What Van? Britain's biggest and best van buyers' guide

4th Report

The benefit that a crew van gives to its operator is its versatility; specifically the ability to carry both people and goods, either both together or separately.

It is a function the long-wheelbase Berlingo Enterprise Edition Crew Van performs well.

It may be stating the obvious but if you need to carry a team of workers, then load-carrying capacity will be compromised. In the Berlingo load volume goes from 1.8m³ with the rear seats occupied to 3.8m³ with the rear seats and passenger seat folded and the load-through hatch in the bulkhead open.

The transformation of the interior from five-seater to two-seater is achieved by unclasping bolts at either end of the mesh bulkhead and sliding it forward on overhead rails to secure against the front seat backs, allowing the load area to be easily accessed by the two sliding side doors as well as the twin asymmetric rear doors. It is an ingenious, well-conceived system. Space for longer items such as pipes or step ladders can be freed up by opening the hatch door in the bulkhead and folding down the front passenger seat. It is worth bearing in mind that it is more aerodynamic and therefore fuel efficient to carry long items inside the van than on a roof rack.

If you need to accommodate two passengers along with the driver, it is possible to keep a single rear seat in place while folding down the other two to still make use of the load-through hatch.

While not exceeding my Berlingo’s maximum payload of 843kg, I’ve made use of its flexible load-carrying provision to take lumps of broken concrete to a waste disposal centre together with numerous sacks of chopped bamboo and several obsolete electrical items.

The load-through hatch proved to be invaluable when we needed the Berlingo to carry the poles of a pair of clothes rails along with sundry bags of clothes and shoes to a local boot sale. A curious piece of kit Citroën includes in the package is a large, removable fabric sock that can be used to secure the ends of long items protruding into the cab. It presumably protects the driver too but I confess I did not make use of it.

The load bed floor along with the lower side wall panels is protected from minor damage by hard-wearing plastic and the crew van gets four tie down rings to keep loads in place.

The rear doors open to 90º and can be swung through to 180º by releasing the stays on the hinges. Unfortunately, I found that in strong winds the doors were prone to slam shut, which could potentially cause an injury to somebody loading or unloading the van.

Overall however, Citroën has produced a crew van that, when required, can be transformed into as effective a load lugger as a single-cab van.

Report card: Load carrying = 4/5

A versatile and practical load carrier.

Citroen Berlingo Enterprise Edition Crew Van XL BlueHDi 100