Two weeks with the new Toyota HiAce V6 petrol auto van.

[Dr Smith]

In case anyone is remotely interested we had the chance to hire for two weeks a new HiAce van auto with the 3.5L V6 petrol while our Transit Custom was in a panel shop. While my staff spent most of the time in it I took it home for one night with also a full day behind the wheel.

Straight off the bat….a party group at happy hour in a pub would drink less, I’m talking struggling to get 400km out of a 70L tank with an average over 15+ L/100Km with payloads loads between 200-300kg in mostly urban driving at an average speed that showed 28km/hr. Yes there was the odd spirited driving as how often will a “white fridge” on wheels come across your path with over 200kW?

The official fuel econo figure is 12.0L/100km but unless you live on a freeway and only drive on a freeway it will never get remotely close.

Our Transit Custom gets to 700+Km every time with a 75L tank, yes it’s a diesel obviously however our Budget dealer didn’t have any diesel models of the new HiAce. Toyota quotes 8.2L/100Km for the HiAce 4cyl diesel auto. (Transit Custom auto real world, mostly urban/city driving is a bit over 9L/100Km after 64,000km with us)

On the other hand, the whole powertrain combo is silky smooth, traditional torque converter auto mated to a free-revving engine which I’d say is easily the best combo of any van on the market provided you own a petrol station.

The cabin is spacious, everything easy to find and use although I couldn’t find how to turn off the voice warning’s on approaching schools, rail crossings etc…louder radio volume fixed that.

The load area is smaller than most lwb vans and the two cut-outs for internal steps at the side sliding doors takes away too much load width just behind the front seats as well.

The internal floor to roof height is also lower than expected and we couldn’t place the hand trolley upright like in the Transit Custom either. The rear load floor is also a fair bit higher than the Transit Custom and it becomes more obvious after a day of loading and unloading.

No rear barn/wings doors also stops forklift loading and means we would could never use one on a full-time basis unless you only use Euro pallets as an 80cm wide pallet will easily fit through the side door opening, as it will in any competitor van in our market.

So, in summary, great to drive, less real world usable rear cargo space then Custom, Trafic, and Transporter while lastly in petrol too expensive to run for a daily delivery van.

PS. No perfomance figures were recorded because we were too busy laughing when the brain-dead tried overtaking on the inside when they realised their lane was ending...