I'm thinking about buying a van as transport for the oldest two lads plus their bike kit. Looking at Peugeot Partner size van but am open to considering other makes.
Thoughts & practical experiences welcome.
D.
TBH if you're going to take the compromises of a van, you may as well get one that's a decent size - transit/vivaro etc.
from a '56 expert owner, which actually i'm very happy with, but knowing what i know now, i'd just go larger.
Do you mean you want it for you plus two others i.e. 3 in total? If so while you can get the newest shaped partners with 3 seats they are very cramped when used as so. There's nothing else in that class with 3 seats unless you have them in the rear and then you have very limited space for stuff. These are really in the small vans group.
If you do need 3 seats, you really need to be looking at proper mid sized vans such as transporter, vito, transit, vivaro, trafic, primastar (all the last 3 are the same van made in luton with different badges only), fiat scudo, peugeot expert, citroen despatch (again all these 3 are the same van and are the smallest sensible 3 seater you can get. avoid the 1.6 diesel engines in them as they are known to have problems).
No, it's just for them IE two seats is all that's needed.
Small vans are a bit odd in that they don't really offer much more than an estate car, other than chuckability when the going gets muddy, plus the fact people can't see the bikes. They drive crap.
I'd second the medium van, transit etc. They will be able to rack up for bikes at the sides, get in the back to get changed in foul weather, even put down space to sleep in the back when needed. Tool shelves etc too. Sorry can't help on the small van recommendations, but a swb transit is as easy to park as a car, costs no more than a small van and the only downside is that you'll be limited to 60 on dual carriageways and 50 on single carriageway roads as it's over 2T gross.
Anyone got one of those NV200s yet?