VW Multivan E-Hybrid for a week
Discussion
Had one of these on hire for a Devon trip last week & thought I'd share a few thoughts on my first go in a hybrid over about 800 miles.
Background.
We run a VW Move Up (Mrs) & a Saab 9-3 Aero (Me. Project descending into shed. Sorry, we've hardly started & I've let you down already...) & decided we'd rent more spacious & modern stuff to go on long trips. Couple of months ago, we had a T-Roc, which was generally ok, apart from the dsg which seemed to want to proceed immediately to 42nd gear & stay there.
MiL liked the look of the place we stayed & wanted us to book it up straight away so she could come. Fair enough - she's great & we don't know how man more of these opportunities we have left with her.
Sooo, that means 3 adults, 2 dogs & a mountain of wheelchairs, frames & various other seat raisers, shower stools etc. (Yes, yes I know mobility friendly places are available but she wanted the same place we had). Quick chat with our local VW (good prices & always have stock) led to a new (40miles) Multivan Life E_Hybrid in AAA Airport cabs black. "Good flight Ms Fang? Just take the bags Dave, ok?"
Good.
Beyond practical. With 2 seats removed (leaving 5) there was cubic kilometers of volume in this thing. Legs and elbows roamed free with drawers, cubby holes, cupholders, aircraft-type tables & USB's all over the place.
The central console which turned into a table was fantastic. Even as a console, it had 2 storage bins & 3 cup holders with proper spring grips. Brilliant storage ideas everywhere you look - upper & lower bins in the doors for stuff you want to hand &, other stuff.
Visibility. High up, plenty of glass, great for Devon lanes (a subject we will return to in due course...)
Great parking assist front & back.
Fully laden, motorways @ 70+ were smooth & the trip down (220m) returned 47mpg, as it regenerates when coasting.
Gearbox & switching between drive modes was very smooth. This box seemed much more eager to kick down than the T-Roc.
It's an attention grabber, especially in a beach car park amongst a crowd of campers & vans. I've never been stopped in the street & had people ask about the car, but it happened every other day
Bad.
Engine is a bit noisy & bronchial when it kicks down, but tbf, it is a 1.4l shifting most of the contents of my house around.
Assistance tech. Some mostly worked, the rest, mostly didn't.
Radar cruise works great on a largely straight motorway, but show it a dual carriageway with tighter corners & it still thinks a truck going round a RH bend 500m up the road, is pulling out on you & starts easing/braking. Not great when I'm at the front of a little train passing another HGV & my brakes go on.
Lane departure is awful. It doesn't want me to overtake & it really doesn't like the idea of me trying to smooth the journey by straightening corners & using all of the left carriageway. TBF it can be turned off but it resets & I kept forgetting. Special mention for lane departure vs narrow devon lanes.
Auto hold - hateful when parking. I've driven auto's for years & know how to use left foot braking when shuffling about. Trying to judge how much of a brush or prod to release the hold, is probably a practice thing though.
The VW user interface. I hate to be that bloke who just repeats stuff from the web, but it's awful. If it was a new iPhone IOS release, I'd stick my beloved XR on eBay & go back to Android. It' bad enough having to delve into menus at speed, just to change the A/C, but the problem is inconsistency - sometimes it takes a gesture, sometimes a prod, sometimes six prods & then pauses for a second & tries to do the six things it thought you wanted.
Speed limit recognition. Completely unreliable. First time I felt the car slowing itself for a 30 limit was amazing. Then of course, it decided not to. And then it did, so was completely ignored.
No climate & driver/passenger climate zoning in a £40k+ car. Only a/c.
It's big. Really big. Motorways & towns were fine. Little lanes were not good - warnings & alarms everywhere when passing points came into play.
Charging. Cr*p. We'd exhausted the charge by day 2, so I (naively) assumed I could just go to a charger, swipe my card
& crack on. No, but downloading the Pod Point app & heading off to Tesco Kingsbridge was easy peasy until I arrived at said Tesco to find the PP app refused to confirm it actually had a charge point there. Decided to return in 24 hours to find it showing an out of order sign. Gave up. Problem is my PP account is pre loaded with £20 & I no longer own a plug in. Hmmm.
So, in conclusion, TLDR etc.
Great people carrier with masses of well thought out family friendly design
Needs a home charger if the rest of the network is like South Hams/South Devon. Charging at night & having 30+ miles on leccy, then longer trips at 47mpg would suit me fine.
User interface needs a complete overhaul. (I'm no IT engineer, but spent 25+ years in FinTech in The City, i so I'm not a complete duffer when it comes to technology. Ish...)
I thought 38mpg for the whole 800miles average wasn't bad, given 500++ of that was petrol only with a 1.4l engine.
Questions?
Chs, CF
Background.
We run a VW Move Up (Mrs) & a Saab 9-3 Aero (Me. Project descending into shed. Sorry, we've hardly started & I've let you down already...) & decided we'd rent more spacious & modern stuff to go on long trips. Couple of months ago, we had a T-Roc, which was generally ok, apart from the dsg which seemed to want to proceed immediately to 42nd gear & stay there.
MiL liked the look of the place we stayed & wanted us to book it up straight away so she could come. Fair enough - she's great & we don't know how man more of these opportunities we have left with her.
Sooo, that means 3 adults, 2 dogs & a mountain of wheelchairs, frames & various other seat raisers, shower stools etc. (Yes, yes I know mobility friendly places are available but she wanted the same place we had). Quick chat with our local VW (good prices & always have stock) led to a new (40miles) Multivan Life E_Hybrid in AAA Airport cabs black. "Good flight Ms Fang? Just take the bags Dave, ok?"
Good.
Beyond practical. With 2 seats removed (leaving 5) there was cubic kilometers of volume in this thing. Legs and elbows roamed free with drawers, cubby holes, cupholders, aircraft-type tables & USB's all over the place.
The central console which turned into a table was fantastic. Even as a console, it had 2 storage bins & 3 cup holders with proper spring grips. Brilliant storage ideas everywhere you look - upper & lower bins in the doors for stuff you want to hand &, other stuff.
Visibility. High up, plenty of glass, great for Devon lanes (a subject we will return to in due course...)
Great parking assist front & back.
Fully laden, motorways @ 70+ were smooth & the trip down (220m) returned 47mpg, as it regenerates when coasting.
Gearbox & switching between drive modes was very smooth. This box seemed much more eager to kick down than the T-Roc.
It's an attention grabber, especially in a beach car park amongst a crowd of campers & vans. I've never been stopped in the street & had people ask about the car, but it happened every other day
Bad.
Engine is a bit noisy & bronchial when it kicks down, but tbf, it is a 1.4l shifting most of the contents of my house around.
Assistance tech. Some mostly worked, the rest, mostly didn't.
Radar cruise works great on a largely straight motorway, but show it a dual carriageway with tighter corners & it still thinks a truck going round a RH bend 500m up the road, is pulling out on you & starts easing/braking. Not great when I'm at the front of a little train passing another HGV & my brakes go on.
Lane departure is awful. It doesn't want me to overtake & it really doesn't like the idea of me trying to smooth the journey by straightening corners & using all of the left carriageway. TBF it can be turned off but it resets & I kept forgetting. Special mention for lane departure vs narrow devon lanes.
Auto hold - hateful when parking. I've driven auto's for years & know how to use left foot braking when shuffling about. Trying to judge how much of a brush or prod to release the hold, is probably a practice thing though.
The VW user interface. I hate to be that bloke who just repeats stuff from the web, but it's awful. If it was a new iPhone IOS release, I'd stick my beloved XR on eBay & go back to Android. It' bad enough having to delve into menus at speed, just to change the A/C, but the problem is inconsistency - sometimes it takes a gesture, sometimes a prod, sometimes six prods & then pauses for a second & tries to do the six things it thought you wanted.
Speed limit recognition. Completely unreliable. First time I felt the car slowing itself for a 30 limit was amazing. Then of course, it decided not to. And then it did, so was completely ignored.
No climate & driver/passenger climate zoning in a £40k+ car. Only a/c.
It's big. Really big. Motorways & towns were fine. Little lanes were not good - warnings & alarms everywhere when passing points came into play.
Charging. Cr*p. We'd exhausted the charge by day 2, so I (naively) assumed I could just go to a charger, swipe my card
& crack on. No, but downloading the Pod Point app & heading off to Tesco Kingsbridge was easy peasy until I arrived at said Tesco to find the PP app refused to confirm it actually had a charge point there. Decided to return in 24 hours to find it showing an out of order sign. Gave up. Problem is my PP account is pre loaded with £20 & I no longer own a plug in. Hmmm.
So, in conclusion, TLDR etc.
Great people carrier with masses of well thought out family friendly design
Needs a home charger if the rest of the network is like South Hams/South Devon. Charging at night & having 30+ miles on leccy, then longer trips at 47mpg would suit me fine.
User interface needs a complete overhaul. (I'm no IT engineer, but spent 25+ years in FinTech in The City, i so I'm not a complete duffer when it comes to technology. Ish...)
I thought 38mpg for the whole 800miles average wasn't bad, given 500++ of that was petrol only with a 1.4l engine.
Questions?
Chs, CF
Edited by CardinalFang on Tuesday 28th June 16:43
Well observed on the lack of chargers on the south coast, it's a common theme across the whole south coast of England in my experience and I can't work out why. Surely the authorities down there are attuned to attracting day trippers? And day trippers with EVs/hybrids are very likely to want/need a charge during their visit. I drive an EV and live in central southern England, I like day trips down to the south coast and have found it enormously frustrating that destination car parks in seaside towns seem to have absolutely no EV chargers at all. Madness.
Thanks - I've been looking at these!
So basically ignoring the tech that I wouldn't get (lane departure, speed limit recognition, radar cruise, charging, etc) a 2.0 TDi Style version (with 3 zone climate control) sounds pretty good. Not really any bigger than our current Touareg but with heaps more versatility.
So basically ignoring the tech that I wouldn't get (lane departure, speed limit recognition, radar cruise, charging, etc) a 2.0 TDi Style version (with 3 zone climate control) sounds pretty good. Not really any bigger than our current Touareg but with heaps more versatility.
Rosscow said:
Thanks - I've been looking at these!
So basically ignoring the tech that I wouldn't get (lane departure, speed limit recognition, radar cruise, charging, etc) a 2.0 TDi Style version (with 3 zone climate control) sounds pretty good. Not really any bigger than our current Touareg but with heaps more versatility.
I reckon too. You’ve still got the dashboard interface to contend with but familiarity & (I’d expect) VW upgrades would get round a lot of that. So basically ignoring the tech that I wouldn't get (lane departure, speed limit recognition, radar cruise, charging, etc) a 2.0 TDi Style version (with 3 zone climate control) sounds pretty good. Not really any bigger than our current Touareg but with heaps more versatility.
Nice review, thanks, interesting reading just how frustrating the driver assistance and tech was. A lot of the complaints that one reads about does prompt a thought as to how much would they be reduced by familiarity. But you had this for long enough and sufficient miles over varied roads to get over that hurdle. Seems you didn't which says a lot.
There's a Citroen loaner on my drive at the moment, completely different type of vehicle so not relevant to your needs, but the stuff you're complaining about on the Multivan, and as others have pointed out probably the same complaints possible on other VW stuff, just works on the French thing, and anything which find irritating or interfering can be easily turned off. Proper knobs and switches for dealing with HVAC and other frequently needed stuff too. By the end of the first journey in it, 25 miles around one hour, completely at ease with it, then a read of the manual for bits that weren't obvious rounded off the corners. OK not perfect but even so. Who'd a thunk it, French, tech, and working.
There's a Citroen loaner on my drive at the moment, completely different type of vehicle so not relevant to your needs, but the stuff you're complaining about on the Multivan, and as others have pointed out probably the same complaints possible on other VW stuff, just works on the French thing, and anything which find irritating or interfering can be easily turned off. Proper knobs and switches for dealing with HVAC and other frequently needed stuff too. By the end of the first journey in it, 25 miles around one hour, completely at ease with it, then a read of the manual for bits that weren't obvious rounded off the corners. OK not perfect but even so. Who'd a thunk it, French, tech, and working.
FiF said:
Nice review, thanks, interesting reading just how frustrating the driver assistance and tech was. A lot of the complaints that one reads about does prompt a thought as to how much would they be reduced by familiarity. But you had this for long enough and sufficient miles over varied roads to get over that hurdle. Seems you didn't which says a lot.
There's a Citroen loaner on my drive at the moment, completely different type of vehicle so not relevant to your needs, but the stuff you're complaining about on the Multivan, and as others have pointed out probably the same complaints possible on other VW stuff, just works on the French thing, and anything which find irritating or interfering can be easily turned off. Proper knobs and switches for dealing with HVAC and other frequently needed stuff too. By the end of the first journey in it, 25 miles around one hour, completely at ease with it, then a read of the manual for bits that weren't obvious rounded off the corners. OK not perfect but even so. Who'd a thunk it, French, tech, and working.
Yes, I think with time, you’d get used to it, maybe like switching from Android to IOS, or Left to Right hand drive or Sky to Virgin. I know I wouldn’t get past a test drive & have pretty much decided I need a dashboard like you describe.There's a Citroen loaner on my drive at the moment, completely different type of vehicle so not relevant to your needs, but the stuff you're complaining about on the Multivan, and as others have pointed out probably the same complaints possible on other VW stuff, just works on the French thing, and anything which find irritating or interfering can be easily turned off. Proper knobs and switches for dealing with HVAC and other frequently needed stuff too. By the end of the first journey in it, 25 miles around one hour, completely at ease with it, then a read of the manual for bits that weren't obvious rounded off the corners. OK not perfect but even so. Who'd a thunk it, French, tech, and working.
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