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Thu 15 Oct 2009 16:05

Trafic 115 dci SWB 2008 - stunorthants26

Thought id share some thoughts on this van which ive had on hire since Friday but have already stuck 600 miles on it.

Cab is pretty standard, infact much of the controls remind me of a mid-90's Clio - they feel quite fragile but essentially work ( aside from a couple of electrical bits ). There is even an outside temp gauage but being a Renault, it permanatly reads between -1 and -3, so its useless of course. Driving position is OK, could be better if they made more adjustment for the steering wheel, passenger seats are good though and there is enough space for two reasonable sized people and the dashboard mounted gearlever makes for plenty of legroom for middle passenger.

Loadspace is fine, little lacking in height maybe and only one side-loading door on the kerbside.

To drive its a mixed bag. Unladen it is of course bumpy and quite hard riding, but put stuff in the back and it tends to float abit too much, however it has reasonable handling and the steering is nicely weighted, with a good turning circle.
Gearbox is 6-spd although I rarely have found any use for 1st gear. 6th means about 1800 rpm at 70 which makes for quiet running on a long run. The 'change itself is a little clunky, especially feeling odd going into 6th, but it is light and ive not yet missed a gear.
The engine is OK but as soon as it has any kind of weight in it, it soon runs out of puff up hills in the higher gears, with a sudden slow down everytime the revs fall below the turbos operating range - I suspect without the turbo this engine would be utterly useless as it seems to lack natural torque, unlike say the old Transits unit which was a real plodder.

It does have aircon, elec windows, mirrors and C/L, plus a huge 90 litre fuel tank, so it has a very useful range. Ive been getting about 38 mpg out of it which doesnt seem too bad really given what it is and what ive used it for.

Would I buy one? No, not one of these - at 31,000 miles it feels a bit tired already with odd noises coming from the engine at times, but my wife has said that she likes riding in a van and thinks we should perhaps invest in one in due course.

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