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

3rd Report

In recent weeks the Corolla Commercial has shifted a mountain of packaging waste, time-served office furniture, including a decrepit and fast-disintegrating office chair, some ancient electrical equipment and a pile of theatrical costumes. Roomier in practice than it appears to be on paper, the load area swallowed the lot at different times without complaint.

Shoving all these items aboard then unloading them at their various destinations underlined how easy it is to access the cargo bay, with a rear hatch plus a hinged door on each side. A sliding side door would probably be better, but Corolla Commercial uses the five-door Corolla car bodyshell, and you can’t have everything.

Payload capacity is modest, but that didn’t matter because everything we carried was bulky rather than heavy, apart from the aforementioned chair.

What did matter was the reassuring presence of a solid steel half-height bulkhead topped off by a mesh grille. Neither the driver nor the passenger had any desire to be walloped between the shoulder blades by a flying pierce of office kit or to be engulfed by a cascade of packaging waste the first time the van braked heavily.

We could have secured some of these items by lashing them to the load bay’s six tie-down points. But we didn’t.

We cannot help but wonder whether Corolla Commercial with its 1.3m³ cargo box ought to be considered as a serious alternative to a high-cube van with a 2.0m³-plus cargo box by businesses that seldom use the carrying space the latter offers, and that aren’t on payload-sensitive work. 

The Toyota looks a lot more attractive than any high-cube we can think of, especially when parked on a domestic drive. Nor is there any risk of it fouling overhead obstructions in locations where height clearance is tight, although high-cubes do have the advantage that they are invariably fitted with side doors that slide.

Corolla Commercial’s rear side windows are opaque, which helps shield its cargo from prying eyes. The hatch-type back door is glazed however, and although the glass is tinted which makes peering in more difficult, there is always the risk that someone will smash it to get at the load bay’s contents.

Our advice would be to mount a sturdy security grille on the inside of the glazing; just in case.

It is also worth bearing in mind that the absence of a spare wheel (you get a tyre inflator/sealer instead) has created a long, wide and deep space beneath the load bed. It can be used to conceal power tools and other items you would prefer not to lose.

Repeated runs backwards and forwards down the A40 between Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire, and Monmouth just over the Welsh border, have left us mightily impressed by Corolla Commercial’s performance. Even when you leave it in Eco driving mode it still accelerates strongly, which means you can whip past slower-moving traffic with ease.

As a consequence one of the van’s most-useful built-in safety devices has turned out to be Road Sign Assist. Among other things it flags up a warning the minute you break the prevailing speed-limit, which should prompt you to back off.

Opting for Eco does not appear to have a dramatic effect on the way the cab heater operates as can be the case with some light commercials. Nor does it stop the heated seats from working.