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

3rd Report

If a touch-screen in the middle of a van’s dashboard clearly displays the words ‘air-conditioning’ then a driver would naturally assume that an air-conditioning system is fitted. That assumption would be completely wrong in our long-term-test VW Caddy Cargo Commerce Maxi 4MOTION’s case, however.

Despite the fact that the phrase ‘Air conditioning’ stares you in the face, air conditioning is not present. All you get instead is air blown at you at whatever happens to be the prevailing temperature outside the vehicle unless you turn up the heater; not something I’ve been inclined to do in recent weeks given how hot the weather has been.

Apparently you only get air conditioning in a Caddy if the touch-screen also includes a symbol which looks as though it is meant to denote frost, which you press to get cool. If that isn’t present – and it isn’t on our Caddy – then you continue to boil.

Bizarrely, it took two visits to VW’s own workshops to determine that the reason the van’s air conditioning wasn’t working – something we highlighted in our last report – was that it wasn’t installed to begin with.

So why on earth does the display say that it’s got it when it hasn’t? The only explanation VW’s UK head office could come up with was to the effect that that’s the way the factory makes these vans.

But why does it build them like that? Nobody seems to know.

It’s all very odd, and in more than 35 years of road testing and writing about commercial vehicles, it’s not a situation I’ve ever encountered before. In these strike-prone times I will leave it to readers to anticipate the likely reaction of unionised drivers working for a major fleet who are issued with a van they believe has air conditioning only to discover it hasn’t on the hottest day of the year.

Their annoyance is likely to be magnified when a display on the dashboard reprimands them for driving around with the windows wound down in order to keep cool because it increases aerodynamic drag and thus fuel consumption.

All I can suggest to VW is that it gets on to the factory immediately and ensures this air conditioning info anomaly is sorted out. It’s utterly ridiculous; and it’s certainly uncool.

It’s also a huge pity because in other respects our Caddy is an impressive piece of kit. 

It’s solidly constructed, pulls strongly even when heavily-laden, and boasts more on-board safety devices then you could shake the proverbial stick at. It handles well and the 4MOTION system has allowed me to make some modest forays off-road with confidence – admittedly in bone-dry conditions and accompanied by clouds of dust.

I’ve always liked VW vans – Transporter in all its incarnations in particular – and I still view Caddy as a praiseworthy, durable, working tool; just so long as you don’t make the mistake of believing everything its misleading touchscreen tells you.