Sprinters are great besides EGR and black death problems, both of which can be avoided if you pay attention to smoke coming out the back of the thing. I'm not sure about everything on those engines as it's my parent's van and their mechanic works on it most of the time but the few things I have done, replacing the turbo (which requires removing the alternator) and replacing the fan clutch and water pump was actually fairly easy. Replacing all of the heater hoses was something we tried to do but eventually gave up and only replaced the radiator hoses and the hose above the exhaust cause it had the most heat on it, everything else looked fine at 200K miles and 13 years (not surprising as I have reused a 1977 Mercedes upper radiator hose on a 140K mile 240D because it didn't show any signs of aging). Payload and storage in European-style vans is far superior to the American vans.

I'd avoid any Ford diesels, Chevy diesels are typically great, don't know anything about Dodge vans beyond one my church used for the youth group that they've had since the 80s and it still works fine.

The radio in most vans suck but the one in the Sprinter is pretty bad. It's easy to replace so I would replace it and all of the speakers with something decent.

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Current: 1975 450SEL, 83 300D, 88 Yugo GVX, 90 300D OM603 swap, 91 F150 4.6 4v swap, 93 190E Sportline LE 3.0L M104 swap, 93 190E Sportline LE Megasquirt, 03 Sprinter, 06 E500 4Matic wagon.