anti-Promaster FUD
[ reliability | FIAT | front wheel drive | appearance ]
**Fear, uncertainty and doubt** (often shortened to **FUD**) is a disinformation strategy used in sales, marketing, public relations, talk radio, politics, religious organizations, and propaganda. FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information and a manifestation of the appeal to fear. -- [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt)
The amount and fervor of anti-Promaster hostility out there continues to confound me.
Such folk do not operate from reason and evidence so it is unlikely anything I say here will affect their opinions; I am addressing the issues for the benefit of onlookers.
Reliability
There are so many posts spreading doubt about PM reliability that it’s almost a trope. These posts are light on details: ”I heard they have problems with engine and transmission failing everywhere…”
Sigh.
I responded this way to one of these poisoned-well posts:
> > Let's do some googling - (july 2018) > > 26,900 hits Sprinter "replaced engine" 24,700 hits Transit -connect "replaced engine" 1,620 hits NV2500 "replaced engine" 460 hits Promaster -city "replaced engine" 8,460 hits Transit -connect "replaced transmission" 7,810 hits Sprinter "replaced transmission" 450 hits Promaster -city "replaced transmission" 107 hits NV2500 "replaced transmission" 17,000,000 hits Sprinter problem 9,700,000 hits Transit -connect problem 570,000 hits Promaster -city problem 59,000 hits NV2500 problem 1,400,000 hits Sprinter junk 775,000 hits Ford Transit -connect junk 125,000 hits NV2500 junk 48,400 hits Promaster -city junk 9,710 hits Sprinter site:carcomplaints.com 7,700 hits NV2500 site:carcomplaints.com 6,090 hits Transit -connect site:carcomplaints.com 5,670 hits Promaster -city site:carcomplaints.com?
See any patterns?
The rare diesel version has an Italian drivetrain, but the vast majority of PMs are gassers. These use completely vanilla 3.6L pentastar motors and 62TE trans (regeared and with additional cooling).
Both of these components are widely available and inexpensive to purchase if one should blow up out of warranty. How about that ecoboost? or Sprinter engine?
FIAT
The fact that the van was designed by FIAT causes hilarity among people who base purchases (or, more commonly, unsought advice) on vehicle quality in the 1970s (ie, over 40 years ago).
Are you not going to consider a modern Chevy because of the Vega? Or Ford because of the Pinto (or Mustang II)? Or Chrysler because of the Cordoba?
Seriously?
FWD and traction
There are some weird beliefs about front wheel drive and traction:
“It is unfair to compare FWD and RWD when they are unloaded!!!” Why is that? Is your van never unloaded?
“FWD will lose traction when it is carrying a load!!!” Does your RWD vehicle lose front traction or the ability to steer when there is something in the bed? No? The weight you place in the cargo area (assuming you are not stacking everything behind the rear axle for some misguided reason) is distributed over both axles, albeit unevenly. Weight placed in the cargo area does not remove weight from the front end.
Summary: FWD vehicles never have to place additional weight anywhere to increase traction; they work well laden and unladen. Unladen or lightly loaded RWD sometimes need extra weight on the rear axle for additional traction. I know this from driving RWD vehicles for the past thirty-odd years. There are bags of sand in my barn for this very purpose. You can hate FWD if you want, just don’t try to justify it using traction.
Appearance
Seriously? It’s a commercial vehicle.