So I’m about to book a 9 seater Ford Torneo or VW shuttle (can’t pick whatever is avaible)

What catagory is it to book on the chunnel? I’m confused!

Not sure if we can remove the seats to increase the load area but if we can we will as 4 people + 4 bikes + kit

I think it goes on height, so sounds to me you would book it in as a van. We took a VW touran last year, booked on as a car, if yours is any bigger then I would book as a van to be safe.

dimension wise it is on or around the 1.85 figure which seems to be the difference between van and camper. There seems to be mention of more than 8 seats counts as a minibus of up to 16.

We don’t want the back seats any way so I hope we can remove them easy enough too..

My friend got very confused on the Chunnel a few years back. We drove on and parked, then she got out and went off to find the carriages where the passengers sit for the journey. She returned very red faced.

My friend got very confused on the Chunnel a few years back. We drove on and parked, then she got out and went off to find the carriages where the passengers sit for the journey. She returned very red faced.

You do that when travelling freight and trust me it’s not a nice carriage to travel in. Truckers don’t have the same access to showers as the rest of us and a few of them are positively hydrophobic.

They try to insist (on the website) that anything that has a load space of above 3 cubic metres (iirc) goes on freight. Balls to that, we just took the Vito on as a big car last year (and did the same with the ferry too)

Just book it in as a car based van. Price doesn’t vary on height,but over a certain height you’ll need to go in the oversize carriages. Our van ( 2.15m) falls into this, but we’ve never paid a surcharge. Same if you’ve bikes on the roof.

We use the tunnel regularly in our VW Transporter which is the same size, just book as car with roofbox/bikes, put your reg. in and you don’t even have to speak to anyone to check in. They don’t like you changing to high space on arrival if you haven’t booked it, particularly at busy times.

As above. I’ve always booked ours (VW T4 Multivan) on as a high car and never had any problems.

It’s taxation class is “Diesel Car” on the V5 if anyone wanted to argue. But they never have.

And it been multiple times on the Tunnel, Dover Calais, Dover Dunkirk, Hull Rotterdam and Hull Zeebrugge so far.

Yep, LWB T5 here with poptop has it over the 1.85m allowed, book it as a high car and pay the same amount as a normal car but they need to know to allocate enough high car spots on the carriage. Done this many, many times. never a problem.

Got my VW T5 long wheelbase booked in as a minibus £65 each way
yes its out of school hols and at stupid o clock but we dont mind .

Okay so consensus is book on as a ‘high’ car. We will be removing the back row of seats so it will be a 6 seater.

Not so concerned with cost, more that there are very few slots left for vans but plenty of choice for car based vans on the dates we want to travel.

They really need to sort there guidelines so it is easier to understand. I can’t be the only one!