It's not so snazzy or refined, but I use some of those chunky, soft workshop floor mat tiles to place between bikes in the back of the van. Supplemented with old curtains if necessary.
Great for standing on in car parks, sitting on to eat lunch, etc. too.
that Evoc is PERFECT.... i'll get on the case 🙂
If I had a crewcab – assume that is A11ys dciv? I woudl remove the bulkhead. I did this in a transit rental once and there was a lot more room. It was jsut a plastic moulding held in with slef tappers, easy to remove and replace.
Yep, DCIV (Double Cab In Van) Ford-speak for VW's Kombi / crewcab. Standard bulkhead is indeed moulded plastic, easy to unbolt, fairly robust. However, not much to be gained from removing it as it closely contours the rear seat with only a couple of cm between bulkhead and seatback. Also bear in mind the cab floor level in a DCIV is a few cm higher than cargo area, leaving a step up if you removed the bulkhead.
Found a photo of the rear before I built my platform/storage - that was a large 29er with 1200mm-ish WB:
Yeah we were transporting beds and were able to tuck them under the back seats, jsut needed an extra couple of inches...
That bike rug is it two sides? So would fold out like a butterfly? If so its awesome.
I got 34mpg from the first tank. As it was not the sort of conditions today that need the screen/windows clearing with the air-con i thought i'd switch it off when i was out.
Over a 2 hour trip.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52608824215_9b2fccd4f6_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52608824215_9b2fccd4f6_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2o9RYzn ]2023-01-05_12-51-18[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
Got to be happy with that... mostly motorway and sitting at 67mph on the Cruise control.
Very good. I get at best 36/37mpg on a long steady run and about 33mpg, maybe a bit less, with mixed driving. 16year old T5.
I'm in roughly the same position as the OP (minus the dog) and the pics have been really useful so thanks for those. Cant make my mind up whether to chuck £20k at a van or stick with our ageing Berlingo..
We're at tipping point now with 2 bikes on a rack, 2 inside (and bikes getting bigger as kids grow), and needing to buy a roof bag/box for camping kit. I'd much rather chuck it all in the van though.
If you don't need 6/7/8 seats, I'd say a nice spec crew cab van all day. Bets both worlds for being able to fit kids in comfortably and just wang stuff in the back. fully loaded, wheels might need to come off the bikes but as weeksy said you can't see anything in there so all good.
My Viano has privacy glass in all windows behind the driver/passenger ones, but I'm sure if you really wanted to see, you'd be able to squash your face up against the glass a be able to see outlines....
We wanted the extra seat and the extra bit of luxury though (leather heated seats and all that...), so I know I'll pretty much always need to put some bikes on the tow ball rack during big holidays. It'll just have to be the wifes and daughters!!
As for the driving experience, I've driven to the Alps/Pyrenees in 2 different Passat estates, 1 petrol, one diesel, a ford SMax and my Viano. I can honestly say that for all of us in there (4 normally, but I had 5 kids (11-16) in the back last summer driving back from Pyrenees), the Viano has been the best. It just seems so effortless. Auto helps I suppose, but it's jsut so easy to drive long distance on motorways.
Nice.
So an L2 minibus with the back seats removed would take the same I think.
That's a reasonable assumption. I think they're both M and both slightly old school geometry rather than a massive Geometron for example, but just shows it's not impossible
