Hi,

Am tempted by getting a transporter kombi / vito dualiner to use as a bike transporter etc… and will be our only vehicle.

Am looking at SWB only so it’s not massive and parking doesn’t become a pain etc…

Therefore is there anything I should condider that I probably haven’t such as insurance implications, tax, servicing…?

For example I was told that the T32 Transporters need to go to a special commercial place to get an MOT whereas the T30 or below doesn’t and any garage can do it – this however may be nonsense.

Can a normal garage service them and are parts / servicing similar prices to a car.

I currently have a Peugeot Partner Combi which is considered to be a car in all instances so tax, speed limits, road tolls (in France) are the same as a car. On a similar note at the “recycling centre” (dump) the other day there was a big sign saying “no vans” so assume couldn’t rock up in a Kombi / Dulainer?!

Apologies for the vagueness of the query but be good to have some real world experiences from owners.

Thanks in anticipation.

I pay £425 for 12 months or £233 for 6, but otherwise costs aren’t too bad. I’ve owned it from 3000 miles, now done 60K and I’m just going to my first new set of rear tyres and am on 3rd at front.

Fuel is about 37-38mpg on the clock (less if measured at pumps) and insurance is pretty good (commercial vehicle direct).

On the whole, a great wagon.

Perfect – exactly what I’m looking for!

I had a T5 transporter, 2008. It was alright, i dunno, i wasn;t totally sold on it. While it was fantastic that day to day i could leave bikes in it so rode a lot the actual driving experience that everyone tells you is like a car is actually like a van, just a bit like a car. Mine was like a homing-van for the garage as well – clutch, drivers side driveshaft, many many random unexplained stops. It had been well looked after, serviced from new, mint van – just didn;t work sometimes. It was SWB, so easy to park and quite handy but as an everyday i much prefer a car. And i can get bikes in my car and it drives like a car should. Although its an RS4 so i suppose that is a bit different. A mate is selling a T5 california 6spd 4 motion which i might grab purely because i want one and i wouldn;t have to drive the firking thing every day.

One of the major problems is that all of a sudden you have “new” friends who expect you to move stuff around for them for free. This is something you have to nip in the bud.

SB

Speed limits are lower in a van, but the same as a car for a minibus. 50 on a single carriageway, 60 on a dual, 70 on a motorway.

Speed limits are lower for a van?? Where, In the uk??

Oh and regarding the vito, I had an old shaped one till about 3 yrs ago and you could really treat it like a big car, easy to park, and also low enough to get into multi story’s etc

Everywhere I believe. Not that you have to stick to it if you get a white one…..

yep speed limits in vans are 50mph on single/60 on dual, if it’s a camper then you can go car speeds (why I don’t know) if you go above 3000kg it will need the next class up of MOT but your local garage will know where to go for that, not much more expensive.

Fuel economy will go down compared to a diesel car and fuel is very expensive right now.

Up sides are never really haveing to worry about moving your bike or other stuff, you can get changed inside when its bad weather, take a gas bbq with you and many other good things:)

Merc vitos at work 112cdi. They are the mid wheel base ones (well I’m sure they aren’t swb, and they aren’t as long as the long ones!!) No bigger than a large 4×4, they go in most carparks and have a fantastic steering lock.
Servicing gets done at a commercial Merc dealers. The up side of this is they are 24hour so we get ’em done overnight.
They are classed as a light goods vehicle so lower speed limits apply.
Problems.. none, we have the autos, and have had auto vitos since 2004 and I don’t remember one ever breaking down
MPG.. getting 30ish on a run out of them, much less in town, but we don’t pay the fuel bill so I reckon you could improve on that a lot

I had an 07 T5 Shuttle and it was one of those rare ‘win win’ vehicles.
In the eyes of the tax man it was a van (ie flat rate tax if a company vehicle) but in everyone else’s eyes it was a car (Severn bridge tolls, recycling centre).

Best vehicle I’ve owned, gutted to see it go. Can be pricey if they do go wrong though…..

Speed limits are lower for a van?? Where, In the uk??

UK Speed limits here.

is the road tax always the same regardless of how it is registered on the v5?

So what constitutes the limit changes, weight?? I drive a swb new transit with normal payload. I’ve been by the law many times on dual carriage ways at 70 and not got pulled??

ace for biking, can leave all your gear in & somewhere to get changed when it’s wet.
Not car like to drive (had both vito & t5).
Unless you get a 2 seater, you will always be using your van for trips away with mates riding.
The mot thing is something to do with commercial weigh plating, i think car places can do 3T & under? Not such an inconvenience though as you only have to get it done once a year.

Most vans are £210 a year to tax on a flat rate, no emmissions related stuff involved in them yet. A few kombi’s got classified as private cars and hence are subject to the emissions based tax and 435 a year.

Fuel wise a transporter should do 40mpg, a vito 33-35mpg. The compact vito (swb) is really quite short with rear seats in, if you want to be able to carry stuff easily you’d need to look at a long. Transporters are better swb version will carry 3 bikes whole diagonally behind the rear seats.

My friendly local mechanic has always serviced mine costs are the same as cars allowing for the very expensive oil vw’s use.

Having owned both of the vehicles you mention I’d go for a transporter, you’ll pay more for the same age etc but they are muich nicer places to be, more comfy, better finished etc.

If you have any more questions feel free to drop me a line.

Wirghtyson – It’s an odd mix of weight and if the vehicle is car derived or not. In your transit you’ve been lucky not to get pulled as you are definitely subject to the lower limits. Mostly though it seems to be speed camera vans that get people for it, proper traffic cops have better things to do.

So what constitutes the limit changes, weight?? I drive a swb new transit with normal payload. I’ve been by the law many times on dual carriage ways at 70 and not got pulled??

Two tons or over – so any transit and larger. Usually vito/transporters depending on the seating arrangements, also one or two berlingo size vans just creep into the catagory. Its quite rare unless the fuzz are feeling bulllish (or on an awareness raising campaign) that you’ll actually get pulled for driving at the speeds that cars should be travelling at on any type of road, thats not to say it wouldn’t happen. However if you were snapped/pulled for driving over the limit – say 70 on an A road the penalty would be from a lower limit than other road users – so you’d be 20 mph over the limit rather than 10mph over the limit like the car behind you, with differing penalties to match.

Its a bit of a mishmash of a law as these day there a plenty of cars that weigh more than 2 tonnes empty, never mind laden, and range rovers and discoverys could even creep over the 3.5ton limit and should arguably be subject to the same speed limits as HGVs

But in general its such an under-inforced law that I’d bet most van drivers – like yourself- don’t know that different speed limits apply to them, and the speed limits for trucks are flatly ignored by drivers who definately do know the rules – when have you ever seen a truck on an A road driving at 40mph? (anywhere other than in Northern Ireland)

Our local council refuse/recycling centre is OK with vans as long as you can show your council tax or a utility bill to prove you live in the borough and aren’t dumping half a building site’s worth of waste. Worth checking though.

This shouldn’t affect you if you’re looking at newish vans, but the low emission zone for London (which is roughly the area inside the M25) will be a no-go area for older vans from January of next year. This for pre-2002, non Euro III compliant vans, with an unladen weight over 1.2 tonnes. Expect it to get more stringent in the coming years too.

It would appear ive been somewhat lucky for the last 10 yrs then!!! I’ve always trammed along at 60 on the roads around here!

Driven most types of van for work (ex delivery driver) and although I hate saying it the nicest and most car like were the transits. Vito’s – could never get the seating right and felt a bit perched in it and seem to hold their value too well second hand unless you don’t mind high mileage, transporters were slower and felt a bit more agricultural, sprinters are nice but probably too big for you, not sure on vauxhall or fiat / peugeot offerings.

I’ve just bought a VW Sharan cheap to cart kids and bikes in and it seems more car like if thats any use, cheaper tax band too.

It would appear ive been somewhat lucky for the last 10 yrs then!!

you and everyone else, i’ve never known of anyone getting stopped, but it happens. I’ve not really changed how I drive now that I’m aware of the limits. If you drive to the law on A road especially you just have cars jockeying to pass you and the dodgy moves to match – I’m not keen to part of their accident, so I tend to drive with the traffic. I’d imagine truck drivers ignore the 40 limit for the same reason.

I’ve no problem with varying speed limits for vehicles on dual carridgeways or motorways where different classes of vehicles can pass each other, but its ridiculous on a single carridgeway and NI is the only place where I’ve seen it observed

Actually just one more query, There’s loads of 50 mph roads around here now that the camera vans are on, should I therefore be doing 40 on those??

no

T5 SWB T30 Factory Kombi here…. 5 seats in total, very happy with it. Its about the same footprint as a passat, just under 2m 10 cm high so it fits in most multi story car parks. My height cut off (and probably the roof too), is 2m.

If you use ferries, tell them its a motorhome not a van. M6 toll will charge about £10 due to height at the first axle being over 1.4m…

The speed thing is a desperately grey area, there is a load of detail on the law, weight, chassis designation, vehicle body type, classification here: worth reading it all

I think I am on 60mph A roads and 70mph motorways based on my chassis details, body type and classification and would try to defend this in a court if snapped by a camera van.

Curiously the T5.1 van in all its forms with a WVW1 chassis and N1 classification seem to be 50mph on A roads. Its all in the link above as Euro type approval regs changed. (I am not an expert on this but have done a lot of checking out… and am prepared to be corrected..)

People have been caught on this but you would be unlucky and dont let this stop you getting a great practical van…

£215 tax a year, 35 ish mpg, fully comp £250 ish….

Have a good chat with a dealer, they may loan you one for a weekend which is what we did. Got to test it with a bike too.

Vito is wider and lower than a transporter also and have had a bad rep for rust though its better now.

pm mme for more info

HTH

Rick

Thanks all – much appreciated.

So are t5 “Shuttles” more likely to be considered a car than a factory “Kombi”? I think I favour the Kombi for carrying bikes / security but guess it makes little difference once the windows are tinted and back row of seats removed.

Are they both considered commercial vehicles due to the weight / size?

Million dollar question now – where do I start looking for one that’s been looked after, not gone round the world twice and not pretty much the same price a new one?! So far regular browsing on autotrader, eBay and even gumtree hasn’t resulted in much of interest.

Guess am looking for an 05 (ish) with the 2.5 130 engine.

Thats where it gets tricky. Its the van for people who don’t want their van to be a van.- far, far fewer people buy new Transporters than want to buy second hand ones

The risk is that if you get a kombi/shuttle that’s classed a private vehicle you get the higher speed limits but also the higher tax bracket. Someone was going to court over this suggesting that taxation class should have nothing to do with the applicable speed limits but I don’t think they’ve gone yet.

You’re looking in the right places, they are rare vans and very popular so do go quickly and hold their value well. You’ll have to be patient to get a good deal. The other option is to buy a van and get someone to convert for you. 1 window and a fixed double seat would be around 800 (pro job with all the certification needed) 2 windows and 3 removable seats around 1400ish. vwt4forum.co.uk is a good place to look.
Also condsider a 1.9tdi 104/102 over the 2.5 they have more problems and are more expensive to fix when they go wrong.

If you want to be super pedantic, anything classified N1 will be a van and 50mph. Even converted vans with rear seats come up as N1, a van.

Shuttles are a bit posher, ceiling lights, aircon in the roof etc etc, but also loads of plastic panels in the back that makes it a bit narrower. I reckon that they will get scratched up more too…

Get down the dealer and have a look. Bar the engine and the front end, the insides of a new van are almost identical to the previous T5…

If I did this all again I reckon I would get a shuttle and flog the rear panels.

wrightyson – if the speed limit sign is a number i.e. 30/40/50 then stick to that. If it’s a motorway or barrier separated dual carriageway then you can do the same as cars. If it’s national speed limit A road then do 10 mph less than the cars, so 50 in a 60. Hasn’t failed me in 10 years of van driving.

yep strange how the speeds are resticted yet a range rover of similar weight is not. But they are careful not to contest some speed limitrs as would alter the whole show for the big 4x4s
T5 130 T 28 6 speed is amazing, great toy truck, mine is 05 plate for sale at present if interested.
0790923062

UK Speed limits here

oh ffs, so even my wee Caddy’s meant to be limited to 50 on back roads? Now if i need to lie to even claim ignorance….

catvet – could you please drop me a mail with more details, mail in profile.
Your number doesn’t appear to have enough digits?

Yep, the Caddy, Transit Connect, Fiat Scudo all come in at over two tons and the lower speed limits.

I know guys at work that have been done for exceeding the commercial van limits.

CSB, it doesn’t need to be a barrier, as long as the carriage way has a break in the tarmac, such as grass/bushes/kerbs, it counts as a 60mph limit for vans.

The limits really are easy to remember, if its a national speed limit, you go 10mph slower. If there are signs giving the speed, you can do that speed (unless you are in Wales where they seem to like putting up 60mph signs on single carriageway roads. In my book they are inviting all vehicles to do 60mph 🙂

I have a Vito Sport 115 (Long) I can get six bikes and six people in it, splitting the fuel costs is great,up and over door is handy in the rain for getting changed.

The only niggles are the passenger side window is intermittent on the switch, (common fault) and it scrubs the outer edges of the front tyres,apart from that its great..

We were unsure of speed limits so I emailed our local traffic police. They told me it has nothing to do with taxation class or weight and everything to do with derivation and windows and seats. Basically if your vehicle car derived (doblo, berlingo, fiesta) then it is subject to normal speed limits (30, 60, 70 etc). If it is not (T4, transit, vito) then it HAS to have rear seats, side windows AND rear window to be able to drive at normal limits. If you are missing ANY of those you are subject to the lower limits. Our T4 doesn’t have a rear window so is subject to lower speeds, our mates T5 does so can drive at the faster speeds.
The reason why a Motorhome can go at the higher speeds is because it is a different type of vehicle and to do with the seats, windows and something else to do with fixed cooking equipment. I’ll admit that I can’t remember all the details but I am absolutely certain about derivation, seats and windows.

So why is a minibus lower limits then? (50/60/70 or 50/50/60 when towing)?