Flofuel

Sorry for seeing this reply weeks later. Not sure why you think owning one of these would be so hard. Its a TGL/TGM underneath the green paint. So whilst the military contract is supported by Rhienmettall you could pay MAN commercial to look at it. Remember its not a Bedford 4t so like nearly all modern (last 10-15 yrs or so) it needs some sort of diagnostic to do anything in-depth. Usually we would not see a vehicle like this released this "early" but they have too many and they are not getting used as much. Ours has fault codes which we just ignore as we know what they mean, usually down to stuff the mil have taken off it. I had a friendly engineer look at it using diagnostics and nothing to worry about.

Hi, i would of commented sooner but have not been on the forum for ages.. Ill get this out first, i was on the SV Project Team many moons ago and did a lot of trials on them and even starred in a small film with Tiff Neddell when they were first released. Since leaving the Army the company i am now with used to make one of the variants so we know a fair bit about the trucks anyway. 1. MAN cannot shut down the truck...officially. The module which "did" this on the truck is TBM which was known as "Talk Back to Munich". It was a monitoring setup that was on and still was as far as i know when production standard trucks were released. It can be switched off anyway. 2. There are a few reasons why the 6t vehicles are being released of which my company bought one of the first ones. Some have mentioned reasons which maybe more up to date than mine but when they were introduced Afghanistan was in full swing and they were needed out sharpish. The 6t variant shares a lot of simliarity with civilian chassis/versions (ill mention more later). the other variants were the 9t and 15t. The 6t though was at its limit once you bolted on core armour and then RPG "cages" on to it over the front axles. Put in 2 blokes with kit, a GPMG on the roof and a radio to talk to and it was probably a little over the limit! Talk was then "why didn't we just ditch the 6t and have 9t/15t fleet?". Well hindsight is wonderful but as you are probably aware mil programs take a long time from idea to first-through-the-camp-gate and we were replacing 4t, 8t and 14t trucks. So with less troops then it makes sense to get rid of any surplus of which the 6t has been deemed so. 3. Some of the variants being released are of the early production models. You can tell by the armour fitment points on the doors and some other areas. So they are the oldest even though from what i have seen, they have little mileage. 4. The early released ones on the first few sales, a lot were ex-BATUS of which is ours. Cosmetically it looks tired with sand/green paint but the mileage is only 13,000km. But thos Km's are on Canadian Praire, so pretty hammered. But saying that we had a few fault codes and mechanically its fine. 5. OBD etc. To read properly MAN diagnostics you need MANCAT laptop. But you can buy OBD readers to read them. But if you know, you can use the Driver display to show you the important ones and see if they are still Open or Closed. Most of the ones being released will have fault codes. Especially when electrical mil stuff has been disconnected and chassis codes are not cleared. But a lot of the MAN codes come up which although showing on the auction site pics, would put you off and you think it had major issues. I would not let that worry you too much. We saw fault codes on our one in the pictures but knew what they mean or could mean and bought it. Got it back to factory and no issues with the codes showing. 6. 5th 6th Gen....mmmm. These trucks are now getting up to 12 years old. They may seem hi-tech compared to a Bedford of course but its all very simple CANBUS stuff if you are used to trucks. Its just comparing to a old military vehicle you think its space age. The biggest issue we had with MAN being introduced into service was "it needs a laptop to fix it and what happens if i am in the middle of the field and cant fix it". This just meant we had to maintain our vehicles and train our people differently. If a truck in civvy street cannot be fixed it loses money and is as important to a company as it is to the military it cannot complete it mission. So there is redundancy built it. But you cannot buy 2020 or at the time 2007/8 Bedford 4 ton trucks. Gone were the days of pulling out a 8" adjustable and big hammer to get it going. Look inside the latest AJAX armoured vehicle and that has more computers in it than the Space Shuttle. All we have done is caught up with the civilians. 7. MAN Support. Although MAN built the trucks, Rhienmettall took over the military side of the business. So officially MAN Truck dont really have too much to do with them. They maybe reluctant to "help" too much but you can try. Most of the parts though are common to the commerical range. Gearbox is a normal AS ZF gearbox, engine is same as on the TGL/TGM's if i remember rightly and cab controls etc are same as commercial. Body work will be more difficult to get hold of but its easier to repair or manufacture. Ours has now been stripped down to the chassis as we are going to put something on it in place of the load bed. It needs repainting which we will do towards the end of the year. I posted a lot of info on the ARRSE website way back when these were introduced so if anyone wants more info on these or the SV family i maybe able to help.

I have messaged you but the truck as released by Brightwells or wherever you get it is road legal in terms of side gaurd etc. There was no need for any exemption on base SV trucks.

Hello, been on this site before but login forgotten so new one. We have just bought a MAN SV 6t from the MOD. Have the FORM D-DISC-O Date into Service cert which replaces the old FORM 654. Am i assuming the V55/5 is to be filled out to register this on the road? It goes on about Certificate of Conformity which i assume the manufacturer, in this case MAN, can supply? I have contacted them but i have got the usual "your enquiry is registered and will be answered......bla bla". With paperwork sorted, would it then need a MOT test/check prior to registration? Thanks in advance for help.