I'd agree with gordonbennet regarding the hi ace, but the problem is going to be finding one. And even if you do find a later facelifted version, they can be pretty expensive, I know, I've looked often enough!.

Couple of things following up my 1st reply. The Fiat ducato did indeed use the 2.3 iveco engine, but only up to around 2010, when it changed to the same 2.2 used in the Citroën relay, Peugeot boxer and the transit.

I'm afraid I'm not tech savvy enough to post links, but after a quick look on autotrader, I discovered 2 Peugeot boxer's which, imo, would be much better buys than your mega-mileage transit custom. Both 2014, both with the 110PS version of the 2.2 engine. One was white, had just over 60k miles, and was £6695+vat, the other was red and had just under 50k miles and was £6995+vat. Not sure if it makes a difference, but the 1st of those was the 333 version, which has a 3.3t gvw and a huge payload of about 1500kg. The other was the more common 330 (3t gvw) with a payload of around 1200kg.

Something else you might consider is the hyundai i load. This is the van version of the i800 mpv. The van has the same 2.5 diesel as the car but in a lower state of tune, 114bhp (I think the i800 has about 150bhp). Not sure about any reliability issues with that engine (maybe someone else can help here?), but Korean cars are generally pretty well regarded reliability wise.

These only get an oil change every 30,000 miles (according to Ford). I feel that's far too big an interval.

Does anyone have any idea of a realistic life expectancy of these engines at these ridiculous oil change intervals?

around 179,500 if our OP buys it :-)

Have Ford fitted an oil spinner or a secondary by pass oil filter system to warrant 30k oil changes, that's getting into lorry/bus mileage but they are fitted with spinners and the sump holds around 5 to 7 gallons on a 12+ litre engine.

I've no idea, I suspect not.

I drive a 2.2 (15 plate) Transit for my work. That's how I know about the oil change intervals. They do get an intermediate 'CHECK' every 15,000 miles, but nothing gets changed then.

Agree it's both irritating and confusing. At least the van I drive has a gross weight of 3500 kgs (3.5 Tonnes), so it's definately van speed limits.

Have a link to a case on pepipoo regarding someone who was charged with doing 70mph on a dual carriageway with a Berlingo van, even although its gross weight was 1960kgs. He lost in court.

It's worth a read especially post #150: http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=106958

Just to add another layer of confusion, if you own a twin cabbed 4x4 pick up, then its classed as a dual purpose vehicle and subject to car speed limits, if it has no 4x4 capability or is not twin cabbed then it's not dual purpose and subject to van limits, there you go clear as mud.

I had one a for a few years and was not sure of things, but our good fiend DVD supplied the wording from the gov website.

Edited by gordonbennet on 02/07/2017 at 15:05

I was aware of the speed limits for dual purpose vehicles and the definition of "Dual Purpose Vehicle".

I never understood the relevance of having to be 4wd.

How the powers that be know it's a DPV with 4WD i really don't know, maybe there's a speed limit marker put on the system when its registered, in practice very few twin cabs have only 2WD, whether they slip through the system and get away with the higher speeds i don't know.

The wording of the document DVD linked was quite involved, the twin cab and 4WD appeared to be absolutes, but there was some formula for window area too, whether that meant extra cabs ( 2 door but extended cab some with rear seats) don't qualify i don't know, it all got too complicated for me TBH, i had a twin cab with 4WD so printed the relevant document off in case i got a pull from a rare police officer, who might not have known the ins and outs of this.