Engine: 2.5-litre CDi 95bhp or 120bhp DIMENSIONS: (LWB High Roof) length/width/height 5670/1737/2540mm GROSS VEHICLE WEIGHTS: 2.8, 3.2 or 3.5 tonnes MAXIMUM PAYLOADS: 917-1,616kg
MAXIMUM EFFICENCY
Our Rating: 5.6 / 10
LDV Are Back In The Mainstream Of The UK Panel Van Market With Their Maxus. Steve Walker Reports…
Almost all the mainstream light commercial vehicle manufacturers are car manufacturers first and foremost. Visit the franchised dealerships representing these marques and the vans, if there are any, tend to be tucked away in a dingy corner of the forecourt playing second fiddle to the passenger-carrying models under the showroom spotlights. In the majority of cases, this has little bearing on the quality of the service being offered. It’s just occasionally, that a business customer may feel the people he’s dealing with aren’t fully tuned in to his needs. With LDV this is less likely to happen. The company only make vans, so the whole focus of their business is van buyers and their specific requirements. Until recently, the problem was that the vans LDV made were long past their best but the arrival of the Maxus changed all that.
It was a long time in coming, the Maxus. The LDV Convoy first hit the streets back in 1996 when Paul Gascoigne was still running the England midfield and even then, rather like Gazza, its best days were behind it. The Convoy was a mild refresh of the Rover 400 Series van which, at that time, had already been in service for longer than most people cared to remember. All this means that the Maxus arrived to take over from a Convoy that has long since passed pensionable age.
The result of a £500m investment on the part of LDV, the Maxus is key to the company’s long-term survival. It’s a large panel van offered in short and long wheelbase form with three gross vehicle weights of 2.8, 3.2 and 3.5 tonnes. Further scope for mixing and matching is provided by the three roof heights. The various bodystyle options give rise to load volumes ranging between 7m3 and 11.4m3 with the available payload falling within a 917kg to 1,616kg span. The line-up should be diverse enough to let the Maxus meet the large panel van needs of most operators.
One area where the old Convoy panel van was particularly below par was in the contents of its engine bay. The Maxus takes a reassuringly modern approach here with a 2.5-litre CDi common-rail diesel unit that’s a world a way from the Convoy’s diesel engine – a unit for which the term ‘noise, vibration and harshness’ (NVH) could have been coined. The Maxus’ powerplant is available in 95bhp or 120bhp forms but we may see a more muscular 145bhp version in the not too distant future. In both cases, peak power is delivered at 3,800rpm but it’s the torque that the engines generate which will be of more interest to prospective buyers. 184lb/ft is a decent amount of pulling power to eek out of a 95bhp engine and with 221lb/ft, the 120bhp unit is more impressive still. In both cases the torque hits home at usefully low engine speeds giving the Maxus enough oomph to get briskly off the line with a heavy load on board and reducing the need for frantic gear swapping when a steep incline is encountered.
Get behind the wheel and the engine’s refinement is well up to scratch. It idles smoothly with vibration in the cab well suppressed and at motorway speeds, the engine’s note is far from intrusive. The 120bhp option is definitely worth paying extra for if you plan on making the most of the Maxus’ payload capacity but the smaller unit would be adequate for lighter duties. On starting both the Maxus engines, you have to wait for the glow plug light to extinguish before twisting the key. It’s a process that’s virtually unheard of in vans nowadays, a quaint throwback to models of yesteryear and one that could easily become irritating over time.
LDV have managed to design a body shell for the Maxus that is 20% stiffer than the old Convoy’s and this pays off in the form of more composed handling. The standard of construction is also far in excess of past LDV models with the traditional rattles and creeks almost completely absent. Dash-mounted gear levers are now de’rigeur in panel va