VW id buzz how many bikes inside?

This is for the car version rather than panel van. As per title, anyone got one and tried different combinations of seats up and down, wheels on and off, bikes upright and on their side? It looks like it could be a good family car and bike car, any gotchas?

(Mods not sure if this should go in chat, bikes, or the electric car thread so please move as required!)

Don’t they have a range of less than < 300 miles? Are hoping for lots of bike space so you can set them up in the back so riders can pedal some more range into the battery?

I don’t often go riding more than 300 miles away so that’d be fine for me.

Op – they’re really not very tall inside, you might just get a bike in with the front wheel off upright or on its side like most other mpvs.

The range is only up to 257 miles so really not great given the price unfortunately 

257 miles is, in reality, plenty for almost everyone.

Back seats just fold & aren’t removable  leaving a massive hump in the middle of the boot floor. Real world range, particularly at motorway speeds is comedy bad: wife’s uncle had to recharge at Carlisle and again here in Beamish on a trip down from Glasgow.

257 miles is, in reality, plenty for almost everyone

Hmmm, maybe if you are commuting to work but in reality if your using it as a bike van then for example it’s around 600 miles from my door to Peebles or 150 from my door to somewhere of interest in Wales. Unless you already live in a biking Mecca then that’s not really great that range. And if you do live in a area with great biking why are you driving in the first place?

What’s the range of a transporter with a full tank?

example it’s around 600 miles from my door to Peebles

It is a big old drive from Oslo or Dijon alright.

almost everyone

Where do you live in the UK that’s 600 miles from Peebles? It only 540 odd miles from Peebles to Lands End which is about as far away as I imagine its able to get in mainland UK?

Presumably when you do the 10 hr plus drive to Peebles you stop for a pee and a sandwich? Thats when you recharge the car

Ive been all over the country in an EV for the last 18 months and I can assure you, it’s eminently doable with a range of 250 ish miles

I live 35 miles from Peebles. I could make it there and back 3 times without breaking a sweat.

Where do you live in the UK that’s 600 miles

I’d guess around 600miles away but even if it was 300 miles away it’d still be too far for the battery bus

Presumably when you do the 10 hr plus drive to Peebles you stop for a pee and a sandwich? Thats when you recharge the car

So 10 minutes for a full charge? That’s seriously impressive…..or not at all achievable

I live 35 miles from Peebles. I could make it there and back 3 times without breaking a sweat.

I could ride that distance 3 times (I’d be sweating though)

More like 280 miles from north Worcestershire to Peebles

 I can assure you, it’s eminently doable with a range of 250 ish miles

No one disputes it’s doable. It’s just a bit shit that’s all.

My car will add 210-ish miles of range at a charger  in 18mins. Actual, real world timing.
To do your 54o mile Lands End to Peebles i’d need to charge twice en route. Total of 36 minutes charging / peeing/sandwiching time in a 10 hour journey. If you’re driving that in one go and not taking just over a half hour rest along the way then you’ll be too knackered to ride when you get there.

God forbid anyone answers the OP’s question instead of launching into the usual “well, actually, I DO need to transport a trailer full of concrete pipes 280 miles nonstop twice a week” monologue that always comes up with electric vehicles.

There are loads of Addison Lee ID Buzzes driving around London at the moment. You lot will be buying them in about 3 years…

257 miles is 4 hours on the motorway. I’d be happy to take a break after 4 hours.
It also has a really good charging curve. I’ve seen on at over 90% charge still pulling 35kW. My MG is down to about 17kW by then.
As mentioned above, the 2nd row don’t remove or fold flat. There’s actually a boot frame available to make the rear space flat but it does eat into the height.
You can still store bags and boxes under it.
Generally EVe are pretty relaxed places to be but the Buzz is known to be a particularly relaxing place to be.
I’d be tempted to wait for a MkII though as ID/VW are still a bit lacking in the UI/touch screen arena.
Size wise, it’s more Touran/Sharan than transporter.

OP here. Should have said, the range is fine for me. Just wondering what the inside space is like for transporting a bike or two sometimes.

I’ve no idea of the practicalities, but I was overtaken on the A9 today by an ID Buzz stuffed with bikes and gear. There were two wheels across the back window.

What’s the range of a transporter with a full tank?

My best was just shy of 1200km sitting at 90kmh on the motorways for most of it.

I’m interested in the answers to the original question.

However, I suspect the range will rule it out for me. From what I have read, that range falls quickly so on the motorway it’s more like 150 to 180 miles. The charge also isn’t lightning fast, half an hour for 10 to 80%. On a long trip, that means you would need to get lucky with the spacing of fast chargers to manage two hours between half hour stops. That’s very different to something like the Ioniq 6 which charges almost twice and fast with longer stints between stops. Not so good for bikes though.

I’m also struggling to make the environmental sums make sense. The ~20 tonnes of CO2 to make a big luxury car is about 80000 miles of diesel before factoring the CO2 of producing electricity to charge. At that point, as much as I want an Buzz, it feels more practical and better environmentally to run our current car until it dies then get an EV.

Not actually put bikes in mine as yet , but coming from a T6.1 transporter (Kombi) it is no where near as big in the back. I have the raised board in the boot which makes it all level when you fold the rear seats down . This can be removed in a few minutes . You wouldn’t get a full bike in stood up with it in position.

I’m not at home at the moment , but I will take dimensions for you when I get back.

With regards to efficiency etc , I find it pretty good. I did a 650 mile trip last week up from Devon to Silverstone then to Sywell , down to central London and home ( over 3 days) . Started with a full charge, then charged whilst having breakfast next day, then whilst having lunch next day, then whilst having lunch the day after , then a quick charge at Cullompton to get me home ( managed to put 20kw in whilst having a pee – didn’t intend to spend that much , just needed about 10 to get me home).

This was the first time I have used the network in about a year and it is significantly better than it was, albeit a lot more expensive than before 😔. No range anxiety , and no impact on my time. Just how it should be

What’s the range of a transporter with a full tank?

I’ve never run mine to empty but I can easily get 700 miles if I fill mine to the brim and do mainly motorway driving.

Saw one at Comrie Croft today…it doesn’t look much bigger than a Peugeot Partner, so assuming rear space is empty, then probably 4 bikes with careful packing (and removal of front wheels).
I was surprised how small it is as I thought it was the replacement to the ice van everyone apparently loves. I think it was taller than the Puggy but didn’t look any longer.

God forbid anyone answers the OP’s question

You get that a lot on STW. Nature of the clientele.

I’m interesting in the answer to the OPs question as I’ve half an idea to consider one in a couple of years time when my current r car comes up for changing.

My current car (an EV) has a range of 279-300 miles ish so whilst the buzz is a shorter range it wouldn’t be massively different.

Unlike what all the people on the post (who clearly don’t drive EVs) seem to be saying, this type of range would not be an issue for longer trips. See revs1972s post for example. You stick them on a fast charger whilst doing something else that you’d normally do on a long road trip anyway – earing, peeing etc. Just so long as normal day to day usage is within the range it’s a non issue.

All the chargers were busy at Scotch corner yesterday and I couldn’t see any system for queuing. Also two thirds of the cars were MASSIVE!

Also somewhat bewildered that the Buzz doesn’t have any form of removable back seats, especially as the Multivan has a very flexible system that could have been used. Seems a massive oversight.

Hi @thebunk, we got a buzz about a month ago, had T5/6s for many years beforehand.

My son and I just had a go at exactly your question last night, in advance of annual alps trip in the summer. (@mick_r – not broken it yet – yay 😉 )

Our bikes are tall (high stack) and looooong (e.g. XL hello Dave and Pole Evolink). Was interesting to try different configurations. In the end, for a long journey the winning option seemed to be both wheels off 4 bikes, bikes upright in the back longways alternate forward/backward (hope that makes sense). Rear seats up but slid forward. Fork or rear axle sits nicely in the dip behind the rear seats, and fits behind the boot lid with room to spare. Plenty of space under and around bikes for wheels and ‘stuff’, and leaves back seats free too. hurrah!

We could not get the multiflex board to work with this configuration, as it reduced the height too much for the bars at the boot end where the ceiling lowers. remember we have silly tall long bikes, but when we let the air out the forks we could make it work, however that’s more faff than we wanted. I don’t see the point of the board anyways, so took it out pretty much when we got it. This also means tie downs are free in the back, so can use those to secure the bikes. Bob’s your uncle.

Point of note – my tilting Thule tow bar bike rack works perfectly with the buzz, where on the T5/6 the boot would not clear it. That was a pain in the hoop! But, for Scotland-alps I fear the rack would hit efficiency too much, and I prefer the bikes inside for this kind of journey anyway at rest stops etc.

HTH

@big_scot_nanny ah now we’re talking! That’s great intel thanks. Couple of questions:

When you say the rear seats are free but slid forward, does that mean short people could still sit in them, even with 4 bikes?

And, is it possible to reasonably easily get 1 bike in the back, ideally with just the front wheel off? How about 2?

Good luck with your alps trip, we’re in Scotland too so would be great to hear how it went.

Hi big_scott_nanny – would be very interested to hear how your Alps trip goes. A few times we have done Rotterdam to northern Austria in the day, or a very early start in Berner Oberland to Rotterdam easily in the day. Hoping this will be feasible with a small ev van one day soon. Currently hanging onto a Euro 6 diesel until then.

What is the Buzz like width ways? With 26ers and pre long 29ers our old Dispatch could fit them on a shelf with just the front wheel out (and loads of luggage underneath). The shelf let you use the space above the arches, but in more trimmed vans that tends to be panelled in / wasted which I suspect is the case in the Buzz.

I’ve got a buzz and as above it takes a bit of trial and error to figure out how to get bikes in as height is limited. I take out the panel near the boot lid, take out fromt wheel and drop saddle. Strap bike to side upright. Reckon could get 3 – 4 bikes in that way plus a bit of luggage. Never tried more than one though.

milesge wise is it’s absolutely fine – drove it to dieppe france  from Bristol earlier in the year and did all the charging while having a pee and a coffee.  Reckon about 1 hour on chargers in total.

What’s the range of a transporter with a full tank?

European or African Transporter?

@TexWade that’s great- exactly how we transport bikes in our Zafira (except far nicer obviously). Presume you need to put the back seats down? Also is it hard to protect the interior when strapping the bike to the side? The one joy of the Zafira is that it doesn’t matter if we scuff if up!

OP here. Should have said, the range is fine for me. Just wondering what the inside space is like for transporting a bike or two sometimes.

The bloody cheek of it!

@thebunk – yes the seats have to be down and protection really needed for the side panel. . I’ve got a fitted boot liner which covers the floor and sides though so it’s fine. I cut a hole in the liner near the boot door to fit a karibiner to a lash point so I can bungee the bike to the siide.

@TexWade – ah, you mean you take the first narrow multifelx board panel out. Ah ha, never thought of doing just that  – something else to try, would indeed alleviate the issue of the ceiling panel dip height restrictions Nr the boot.

@thebunk – yes, rear seats usable. Depends how far back the driver/passenger have their seats of course. There’s very good legroom in the front, so I imagine even for normal adults it’d work fine with those seats not at max extension.

Yes, easily get 2 bikes in with rear seats folded and back wheels still on. I do wonder if 4 could be made to work that way. With TexWade’s solution of taking the first bit of the board out, forks would go down in that gap and then you’ve a lovely flat area to roll the bikes back. Never tried that, wonder if you could get 4 in that way? No back seat passengers of course!

@mick_r – Looking at that van, the Buzz, and considering long bikes – I would say ‘no chance’ 🙂 (and I won’t try it until I’ve got my boot liner for fear of chanking the inside. There is rather a lot of ‘white’ inside the Buzz)

I do the drive via Hull/rotterdam 3/4 times a year as need to be in CH for work and I HATE airports but love driving (audiobooks and podcasts). very aware that on the NL-BE-L-F-CH drive there are an absolute ton of charging stations now. I do not foresee any issues but must admit to pouring over Electroverse route/charging options a LOT before I even made the call to buy the Buzz. Fingers crossed 🙂

This is so helpful, thanks both.

@texwade what fitted boot liner have you got? Looking at roofbox.co.uk I can’t picture what you might have gone for that works with the multiflex out and the seats down?

Also, presume if you just wanted to put in one or two bikes with rear wheel still on you could split the seat to still have a back seat if needed?

@big_scot_nanny did you get the tow bar fitted at time of purchase? Not sure if we’re going to need an external bike carrier as well.

Other than getting the Style package, are there any extra options either of you would recommend?

reeksy Full Member

The bloody cheek of it!

I really wanted an answer to my question! I knew STW would come through with a bit of focus and if we could ignore the noise 😉

In summary the ID Buzz can fit bikes in better than most new cars (not vans!), electric or not, and certainly has comparable capacity to my elderly Zafira. The only cars (not vans) available from the last say 4 years that might have the capacity + height needed for efficient (e.g put a couple of bikes plus loads of camping gear inside) bike storage are:

Ford S-Max (maybe), Galaxy & Tourneo Connect

Berlingo & variants.

I’m only looking at petrol/electric auto cars and am sure there are some I’ve forgotten, but not many.

As it seems to be important to some people, I do often cycle from my doorstep. Peebles is about 185 miles from my house, so too far to cycle really though I could though get there on a full charge in a VW Buzz, hah! Having said that I’d probably still stop for a coffee, a wee and a top up regardless of choice of fuel.

On previous vans and cars we’ve had an aftermarket, removable tow bar (with proper electrics), but on the Buzz we’ve got the factory fit electric retractable fella. Really nice.

I bought second hand, ours is a Style, I think with optional fancy electric seats that also have the amazing pull out thigh extension thingy (as a tall long legged person, with that addition is most comfortable car seat I’ve ever had). I think the Style’s all come with the 9 speaker sound upgrade thingy, and that makes it really quite a good stereo (IMHO), and also electric boot which is nice. Both our previous Caravelle’s had electric sliding rear doors which we loved but were temperamental. So, when we went for the buzz I did not look for that option. We miss it! It’s not a deal breaker, they can be annoyingly inconsistent, but still really miss them.

I’ve got the sliding doors on mine too. All the boxes were ticked apart from the retractable towbar ( it was a pre registered).
Had the electric side doors on the T6.1 too and never had an issue with them . Buzz has been great so far ( and has charging ports in the rear doors which is a bonus )

In the end it was surprisingly simple to borrow one overnight from VW. Coming from a 10 year old Zafira designed 20 years ago, it was like driving a spaceship. A very easy to drive spaceship though. Felt like a much smaller car, and the visibility was amazing.

We very very carefully put my bike into it, and perhaps because it is a short travel low stack Transition Spur, it absolutely swallowed it up. Back seat up, it can fit in the boot with the front wheel off, with space for another bike (with a bit of jiggling). Back seat down it will take it with both wheels on, and have space for loads more bikes.