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21st January 1999
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

ON TES T

VOLKSWAGEN XLT

Price as tested: £41,460 ex-VAT (£17,760 for Volkswagen L135 2.5Tdi chassis-cab, 26,900 for fifth wheel, compressor and aerodynamic modifications, £400 for tachograph, £16,400 for 10m curtainsideci trailer). Engine: 2.5 litres, 101hp (75kW). GVW: 6,300kg. Payload: approximately 2,600kg (see text). Fuel consumption (laden): 21.1mpg (1 3411t/1 00km).

What do you do if you need enormous load volume, but not much payload—if you're carrying Japanese lanterns, perhaps, or hauling hot air? You can opt for the scientific approach, to calculate what gives you the most load volume for your money. A largevolume panel van like a Mercedes Sprinter 312D gives you around 17m3 at about £1,300/m3; a 75tonner with a six-metre box body improves on that, with about 32m3 at just under a000/m3. But there is a machine which can offer around 45m3 at about £900/m3,

The vehicle in question is the Volkswagen XLT35 tractive unit, mated to the Xtra Lightweight Trailer. This lightweight articulated combination is sold by the, er, Lightweight Artie Company; for the sake of sanity, we'll call them LAC from now on. The company has the blessing of Volkswagen, and the XLT will be offered to customers through any VW Van Centre.

LAC and VW have started from a good base: we like the LT van, which is essentially a badge. engineered relative of the Mercedes Sprinter powered by a choice of Volkswagen engines. The 15-tonne GVW mediumwheelbase chassis-cab variant is converted into a tractive unit with the addition of a tachograph, a fifth wheel, an electrically driven air compressor (for the air-operated trailer brakes), suzie connec tions and an aerodynamic kit: these take the price up to £25,000 or so. The extras add around 350kg to the kerb weight, taking the unit up to around 2,100kg.

The trailer is built for LAC by Vipex of Sutton-in-Ashfield, Notts, a firm which specialises in manufacturing exhibition trailers. The priority in designing it was weight, and the result is a 9.0mlong single-axle trailer weighing 1.6 tonnes complete with curtain sides. However, this is a prototype: standard trailer lengths are seven or 10 metres, and the trailer can be a flatbed or a rigid box. Options available include rear doors, a rear roller shutter and a set of ramps—the combination is seen as a possible twocar transporter. However, at a maximum combination weight of 6,300kg, the artic will only offer 2,600kg of payload— enough for one car, but marginal for a pair of all but the smallest vehicles.

• PRODUCTIVITY

The firm aimed for a payload of three tonnes, but in practice the figure is rather lower. This is not too far off the payload offered by a typical 7.5-tonner, and for some operators that may not be a problem. LAC's publicity brochures justify the vehicle in terms of cost per cubic-metre-mile; hardly the most conventional measure of productivity.

We took the laden combination round our Welsh distribution route—where we usually test 7.5tonners—and it performed pretty well, returning just over 21mpg in driving rain and poor traffic conditions, albeit at a very restricted average speed.

The most economical 7.5-tonners deliver just over 20mpg round the Welsh route. A 3.5tonne panel van might get closer to 30tripg but it would take little more than half the payload or a third of the volume. However, it would be a lot quicker.

Loading the XLT's trailer is easy: the low load floor (just under 800mm high at the rear) and the open sides (with an aperture height of around 2.1m) could hardly be more convenient. If you don't agree, you can spend another £400 for a rear roller shutter.

LAC further justifies the vehicle by suggesting that it can be used with more than one trailer, to reduce waiting time and improve tractor (and driver) usage. If you have a sufficiently advanced traffic control system, it could do the job for you.

• ON THE ROAD CM's test example has the 2.5Tdi engine, a five-cylinder, 101hp direct-injection model which performs very well in a 3.5-tonne panel van. However, with an extra three tonnes on board, and the larger frontal area of the semitrailer, it feels pretty sluggish: the problem is not so much a lack of power, rather a lack of torque— most 7.5-tonners have four or six litres of turbo-diesel, and torque to match.

The problem is exacerbated by the five-speed gearbox: the ratios feel too widely spaced, and the short-legged final-drive ratio makes the engine feel asthmatic at motorway speeds—in practice it cannot sustain much more than about 85km/h, and it's easiest to stay apace with "real" artics. No wonder it averaged just 66.9km/h on the motorway section. Driving on A-roads is a little better, but you will often find yourself at the head of a frustrated queue of car drivers, and it's still all too easy to stall the unit during a hill start (don't even think about a standing start on a one-in-four).

The unit is remarkably manoeuvrable: at 2.25m wide, it can get into most of the places a Luton van can get into. There is no significant swing-out from the front end of the trailer, or rear overhang. And it is very stable— even though we found that there was a slow puncture in one of the trailer tyres, and its pressure was down to just 40psi, the combination behaved itself on the motorway. Unfortunately, the brakes were not up to scratch: whether the tractor/trailer compatibility was poorly adjusted, or there was a more basic problem, the brakes felt far too soft for confident stop/start driving.

There are a few other glitches: the mirrors are not big or wide enough (or heated), there is no reversing bleeper, and the tacho is inconveniently placed in front of the gear lever—Mercedes can incorporate a "pop-up" tacho into the Sprinter's dashboard, so VW should be able to do the same.

Less forgivable was the absence of a

radio: black mark, LAC!

• SUMMARY This is a great idea: a light, flexible vehicle that can potentially do much of the work of a heavier truck. But we've seen it has an equal potential to cause difficulties. If you can afford to specify and maintain it properly, and if you restrict it to dual-carriageway speeds, it could be very productive. The man in the tollbooth on the Severn Bridge thought it was a 3.5-tanner, so that could save you a bit more...

It's like any CV: it will only be profitable if you do your sums.

J by Toby Clark

Tags

Organisations: VW Van Centre
People: Toby Clark

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