2025 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter First Drive: Why This Van Rules in the Snow

• The Mercedes-Benz Sprinter has an optional all-wheel-drive system that gives it extra foul-weather prowess.
• To test this, I drove a Sprinter up a snowy mountain pass in the Austrian Alps.
• Sprinters are great for carrying people and cargo but can also be converted into camper vans for overlanding.

Great ground clearance and all-wheel drive

Look, I didn't expect to find myself en route to a Donner Party situation while test-driving a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter in Austria last week. But the Sprinter proved a more than formidable companion for this ad hoc blizzard blast.

Mercedes-Benz introduced an all-wheel-drive option for the Sprinter van a few years ago, giving it great foul-weather capability. Combined with generous ground clearance — 8 inches at the differential and a whopping 18 inches at the body — I could drive through just about anything on this Alpine pass, including quick-forming snow piles and ruts left by other cars. All-season tires come standard on U.S.-spec Sprinter models, but this kind of gross snowy driving is definitely a good use case for proper winter tires, like the Continental rubbers fitted to my test van. Where other vehicles in my caravan slipped and slid and struggled to gain traction, the Sprinter just ... went.

Strong diesel power and defeatable traction control

The Sprinter comes with a 2.0-liter turbodiesel inline-four engine — well, unless you opt for the fully electric eSprinter, but that's another story. This powertrain makes 168 horsepower and 295 lb-ft of torque as standard, but if you want all-wheel drive, you're required to spec the higher-output version, with 208 hp and 332 lb-ft of torque. No matter the output, the diesel engine is paired with a silky smooth nine-speed automatic transmission.

The great thing about turbodiesel engines is that they deliver their maximum torque thrust way down low in the powerband, so you don't have to be too heavy on the throttle to get up and moving. This was super important on the Timmelsjoch — stepping on the accelerator too hard could cause the wheels to spin and slip and the van to slide unnecessarily. Being able to feather in the engine's torque meant I could slowly and accurately crawl away from a stop over loose snow and ice without slippage.

Speaking of slippage, I like that you can turn the Sprinter's traction control all the way off, which seems counterintuitive in low-grip situations like this, but sometimes, you need to spin the tires freely in order to plow through packed snow. Added bonus: When the storm passes and visibility is good again, you can very easily get the Sprinter to drift around corners, controlling the whole motion with a quick input of the steering and letting that tremendous torque do all the work.

Heated everything and tons of tech

Remember, the Sprinter is still a Mercedes-Benz, so it doesn't skip on creature comforts. My Sprinter test van had strong heated seats and a heated steering wheel, plus a heated windshield, which was a crucial option, as it kept snow and ice from clumping and sticking to the huge front glass, as well as building up around the wipers. Visibility FTW.

There's a bunch of other great tech in the Sprinter, like a 10.3-inch touchscreen running MBUX software, a 360-degree camera system (great for placing the van on narrow roads) and all the usual driver assistance amenities, like adaptive cruise control, blind-spot warning, lane keeping assistance and Crosswind Assist that keeps this tall van from getting tippy at high speeds.

You can sleep in it if you need to

I don't mean "curl up in the back of the cargo area and cry in the fetal position" either. A huge number of Sprinters are sent to third-party upfitting companies, where they're used for everything from utility vans to ambulances to executive coaches to overlanding campers.

To that last point, Mercedes-Benz brought a fleet of Sprinters done up by Hymer, the European counterpart of Thor Industries. And rather than just showing them off, Mercedes let me sleep in one for a night, right on that very same mountainside, with a diesel-powered generator on hand to keep the van nice and toasty warm in the frigid Alpine conditions. I was super relaxed, though I still locked the doors for fear of a Krampus visit. It was Krampusnacht, after all.

I'll admit, the experience was better than I imagined — these Sprinters come fully decked out with a toilet, shower, full-size bed, stove, sink, lighting and storage everywhere, and even a cute little dining nook. I don't know that I'd want to live in one long-term, but for overlanding types who want to pack up the van and head out for a weekend away, I get the appeal. Of course, these things can be hideously expensive. Like, six-figure price tags, even though the Sprinter itself starts in the $50,000 range. But hey, that's luxury. No other van can do it all like a Sprinter.