Vans Guru is an independent UK website about van repair, maintenance, diagnostics and troubleshooting. It exists to help van owners, drivers and small operators understand what is actually happening when something goes wrong, and to make better-informed decisions about diagnosis and repair.
Who this is for
This site is written for people who own, drive or run a light commercial van and want to understand a fault before they pay someone to fix it, or before they start taking parts off themselves. That includes private owners doing their own maintenance, self-employed drivers and small operators keeping a van earning, and anyone who just wants to walk into a garage able to describe the problem properly instead of guessing. It’s not aimed at qualified technicians who already have workshop manuals and diagnostic equipment, though some may still find the symptom-based approach useful.
What we publish
Our guides focus on the vans most commonly used on UK roads, including the Vauxhall Vivaro, Ford Transit and Transit Custom, Renault Trafic and Kangoo, Peugeot Expert and Partner, Citroen Dispatch and Berlingo, Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, Volkswagen Transporter and Toyota Proace.
- Diagnostic guides that work through symptoms in a logical order rather than jumping straight to replacing parts.
- System explainers covering cooling, emissions, fuelling, turbocharging, transmission and electrical systems.
- Maintenance and MOT guidance aimed at keeping a working van reliable and road legal.
- Ownership advice such as mechanical checks worth making before buying a used van.
Who writes and edits Vans Guru
Vans Guru is written and edited by Bilal, a DIY van repair enthusiast who also researches and writes about van faults, maintenance and ownership.
The site brings together two kinds of content: accounts of repairs Bilal has carried out personally, and research-led guides that organise information from technical and public sources. A researched guide should not be taken as a claim that Bilal has personally completed every repair described.
Our DV5 repair video articles include head gasket replacement, injector removal and camshaft and timing chain assembly. These show a particular repair and engine; they are not universal workshop instructions.
Vans Guru is an information website, not a garage offering repairs or remote diagnosis. DIY experience is not a claim of professional mechanic qualifications. We cannot inspect your vehicle, and safety-critical work should be assessed by a qualified technician.
How articles are researched
Each guide starts from the fault, system or job it covers, then draws on manufacturer and workshop technical literature where it’s publicly available, established repair references, and patterns reported by people who actually work on these vans day to day. A symptom is only written up as a likely cause once it turns up consistently across more than one independent source — a single forum post or a single opinion isn’t treated as fact. We’d rather explain the range of possible causes honestly than pretend there’s one guaranteed answer.
How technical information is checked
Before anything is published, we check it against these rules:
- We separate confirmed general principles from possibilities that still need testing on the specific vehicle, and we’re clear in the text about which is which.
- We encourage diagnosis before replacement. Fitting parts speculatively is expensive and often does not fix the fault.
- We do not publish torque figures, fluid capacities, service intervals or wiring details, because these vary by engine code and model year — see below.
- We include safety warnings where a job involves lifting a vehicle, hot coolant, fuel under pressure, electrical systems, brakes or timing components.
- We do not encourage emissions system tampering, removal or bypassing. In the UK this is an MOT failure and can make a vehicle illegal to use on the road.
- We update or correct articles when an error is identified or information changes, and we keep an eye on older guides rather than publishing and forgetting them.
Vehicle-specific specifications
Torque settings, fluid capacities, service intervals, wiring diagrams and similar numbers vary by engine code, model year and sometimes market, so we deliberately don’t publish them as fixed figures. Where a job depends on this kind of data, confirm it against your van’s VIN and engine code using the manufacturer’s own workshop information, an official parts catalogue, or a dealer/main agent — not against a number taken from this or any other website. Our guides are for understanding what’s likely going on and how to approach it; the exact spec for your specific van should always come from a manufacturer or service source.
Accuracy and corrections
We aim to be accurate and useful, but no general guide can account for every variant, modification or service history. If you spot something that looks wrong, please tell us through our Contact Us page and, where possible, point us to a reliable source. We review genuine correction requests and update the article if the correction holds up.
Advertising and transparency
Vans Guru may display advertising to help cover the cost of running and publishing the website. Advertising is not an endorsement of any advertiser, product or claim, and commercial considerations do not determine our editorial conclusions. If affiliate or sponsored content is used in future, we will disclose it clearly.
Get in touch
Feedback, corrections and editorial enquiries are welcome through our Contact Us page. Please also see our Disclaimer, which explains the limits of the repair information published here.