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In the wars
Page 49
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Price: €14,050 Engine: 1.9-litre turbo-dleset, 103hp Payload: /941,(0
Mileage: 17,500 Expenses: Wing mirrors £48 Faults: None Average mpg: 42,9
We lent our Iona
0-term VW Caddy to sister publication Truck & Driver and it literally got a clip round the ear. The VW was parked on a busy London high street and moments after the T&D custodian exited the vehicle an unmarked Ford Transit misjudged his/her positioning and hit our poor Caddy's wing mirror for six.
To make matters worse, the perpetrator didn't even stop to exchange details: and this proved to be only the beginning of cur problems.
We put in a call to VW's parts department and it was suitably helpful. However, we were warned that the body-coloured wing mirror was not in stock. A black plastic one would suffice then.
Body-coloured trimmings such as bumpers and wing mirrors look nice and make a van look more classy, however, should you be involved in a bumper bashing or an incident like ours, they are a pain to fix. In our case, we would have had to wait a couple of weeks for the correct part to arrive and then send it to a palntshop, which would have meant taking the Caddy off the road not an ideal situation if you're trying to run a business.
Scrapes aside, the Caddy continues to excel on the busy south-west London streets and made all the more jolly by the near-seamless gearchanges of the DSG gearbox. When we're feeling the need for (legal) speed, a quick push and pull on the gear lever is all it takes to swap cogs manually. A Tiptronic gearbox is not something you'd readily associate with a van, but it makes sense in the busy urban environments where the Caddy will probably spend most of its life.
The VW's rear compartment is a generous 4.2m3, which proved more than adequate for the unusually high number of house moves that took place in the past month. Twin-sliding doors are especially appealing, not only because they come as standard, but because they provide easy access to the front end of the load area.
Our VW might only be six months old, but seeing it parked next to other vans in the local supermarket car park, you can't help but think that it looks bland and dated. The Caddy design has been around for five years so it can be forgiven. However, a little facelift would certainly increase appeal. • lan Tonkin