THE BLING & I
Forget the fancy, basic Trafic’s terrific
I NIPPED over to a car launch in Suffolk last week in this, a pretty blingy Renault Trafic van.
Suffolk is beautiful. If you live there, I’m very jealous.
I digress, back to the wheels.
I say pretty blingy and I mean pretty blingy. In the spec I drove, this Formula Edition Trafic costs an eye-watering 28 large, plus VAT.
Admittedly it had nearly four grand’s worth of optional extras fitted but a tradesman’s going to need to be earning a pretty healthy day rate to meet those monthly repayments.
Leather gear knobs and alloy wheels aside, what really makes this van great is available in the lesser models.
The dCi 145 engine and gearbox are something pretty special.
This turbo-charged 1.6-litre diesel engine is a peach.
Masses of lag-free torque gives you sports car performance through the gears and on a long run the leggy sixth gear keeps the engine revs down and accordingly the fuel consumption.
According to the trip computer, the
600 miles I managed in our week together were done at an average of
45mpg – not bad considering the considerable weight of my right foot. An 80-litre fuel tank and a 20-litre AdBlue bottle means pesky pump stops are kept to a minimum, too.
It’s really quiet and refined to drive – like a car. Unless you’re standing next to the radiator grille you wouldn’t know it was a diesel at all.
Another trip, earlier in the week, involved loading a Yamaha R1 superbike in the back and returning it to Yamaha HQ in Surrey.
It was only then I appreciated one of the many extras fitted to this van. When you’re on your own and precariously balanced with £20,000 of half strapped-in motorbike, an additional sliding side door (£280) seems like a very good idea indeed. I was slightly concerned about the insubstantial nature of the tie-down hooks but they worked and said bike was delivered back shiny side up.
With 200kgs of motorbike in the back, the Trafic was even better to drive, feeling much more comfortable over bumps and surface imperfections. With
340Nm of torque available at just
1,500rpm, the engine didn’t even seem to notice the extra load in the back.
Speaking of loads in the back, the Trafic will carry just over a tonne and will tow two tonnes, as long as it’s independently braked.
Apart from cosmetic bling, the Formula Edition gives you a handy smartphone cradle (conveniently in front of the USB charger) a powerful
15-speaker DAB/bluetooth sound system, air con and what Renault dub the “Mobile Office”.
This, in reality, is a fold-down middle seat with an indent to store a lap-top, two cup holders and a really natty spring-loaded clip for stopping your massively inflated invoices blowing around everywhere. It’s available in lesser models, too.
There’s a hands-free facility for your phone but it’s a bit rubbish at anything other than crawling pace unless you enjoy shouting. Brian Blessed would probably be OK with it.
So, in all, it was nice to try this special edition Renault Trafic if only to reacquaint myself with this van and, in particular, this engine. My advice would be to skip the fancy floor mats, flashy alloys and yellow stickers and plump for a standard, basic Renault Trafic dCi 145 – it’s a belter.
The money you save would not only allow you to write your customers smaller invoices but you could probably afford a nice family holiday in Suffolk, too.