Selection
When needed to move to another apartment, the question arose about the choice of personal belongings transportation.
Available options were:
1).Classic
Services of a company (or” private owner”) engaged in transportation.
2).Novelty
2.1).Vozilla Nissan eNV200
2.2).Traficar Renault Kangoo
2.3).CityBee Fiat Ducato / Citroen Jumper / VW Crafter
Vozilla and Traficar – good, but given the rates, the time necessary for relocation and the car sizes – expensive and time consuming.
Classic – for a lover, and not being such (this option is, IMO, more stressful and is more complicated from logistics perspective) and not owning things that you cannot move yourself – it was not an option.
What left was CityBee.
Price: 189PLN (48USD) a day – excellent! You can transport belongings as you want, when you want (even at night) and do not be in a hurry and concentrate on other, more important, sides of the relocation.
But, unfortunately, there is no much information on these cars in the Internet. Moreover, I never drove such a large car and also there is nobody who could babysit my child, so it was necessary to check whether the child fit fine in his seat together with wife, well, and to make a test drive.
In order not to waste time choosing a car, familiarizing with it and getting used to it on the day/days of relocation, it was decided to allocate time in advance on a Sunday.
On Sundays shops are closed and, respectively, almost all vans are free and so it is easier to use the rental service.
Fortunately, all 3 vans were available on the closest parking lot.
Citroen Jumper (390l * 187w * 193h = ~14m3)
It was decided to start with Citroen Jumper (PHOTO).
I did not like on the air seat, because even with big height, my leg seemed to hang from the seat, which made some discomfort when changing gears.
Sound parktronic and audible alarm for the surrounding people is present, but without the camera there is no 100% confidence in complete safety when reversing.
An additional small plus, large compartments for things above the windshield. Competitors do not have such.
Air conditioning cools the cabin well.
Fiat Ducato (370l * 187w * 193h = ~13.3m3)
Then we switched to Fiat Ducato (PHOTO).
Interior of this van is very similar to the one of the Citroen Jumper.
And, wow! It has a rear view camera 🙂
The seat is usual, but I liked it more than the one in Citroen Jumper.
Air conditioning works as expected.
VW Crafter (345l * 176w * 196h = ~11.9m3)
And the last, VW Crafter (PHOTO).
Not the best variant. No parktronic, no audible alarm for the people around, no camera.
On the side walls there are no hooks (or I just did not find them).
Interior is differs from its predecessors, but some special shortcomings compared to others have not been noticed.
Air conditioning, unfortunately, did not show itself very well, the cooling level had to be twisted to the maximum and still the cabin was cooled for a long time and a comfortable temperature could not be achieved (and this is at the end of September).
An additional advantage could be a heavier gas pedal and a softer clutch pedal, which makes drive start smoother, engine seems more quiet and having greater agility.
Child
Child seat and wife freely housed in all three cabins. None of vans has ISOFIX mounts, but I actually did not really expected for it be there, although, in the case of such rental cars, the presence of ISOFIX makes sense.
Driving complexities
The 3 biggest problems when driving such car:
1).Turning right.
Cyclists and pedestrians are not viewable in the mirror or through the side window. The only way which may work is when turning, place the car as perpendicular as possible.
2).Reversing (in the case of Fiat Ducato this problem is minimized).
3).No interior rear-view mirror.
Reverse gear
To enable reverse gear, in all three vans you need to pull the lever on the shift knob to yourself and move the gear knob in the same way as you do when shifting to the first gear.
Note
If, suddenly, the key will not turn in the ignition – twist the wheel a little.
Final
Finally, Fiat Ducato was chosen for the relocation.
And, a small stone in the garden of CityBee. VW Crafter had very dirty windshield and there was no liquid in the washer (I did not check Citroen Jumper and Fiat Ducatio for the presence of liquid in the washer tank).
What to do in Wroclaw, Poland
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