Volkswagen Crafter Van Range Car Review

Facts At A Glance VAN: Volkswagen Crafter range ENGINES: 5-cylinder 2.5-litre TDI diesel 88, 109, 136 or 164bhp MAX PAYLOAD: 2,670kg LOAD VOLUME: 7m3 – 17m3 GROSS VEHICLE WEIGHTS: 3.0t, 3.5t, 5.0t

CRAFTER EFFECTS

Our Rating: 7.1 / 10

You Would Expect A Collaboration Between Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz To Turn Up A Highly-Evolved Commercial Vehicle And The Volkswagen Crafter Does Little To Disappoint. Steve Walker Reports...

Volkswagen isn’t exactly renowned for its flamboyant design philosophy. The marque has built its name on keeping things simple styling-wise with clean, understated lines maintained as a constant theme running throughout the car and van range. All of which ensured that the first pictures of the Volkswagen Crafter panel van came as something of a shock. The traditionally conservative large panel van market was the last place you would have expected Volkswagen to stick its creative neck out and yet here was a van with an impossibly chunky front end and road presence to burn.

The Crafter is certainly a massive departure from the dull but worthy LT model which it replaces and it can only serve to highlight the unremarkable appearance of Volkswagen’s smaller Transporter panel vans. There’s also little doubt that the way the Crafter looks will not be to everyone’s taste. The huge four-bar cattle grid grille is pushed upwards and outwards on a raised section of the bonnet that’s framed by huge, vertically-stacked headlamp clusters. A thick bumper section below adds to the imposing effect that was, apparently inspired by the VW Constellation heavy truck range that’s on sale in South America.

It’s true, from the front the Crafter has more than a hint of dump truck about it but as you venture rearward, there’s a different sense of nagging familiarity. The thick swage line carved into each flank and the clearly-defined wheelarches raised up from the bodywork serve as clear indications to the ardent commercial vehicle spotter that the Crafter is not all Volkswagen’s own work. From the A-Pillars back, the Crafter is largely identical to its Mercedes-Benz Sprinter sister vehicle. The two vans are built side by side at Daimler Chrysler’s Dusseldorf and Ludwigsfelde plants in Germany as part of a collaboration that allowed both marques to spread development costs while letting Volkswagen free-up capacity for production of the Transporter. It’s an interesting move because both products go head to head at the top end of the UK large panel van market but these automotive giants obviously subscribe to the old adage about keeping your friends close and your enemies even closer. They did, after all, work together on the previous generation Sprinter and LT models.

There’s more than just the starkly-contrasting styling directions to separate the Crafter and the Sprinter. The vans employ different engines and Volkswagen’s decision to fit common-rail injection technology in the Crafter was something of a watershed moment for the brand. The old LT used common-rail engines borrowed from the Sprinter but elsewhere in their range, Volkswagen persevered with the theoretically less advanced unit injection technology, achieving some impressive results. The superior refinement of common-rail injection was always going to be the future, however, and the Crafter gets VW’s own third generation common-rail engine. It’s a 5-cylinder 2.5-litre unit that uses piezo injectors to deliver multiple high-pressure injections of fuel to each cylinder for more efficient combustion. The engine adapts to the demands being placed on it by the driver, striking a continuously variable balance between fuel economy and performance.

The Crafter’s engine uses variable geometry turbocharging, exhaust gas recirculation, a particle filter and a catalytic converter to help maintain the lowest possible emissions levels and justify its hi-tech billing. It is offered in four states of tune starting with the entry-level 89bhp model, then extending up through 109bhp and 136bhp versions to the range-topping 164bhp derivative. Torque is the van driver’s best friend and none of these units will be found wanting. Even the least powerful option pumps out 220Nm between 1,750 and 2,500rpm while the 164bhp big hitter has 350Nm on tap at 2,000rpm. The engines deliver their power in a remarkably smooth fashion and even the 109bhp unit has some real forcefulness to it.

The Crafter is available in the massive range of body options that has become the norm with large panel vans these days. There are three basic gross vehicle weights of 3.0, 3.5 and 5.0 tonnes. Then you have three wheelbases, giving rise to four load lengths. Three roof heights are also offered and when you multi