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I’ve just bade a fondish farewell to our long-term-test VW Caddy Cargo Commerce Maxi 4MOTION.

Fondish? Well, what on earth can one say about a van whose dashboard clearly displays the words ‘Air conditioning’ when it doesn’t have such a facility fitted?

Apparently, you only get to enjoy icy breezes if the display also shows a logo that looks a bit like a snowflake. Bad news if you happened to be driving around (as I was) in this year’s boiling summer temperatures.

It’s a pity because in most other respects this VW is an incredibly admirable product.

Apart from the occasional reluctance of the nearside load area door to shut first time around, and the odd creak from the suspension, it felt pretty solidly built. That was reassuring as I embarked on a (heavily-laden) journey of over 1,000 miles that took me
from Herefordshire to the ferry port at Holyhead in North Wales, across the Irish Sea to Dublin, down to County

Cork, back up to Dublin, over the sea and back home again.

I drove across Wales in preference to enduring the UK’s dilapidated motorway network, and Caddy pulled strongly up some demanding Welsh hills despite all the weight it had on-board. Its smooth gear-change made the whole exercise that much easier.

It happily tackled some excruciatingly tight bends too – it handles the roads remarkably well.

Heading up Ireland’s M8 and M7 motorways towards Dublin in torrential rain made me almost pathetically grateful for Caddy’s plentiful on-board safety devices (some of which are optional extras, it should be added). I was rather less impressed however by the constant stream of nanny-knows- best advisory messages from the dashboard, most of which are intended to help you cut your fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

I know such missives are well-meant. They can also be extremely irritating, although I readily concede that had I obeyed them I might have achieved a better mpg figure.

Happily, Caddy offers a comfortable driving position and I eventually got used to the electronic parking brake release. The system’s auto hold function which stops you rolling backwards on steep inclines was certainly welcome.

The need for some tight low-speed manoeuvring in the centre of Cork city meant that I grew to be even more appreciative of the clear image delivered by the van’s (optional) rear- view camera.

Heaving lots of kilos into the roomy and easily-accessible cargo area improved the otherwise adequate- rather-than-outstanding ride. Noting that the DAB radio automatically switched to a selection of Irish radio stations as soon as I was on Irish soil enabled me to overcome any concerns about in- cab noise by tuning into RTE Radio 1, turning it up, and shouting at it when I heard anything that displeased me.

Made a change from regularly shouting at BBC Radio 4 instead.

End-of-term report