Any one deal with fleet vehicles, Diesel trucks / cube vans?

[5.4MarkVIII]

Looking at an upgrade for our delivery truck.
Currently running an old chev E3500cube van that runs okay but a site for sore eyes.
Chev 350 16 ft box
Biggest complaint is fuel economy and the box is about 3 inches too short

Looked at some newer ones and they aren’t cheap. About 40k for a year old with a few kms (ex rentals)
Impossible to find wit a Diesel short of going new and dropping $60k

So was looking at something different today.
Izusu NRR

Got a 4cyl Diesel, 20ft box seats three in the cab as opposed to two.
Higher hauling capacity 5 inches taller internal height
Better fuel economy

Little more money used but guys seem to be running them to well over 600,000kms

Talking to the techs at the dealer they say they hardly need to come in for service

Just wondering if we have anyone in the net work here that has driven, or worked on them that can provide any first hand insight

[Ponyryd]

Seen a few through the years and they seem great, I remember doing some maintenance on some and they were super easy to work on. One thing that was weird was the braking and wheel studs on them, iirc the lugs were some crazy thread size and I think they were reverse thread on one side...not a deal breaker, but weird nonetheless.

[ZR]

Key to any of them, service ... service and more service.

[5.4MarkVIII]

Thanks guys.
Seems to be along the lines of what I’ve been reading.

[ZR]

Well worth sitting down n crunching numbers of cost to maintain diesel (especially when they get older / higher miles) vs fuel saved over cheaper to maintain gasser.

[5.4MarkVIII]

Allot of the cube vans I see people selling used gasssers are being sold off around 250000km. Vs the diesels which are being sold off with over 500000

Haven’t determined if that due to trying to get every km out for the money put I or due to less maintence costs so they run them longer.
Ford truck we had hit 250000km. after a hard life of work and just started to need one thing after another.

Chev van is a 2002 only has 156000 and it just seems to always have something going on.

[ZR]

I've got GM fleet gassers north of 600 km plus idle time.

[Ponyryd]

If you aren’t putting on big miles a diesel will be a waste of money in the long run, they’re a lot more to maintain and repair when the time does come, and for something that sees city use it’s a big risk that’s not worth taking imo.
I also cannot stress enough that if you’re getting ANY diesel truck with dpf/egr it NEEDS to be worked regularly, meaning good highway runs, not just piddly stuff.

[5.4MarkVIII]

We are small town rural. Tyipicaly 50k km per year. Not 401 Type highway but most towns we service are 15 to 20 min drives. 90 -100km/h

[Ponyryd]

I’d advise against a modern diesel then. Sadly the older diesels won’t get financing from the bank, so you’re likely stuck with something that is saddled with the emissions parts I’m referring to.
And I’m not talking about check engine lights, I’m talking trucks going into limp mode, or not running at all, there is no playing around with modern emissions stuff......although the diesel would likely happily run forever even at slow speeds if you could delete and tune it, but that’s illegal here.