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

The Citroen Dispatch and Peugeot Expert have both undergone a major revamp, replacing ageing models that had long passed their sell-by date.

Whereas the old models shared the same basic design as Fiat Professional’s Scudo, this time around Citroen and Peugeot’s parent PSA has parted company with the Italian manufacturer. Fiat has forged links with Renault instead and is replacing the Scudo with a re-badged Trafic under the Talento banner.

The Trafic is, of course, also sold by Vauxhall as the Vivaro, and Nissan will soon be marketing its variant as the NV300.

Fundamentally the same vehicle, the new Dispatch and Expert, like their predecessors, will also be sold by Toyota as the Proace. All three vans are distinguished by external styling differences, and while the Dispatch has a soft, friendly look to it with headlamps mounted high up and a short bonnet, the Expert has a more aggressive appearance. The Proace is more in tune with Toyota’s current house style.

Customers for the new Dispatch/Expert/Proace are faced with a van with one roof height but three body lengths with up to 6.6m3 of cargo space. Payload capacity is up by around 200kg compared with the previous offering, and power comes courtesy of either a 1.6-litre (95hp, 115hp) or 2.0-litre diesel (120hp, 150hp, 180hp).

We decided to sample Citroen’s Dispatch Enterprise M BlueHDi 120, which has, as its designation suggests, 120hp on tap.

M denotes the middle body length, with XS and XL either side, and Enterprise is the middle-ranking trim. X is the entry-level specification while Enterprise Plus sits at the top of the line-up.

All Dispatches are sold with the BlueHDi label and are fitted with stop/start. The aim is to reduce engine idling in traffic jams and at the lights, thereby cutting fuel usage and CO2 emissions.

The Dispatch is not sold solely as a van – it comes as a crew van too, as a nine-seater Combi, and as a platform cab for special conversions.

Load area

Access to the cargo bay is by means of twin rear doors plus a sliding door on each side.
On our model the side doors operated electrically. It’s an extra-cost option and one seldom if ever seen on a van until now. To open and close them you press buttons on the key fob or on the dashboard.

Our Dispatch was one of the very first to arrive in the country and Citroen was, alas, unable to give us any option prices at the time of writing, and the website’s price list was still for the outgoing model in late September.

A sensor can be installed beneath the vehicle, which you wave your foot under to operate the doors if you have an armful of parcels – assuming you have the fob in your pocket.

If it looks as though you are about to get your hand trapped between the moving door and the B pillar, then do not panic: push the edge of the door firmly and it will go backwards.

Operated manually, the rear doors can be swung through 90º, and through 180º if you undo the easy-to-release stays, which open to reveal a 5.3m3 load area with a full-height, opaque steel bulkhead to prevent items sliding forward and finishing up in the cab.

At the bottom of the bulkhead is a flap that can be folded down to allow extra-long items to be slid beneath the nearside passenger seat (the cab is a three-seater). It extends the cargo bed by 1162mm if you load all the way through to the footwell.

Six tie-down points are provided plus a 12V power point close to the rear doors on the nearside. The floor is protected by a tailored cover, and part-panelling on the doors and sides gives them some protection against minor scratches and scrapes. However, the bare wheel boxes remain vulnerable to damage.

It is worth noting that the towing limit is higher than it was with the previous model, at 2500kg as opposed to 2000kg, while the van’s overall height of 1.9m will ease access to multistorey car parks.

Cab and equipment

Housing three-abreast in a cab of this size is always going to be a squeeze and the new Dispatch is no exception. The centre passenger’s legroom is limited, with the occupant’s right knee jammed against the moulding, which bulges out from the dashboard to accommodate the gear lever.

Fold down the centre section of the middle seat back and twizzle it around and it turns into a useful little desk. It’s big enough to accommodate a laptop and comes complete with a tray to hold USB sticks and other bits and pieces, and an elasticated band to keep paperwork tidy.

Fold the middle seat cushion back and you will find an oddly shaped hidden compartment that you could use to stash a smartphone. Tug a strap at the bottom of the outboard passenger seat and you can fold it upwards to create extra space on the cab floor for parcels, thereby adding a notional 0.5m3 to your load cube. All this passenger seat configurability is provided under the Moduwork banner.

Other storage facilities include three bins in each door, the two lowest of which are difficult to reach when the doors are shut because the seats are so close to them. That is one of the penalties you pay if you try to shoehorn three seats into a cab that is really only a two-seater.

The handbrake lever sits between the driver and passenger seats. On the previous model it was, somewhat eccentrically, positioned between the driver’s seat and the door.

You can make use of a lidded, but not lockable, glovebox with a shelf below it; a lidded compartment on top of the fascia; and a shelf in the middle of the dashboard close to a 12V power point and a USB port. Another 12V socket can be found in a cubbyhole in front of the passengers along with an audio jack.
Two cup-holders sit on top of the fascia, one of which plays host to a removable ashtray.