Van Diesel is plastered across a local Ford Transit owned by Virgin Broadband.
It always raises a smile and springs to mind as I take delivery of the Peugeot Bipper Professional, the compact city van.
This is the first van I have driven and on entering you can’t help noticing that it feels rather hollow inside. In fact if you shout there’s almost an echo due to its capacious rear.
The next noticeable difference to a car is the fact that there is no rear view mirror and the distinct absence of a rear window, instead there are two rear doors as you can see from the video at testdrives.biz. These are obviously for easy loading as is the helpful sliding side door. You have to rely on your mirrors, making me particularly apprehensive when reversing or pulling out to overtake. I now realise that I should be more forgiving of those van drivers, who I have previously thought, pulled out without looking.
On manoeuvring to overtake, the driver cannot see anything by looking over their right shoulder, as they would in a car. In time, relying on the mirrors is easy as long as the driver is cautious.
There’s a fairly raised driving position, so much so that I spy a mottled brown roe deer elegantly standing in a field as I wait for the lights to change. In fact height wise it’s on a par with a Land Rover Freelander, giving a commanding view of the road ahead.
In many respects this little van, the test model finished in bright red - making its driver feel like Postman Pat - is very much like a car to drive. The cabin is an adequate size and its dashboard has been well designed, with plenty of space for all that paperwork so often carried by delivery drivers. There’s electric windows, a CD player and a decisive five-speed gearbox coupled to a gutsy 1.4-litre diesel capable of travelling over 600 miles on a tank, if driven at a steady 56mph. More realistically it is good for 500 miles at a decent pace. We’re not just talking about economy either but strong load carrying abilities. It’ll shift up to 590kg of cargo measuring as much as 2.5 cubic metres. So that’s plenty of parcels, as colleagues at work keep pushing my way…
"The rear wheel arches are one metre apart and Bipper’s low loading height, optional sliding side doors and wide access make packing and stacking heavy goods easier,” writers Parkers, the vehicle experts. There’s a hardwearing wood finish inside the rear of the test van.
The increasingly popular Bipper is keenly priced and efficient.
New price range: £11,523 - £15,495
Economy: 63mpg (average)
Power: 68bhp
Top speed: 95mph
Watch the video at: www.testdrives.biz
It was pleasing that my 10-year-old 88,000 mile Ford Fiesta passed its MOT but there was an advisory note that the windscreen wipers needed replacing. More expense, I thought. Watch the video at testdrives.biz to see how bad they were!
I have owned the vehicle for two years and the Ford wipers must have been on there for a good few years before that time. They had got to a point where they were causing me embarrassment because as they attempted to rid the screen of water, they would screech up and down. Not ideal. The wiper on the rear window was worst.
So what to replace them with? Traditional wipers or do you embrace technology?
Until now fancy wipers were the preserve of new cars but now Bosch has made its excellent Aerotwin wipers available to a wide range of cars including older ones, thanks to incorporating clever multi-clip adaptors.
Storms battered England the day after I fitted my Aerotwins and for the first time I actually enjoyed driving in the rain because I now have crystal clear vision no matter what the conditions. This is because the three-part wear-resistant blade edge ensures an efficient wiping action, so even the smallest micro-drops are removed. Even on partly dry windscreens, the wiper blade slides wax and dirt easily off the windscreen. They’re a joy to use and ever so quiet as you can see from the video at testdrives.biz.
They’re so good that my wife asked me to fit some to her P-reg Fiat Punto and she, too, is a happy motorist now. A friend has also bought a pair. What price pleasure? Around £30 a set.
No wonder they’ve been awarded Auto Express Best Buy every year since 2009.
