New bike van, Vito or transporter?

I wanted a vw for its looks but settled on a vivaro 3 year old with 60k on it. Had it colour coded & remaped (extra 40bhp) for the same price of a 5 yr old vw with a lot more miles.
18 months on and I don’t regret it. Fitted a double seat in the back so it now seats 5 & carries 4 bikes & kit & could prob get 5 bikes in at a squeeze without removing wheels.
But if money wasn’t an issue I would have a 5 seater vw

jonny m you’re right that any van can have problems but it’s much more likely with vitos in my experience.

Just going through this. Our trusty old T4 (which has been ace) is needing more money spending on it than we can justify, so looking around at T5’s + getting depressed by the prices / unreliability of other options.
Late model T4’s are snapped up.

Nowt down the back of the sofa, so going to have to rationalized the bike shed.
ST4 frame + Top Fuel 69er are going to have to go 🙁

Over the last 10-15 years i’ve had the following..

R plate Berlingo
V plate SWB transit
53 plate dispatch
05 plate kangoo 4×4
56 plate LWB transit
56 plate dispatch
58 plate dispatch
60 plate vivaro
61 plate caddy maxi 4 motion

So a good bit of experience of all shapes and sizes of vans.

Berlingo – no issues in 40k
SWB transit – no issues in 20k but very poor to drive
53 plate dispatch – no issues at all in 40k and the early HDi engine was a peach.
Kangoo 4×4 – brilliant wee van and would go anywhere BUT started eating driveshafts and @ £800 a go it was time to get shot..
LWB transit – had this for 3 years and 80k, 2 clutches, DMF’s and endless faults with EGR’s etc, had my own parking space at the garage(kid you not!) drove very well when working, but fuel economy was horrendous!
56 plate dispatch – one of the pre facelift models, great van and went very well, but the HDi fuel pumps packed in and it was that costly to repair the van got scrapped(was 4 yrs old when i had it)
58 plate Dispatch – one of the early facelift models, easily the 2nd best van i’ve owned for comfort/space and i covered 30k in 12 months with little issue, unfortunatly started developing the french electric issues and had 2 steering racks in the space of last 6 months..
60 plate Vivaro – bland, cheap and souless about sums it up. Didn’t find it comfortable, it was the 2900 engine and it was thirsty but it done everything that was asked of it so can’t knock it too much..
61 Plate Caddy maxi 4Motion – not had it long(about 10k) but this is the best van i’ve had yet by a long shot. Easily fit all my tools etc in it(and obligatory bike when working away from home..), great on fuel and the 4Motion is surprisingly very good. I’m far from being a VW fanboy as I’ve avoided them for years BUT this van really is the best out a long list that I’ve had, BUT not to be confused with cheap..

If it was my personal cash and i was only looking for a van to carry 2 people, bikes and assorted gear i would be looking to buy a Dispatch. They drive great, are pretty cheap and suprisingly roomy in the rear for the size of the actual van, the only downside seems to be the issues some of them have with the high and low pressure fuel pumps, but i think you have to be pretty unlucky to be affected by this..?

Ok, been to see a Vito and a transporter today and think I’ve settled on a transporter, just seem to be built better in general, so, now, any transporter owners care to share their van experiences with me

T4, T5?

I have only had experience of a facelift T5 and it wasn’t a good one (as per my previous post)

If it’s a T5, I’d make sure that the steering rack and driveshafts are ok. Ours needed a new steering rack after only 800 miles. When I spoke to the dealer about it, they confirmed that their demo T5 also had a steering rack problem and they had another customers van in to have a new steering rack fitted after a very low mileage.

The steering rack problem shows when steering the van at low speeds were a clunk can be heard and felt through the steering wheel.

If it’s a Kombi, check that the side windows don’t leak as that also appears to be a bit of a problem. Our Kombi windows leaked badly from new.

However the 140ps model we had went really well and was just like driving a large car.

The new ones are not as well built as they have you believe though and whilst ours was better built than the Transit I drive in work; they’re not worlds apart and it certainly wasn’t as well built as the VW cars we’ve had. My wife’s current Polo for example is much higher quality than our facelift T5.

I ended up getting a refund from VW and I’ll be probably picking up a brand new Transit van in the next few weeks and pocketing the nearly £10k change. Our Transit in work which covers 6000 miles a month has been faultess.

Renault Traffic – 115 or 150 engine – pref the 8 seater and remove seats and board the windows up thats what I’d do. I’d also get the lwb version. They are sooo comfy to drive and they feel pretty much like a car and pull really well.

I’m driving one in the Alps doing transfers at the moment with 13 hour days and I don’t have a bad word to say about them

T5 here converted to a camper. Absolutely love it!

Head over to the vwt4forum.co.uk for any questions/ideas

Had 2 MK2 Vito’s, Best was the 115 auto dualiner lwb It was re-mapped to 180 bhp
Vito’s come with alot more as standard and strangley Mec dealers where better to deal with than VW. Think this was cause I was using a comercial dealership.
Never liked the drive of the T5, tested afew cause I thought I was missing some thing as every body raves about them.
Next 1 is going to be a Vito 120 Dualiner, Its got the ML V6 and its soooo fun to drive. Boy racer’s hate being left by a van !!!!!!!!!!!