a daily basis. The Sprinter size vans are too big for what I usually carry around. (is there a Goldilocks emoji?) Despite this, I was ready to get a smaller Transit, but I saw an ad for the metris. One test drive and it was over. To me, the Metris feels like driving around in a modern car, and I love that about it. This is my first post here, but i PROMISE to do a build thread of the shelving in the van.
I also thought some would like to know the details on what i got.. I leased a model that Mercedes Benz of Laguna Niguel had in stock (Orange County, CA). It is not exactly how I would have ordered it, but I figured I could get them to bend on the price a little since it was a "year end" sale. They did. I drove a van on the 18th or 19th of Dec and shot several emails back and forth with Mario (I recommend them and him, if anyone in SoCal is looking...), before signing on the 29th. They came in higher than I was comfortable with, and tried to suggest that 48 month leases are the way to go. NO, thank you. There was a 3 year lease deal advertising a $299 month deal with 3K down, but you know how these go... (no option model with low miles allowed per year). I don't want to bore anyone with all of the details of the transaction process, but here is the deal I got:
MSRP: 33500 (ish)
Sales Price : 31800
Drive offs: $2480 ($2K cap cost reduction, first months payment, and...?)
Payment: 430/mo ($397 before CA tax)
36 Month lease, with 15K miles per year (advertised lease was 10K/yr)
Residual: 57%
Money Factor: .00185 (one of the earlier counter offers was a higher mf, but this was the advertised rate from mbfs, and I wanted that rate!)
I'm sure that in the coming years, people will be able to do a LOT better than the deal I got, but I am happy with what I am paying for vehicle that was just released. If anyone has any questions, please fire away.
Thanks!
David
