Travelling light
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Light, medium, artic. That's the running order of our three Workshop Ways spots this week. Here, Tim Blakemore follows a 307D van through a 12,000 mile service as Mercedes' mobile workship visits Dagenham
MERCEDES-BENZ first ventured into the British light van market with the L206D and L306D models, creatures that were, to say the least, unusual, having front-wheel drive and tubular chassis.
They were never very popular, perhaps because of their unusual design. Total UK no. was just 5000 but their successor, the 207D/307D Bremen range introduced at the Scottish Motor Show in 1977, was and is a very different proposition.
In 1979 Mercedes distributors could not get enough 307Ds to satisfy demand; despite that, compared with 1978, UK Mercedes van sales leapt by 541/2 per cent.
Daimler-Benz is well aware of the importance of service support for its vehicles, and in 1978 improved its training facilities at Hayes and introduced two Transeuropa service vans for commercial vehicles to this country.
These vans are comprehensively equipped mobile workshops, manned by service engineers whose main function is to give technical support and advice to operators. But they'll give on-the-spot assistance to any broken-down commercial vehicle (not just Mercedes).
Mark Sockett is one of the Transeuropa specialists and CM joined him at Goodliffe Garages in Dagenham where we followed mechanic Richard Gardner through a 20,000km (12,000mile) mainteance schedule on a 307D van.
Apart from the first inspection at 500-1000km (300-600 miles) Mercedes divides its maintenance and service schedules for the Bremen range into three categories: "service jobs", "maintenance jobs" and "maintenance jobs with additional work".
Under normal operating conditions the frequency of "service jobs" is every 7000km (4000 miles), "maintenance jobs" every 20,000km (12,000 miles) and the additional work every 40,000km (24,000 miles). Standard time for the 20,000km (12,000 mile) maintenance procedure is 3.8 hours.