NZCol – Member
OOh will you lot stop it, i’ve been having a few ‘mares getting a California (long story) and had decided to give up. Then this thread starts and i read it, then a Cali appears and I am now going to look at it. This could be an expensive thread, i’d have to make the Cali my everyday car (to work 3x a week circa 20kms). How bad would it be ?
T4 or T5?
As above, my T4 is my daily driver and used as a second family vehicle as well as holiday home. It’s fine for both despite being 17 years old, and to be honest I think it’s generally been more reliable for being in daily use than it would have been if it had been parked up in the drive for half the year. It’s a SWB pop top so I can take it anywhere I could take a normal car. Fuel economy is fine and it’s a 1.9TD so mechanically pretty simple (albeit a tad underpowered sometimes). 2.5TDI is more powerful, but more complicated etc.
If I want to get somewhere fast or we’re going a long distance to visit family etc we’ll still take the car though – it’s more economical and I try to avoid putting too many unnecessary miles on the van given it’s age.
T5 Cali is a cut above the T4 in terms of comfort, drive and gadgets etc. If I was lucky enough to be able to afford one, I wouldn’t hesitate to have one as my only vehicle – ideally the 4Motion version.