Final Report
Despite its Gallic heritage, if the Citroën Berlingo Enterprise Edition Crew Van XL was a dinner it would be more bangers and mash than beef bourguignon.
Having put in six months of solid graft as an honest workhorse on the What Van? fleet, I have now bid the Berlingo a fond adieu.
Overall, the crew van impressed, with its versatility enabling it to serve competently as both a load lugger and a people carrier – although the lack of windows in the back does
make it gloomy and claustrophobic for rear-seat passengers.
The Berlingo’s popularity has grown in recent years. It consistently features in the top 10 monthly sales lists for LCVs and often vies to be the most popular compact van with its Stellantis stablemates, the Peugeot Partner and Vauxhall Combo. All are similar, of course, and to that list can be added the Fiat Professional Doblo Cargo and Toyota Proace City by dint of Toyota’s product-sharing deal with Stellantis.
With the rear seats and bulkhead in place, load volume is 1.8m3 but if you make use of the fold-down rear seating and under-seat storage when not carrying passengers this increases to 3.8m3. The cabin has a functional feel, with an old school handbrake positioned between the front seats and a key that actually has to be turned in the ignition. Storage provision inside the cabin is ample and includes an overhead shelf, 1.5L bottle holders in the front door pockets, a topbox storage compartment and cupholders at either end of the dashboard plus two more by the gear stick. It is not entirely without creature comforts either, the air-conditioning efficiently keeps the cabin cool in hot weather, DAB radio is included as standard and the 8in touchscreen is clear and easy to use.
Height and reach-adjustable steering and six-way adjustable driver’s seat with lumbar support make it easy to find the most suitable driving position. The 1.5L 100hp BlueHDI engine performs well both in urban and extra-urban environments, is impressively torquey even at low speeds and pulls strongly across the rev range. A turning circle of 11.4m helps to make the Enterprise XL easy to manoeuvre in tight city streets. The steering is nicely weighted and offers decent feedback on winding roads where it combines well with the notch-free six-speed manual gearbox.
On the minus side, some of the ADAS installed could irritate, particularly the over-zealous and shrill speed camera alert. Meanwhile, the dashboard-mounted indicator that tells the driver when to select a more economical gear is tiny and hard to see. My biggest gripe was with the hands-free phone pairing via Bluetooth. Receiving calls on the move was fine but the system failed to download my contacts or to recall ingoing or outgoing calls. Every time the ignition was turned, I was greeted by the message, ‘synchronisation failed’.
Load-carrying functionality was far more impressive. The transformation of the interior from five-seater to two-seater is achieved by unclasping bolts at either end of the mesh bulkhead and sliding it forward on overhead rails to secure against the front seat backs, allowing the load area to be easily accessed by the two sliding side doors as well as the twin asymmetric rear doors. It is an ingenious, well-conceived system. Space for longer items such as pipes or step ladders can be freed up by opening the hatch door in the bulkhead and folding down the front passenger seat. Commendably, Citroën has produced a crew van that, when required, can be transformed into as effective a load lugger as a single-cab van. Another positive is build quality, something for which Citroën has traditionally been less renowned than brands such as Volkswagen and Toyota, for example. The Berlingo, however, is robust, solidly put together and able to handle punishing work schedules.
End-of-term report
Practicality = 4/5
The crew van’s versatility serves it well.
Handling/performance = 4/5
For a work-focused van both are impressive.
Driver assistance features = 2/5
Hit and miss, too much is optional rather than standard.
Load carrying = 4/5
A versatile and practical load lugger.
Cabin = 3/5
Few frills but functional and comfortable enough.
Build quality = 4/5
Well-put together and able to soak up punishment.
Overall score: 70%
Citroen Berlingo Enterprise Edition Crew Van XL BlueHDi 100
Mileage 2,645mls
Official combined fuel economy 47.0mpg
Our average consumption 42.1mpg
Price (ex VAT) £25,130
Warranty 3yrs/60,000mls
Service intervals 2yrs/25,000mls
Load length 1,450mm
Load width (min/max) 1,229mm/1,550mm
Load bay height 1,243mm
Load volume (with seats folded) 3.8m3
Gross payload 843kg
Braked towing weight 1,250kg
Engine size/power 1,499cc/102hp
CO2 158g/km
Options (prices ex VAT)
Rear parking sensors £200
Colour touchscreen with Citroen Connect Navigation £450
Spare wheel £105
5th Report
The Berlingo crew van is unashamedly a functional van that has proven its worth as a willing, practical workhorse during the last several months on the What Van? fleet.
All the load-lugging the Berlingo has undertaken during this time has obviously meant I’ve spent a lot of time in the van’s cab, so what’s it like? Not luxurious, of course, but neither is it entirely free of creature comforts. Passengers sitting in the gloom of the back seats with no windows to look out of to break up the monotony of long journeys may bemoan their lot, but at least in this extended XL version they can’t complain about a lack of leg room.
Moving into the front of the cab and I’m definitely in favour of the roomy two-seat arrangement, with the handbrake in between the berths, as opposed to the more cramped three-seat alternative layout, even though this means you miss out on the work surface that can be created by pulling down the middle seat back in the three-person cab.
The driver’s and front passenger’s seats are comfortable and supportive, the former is six-way adjustable and replete with lumbar support and under seat storage space. The steering wheel is height and reach adjustable, thick and squared off at the bottom and pleasing to handle – although incongruously sporty when compared with some of the van’s more prosaic features, such as the 16in steel wheels, for example.
Annoyingly, the rearview mirror is still in place to give the driver a view of the solid bulkhead behind them. Citroën is not alone in failing to remove the mirror when it serves no useful purpose but it is irritating that so many manufacturers neglect to do so.
Luckily, the large side mirrors adequately compensate for this oversight.
There is a variety of storage provision in the interior, most of which is useful, such as the full-width overhead storage shelf that can accommodate everything from paperwork to laptops to lunchboxes and the 1.5-litre bottle holders in the front door bins. In addition, a topbox storage compartment is large enough to hold a 15in laptop or A4 files, and a glovebox sits above an open storage compartment on the passenger side of the cab. Cup holders for the front passenger and driver are positioned on either side of the dashboard. With continental tastes in mind, there is also a petite cup holder for an espresso-sized coffee.
An assortment of other small cubby holes and shallow trays are best left empty – unless you want their contents strewn over the floor of the cab after driving over the first pothole.
The cabin tends to get misted up in heavy rain. I’ve found the only way to reliably keep it clear is to turn the air con up high and direct the flow at the windscreen while keeping the two-speed wipers on high.
Report card: Cabin = 3/5
Few frills but functional and comfortable enough.
Citroen Berlingo Enterprise Edition Crew Van XL BlueHDi 100
Mileage 2,606mls
Official combined fuel economy 47.0mpg
Our average consumption 42.7mpg
Price (ex VAT) £25,130
Warranty 3yrs/60,000mls
Service intervals 2yrs/25,000mls
Load length 1,450mm
Load width (min/max) 1,229mm/1,550mm
Load bay height 1,243mm
Load volume (with seats folded) 3.8m3
Gross payload 843kg
Braked towing weight 1,250kg
Engine size/power 1,499cc/102hp
CO2 158g/km
Options (prices ex VAT)
Rear parking sensors £200
Colour touchscreen with Citroen Connect Navigation £450
Spare wheel £105
4th Report
The benefit that a crew van gives to its operator is its versatility; specifically the ability to carry both people and goods, either both together or separately.
It is a function the long-wheelbase Berlingo Enterprise Edition Crew Van performs well.
It may be stating the obvious but if you need to carry a team of workers, then load-carrying capacity will be compromised. In the Berlingo load volume goes from 1.8m3 with the rear seats occupied to 3.8m3 with the rear seats and passenger seat folded and the load-through hatch in the bulkhead open.
The transformation of the interior from five-seater to two-seater is achieved by unclasping bolts at either end of the mesh bulkhead and sliding it forward on overhead rails to secure against the front seat backs, allowing the load area to be easily accessed by the two sliding side doors as well as the twin asymmetric rear doors. It is an ingenious, well-conceived system. Space for longer items such as pipes or step ladders can be freed up by opening the hatch door in the bulkhead and folding down the front passenger seat. It is worth bearing in mind that it is more aerodynamic and therefore fuel efficient to carry long items inside the van than on a roof rack.
If you need to accommodate two passengers along with the driver, it is possible to keep a single rear seat in place while folding down the other two to still make use of the load-through hatch.
While not exceeding my Berlingo’s maximum payload of 843kg, I’ve made use of its flexible load-carrying provision to take lumps of broken concrete to a waste disposal centre together with numerous sacks of chopped bamboo and several obsolete electrical items.
The load-through hatch proved to be invaluable when we needed the Berlingo to carry the poles of a pair of clothes rails along with sundry bags of clothes and shoes to a local boot sale. A curious piece of kit Citroën includes in the package is a large, removable fabric sock that can be used to secure the ends of long items protruding into the cab. It presumably protects the driver too but I confess I did not make use of it.
The load bed floor along with the lower side wall panels is protected from minor damage by hard-wearing plastic and the crew van gets four tie down rings to keep loads in place.
The rear doors open to 90º and can be swung through to 180º by releasing the stays on the hinges. Unfortunately, I found that in strong winds the doors were prone to slam shut, which could potentially cause an injury to somebody loading or unloading the van.
Overall however, Citroën has produced a crew van that, when required, can be transformed into as effective a load lugger as a single-cab van.
Report card: Load carrying = 4/5
A versatile and practical load carrier.
Citroen Berlingo Enterprise Edition Crew Van XL BlueHDi 100
Mileage 1,873mls
Official combined fuel economy 47.0mpg
Our average consumption 40.3mpg
Price (ex VAT) £25,130
Warranty 3yrs/60,000mls
Service intervals 2yrs/25,000mls
Load length 1,450mm
Load width (min/max) 1,229mm/1,550mm
Load bay height 1,243mm
Load volume (with seats folded) 3.8m3
Gross payload 843kg
Braked towing weight 1,250kg
Engine size/power 1,499cc/102hp
CO2 158g/km
Options (prices ex VAT)
Rear parking sensors £200
Colour touchscreen with Citroen Connect Navigation £450
Spare wheel £105
3rd Report
Once you’ve been living with a vehicle for a few months you begin to get to know its quirks and foibles, and so it is with my Berlingo Crew Van. Readers of a certain age may remember a 1970s children’s TV programme that took the five-minute slot before the more serious business of the Six O’Clock News took over.
It was called The Clangers and featured a community of small, knitted woollen mouse-like creatures who lived on a planet a bit like the moon and communicated through making squeaky whistling noises.
The Clangers were resurrected in 2015, when the show was narrated by Michael Palin of Monty Python fame, and I can now report that they seem to have made another come back, but this time they are residing behind the dashboard in my Citroën Berlingo.
Speed cameras are thick on the ground in south east London, where many streets are restricted to 20mph, and every time the Berlingo approaches one, a shrill ascending Clanger-like whistle lets the driver know about it, followed by an equally high-pitched descending hoot when the danger has passed.
It is undoubtedly helpful to be warned to slow down to avoid picking up a speeding fine, but if you’re spending long hours in the cab it becomes invasive and grates on the nerves – I wonder whether a visual speed sign alert might be more appropriate. Having said that, the dashboard-mounted indicator that tells the driver when to select a more economical gear is so discreet it is easy to miss.
I have found the Berlingo’s infotainment provision hit and miss. While I have no complaints about the simple to use and accurate sat-nav or the glitch-free DAB radio service, which is easy to adjust via steering wheel-mounted buttons, the hands-free phone pairing via Bluetooth leaves much to be desired. Receiving calls on the move is fine but the system has failed to download my contacts or to recall ingoing or outgoing calls. Every time I turn on the ignition, I am greeted by the message: ‘Synchronisation failed’.
The double-cab is separated from the load bay by a clever moveable meshed bulkhead, which offers versatility and allows occupants to see what’s in the back. The twin rear doors, however, are unglazed, which begs the question as to why the redundant rear-view mirror is still in place, seeing as how the driver must rely on the two wing mirrors to gauge what is going on behind the van. The rear side windows are also unglazed, making it a tad gloomy for back-seat passengers.
The Berlingo is agile and manoeuvrable in tight spaces, and reversing is made less stressful by the presence of rear parking sensors. These are only included, though, as
a £200 option when they really ought to be a standard fit.
If you want a rear-view camera to go with the rear parking sensors, it will set you back an extra £300.
Report card: Driver assistance features = 2/5
Hit and miss and too much is optional rather than standard.
Citroen Berlingo Enterprise Edition Crew Van XL BlueHDi 100
Mileage 1,337mls
Official combined fuel economy 47.0mpg
Our average consumption 40.3mpg
Price (ex VAT) £25,130
Warranty 3yrs/60,000mls
Service intervals 2yrs/25,000mls
Load length 1,450mm
Load width (min/max) 1,229mm/1,550mm
Load bay height 1,243mm
Load volume (with seats folded) 3.8m3
Gross payload 843kg
Braked towing weight 1,250kg
Engine size/power 1,499cc/102hp
CO2 158g/km
Options (prices ex VAT)
Rear parking sensors £200
Colour touchscreen with Citroen Connect Navigation £450
Spare wheel £105
2nd Report
‘Back to basics’ was a political slogan coined by then prime minister John Major in the 1990s that quite rapidly came to be viewed as being as hollow as the promises made about Brexit two decades later by some of his successors. ‘
When the phrase is applied to our long-term Berlingo Enterprise Edition Crew Van, however, it can be seen in a more positive light.
If you’re looking for a stylish, head-turner of an LCV packed to the gills with the latest gizmos then it’s not for you, but if you’re after a practical, frugal workhorse that drives well too, then it could be just the job.
The Enterprise Edition is not without creature comforts, the air-conditioning efficiently keeps the cabin cool in hot weather, DAB radio is included as standard and the 8in touchscreen is clear and easy to use. The Citroën Connect Navigation included on my van as an option can be relied upon to get you to your destination while the height and reach-adjustable steering wheel and six-way adjustable driver’s seat with lumbar support make it easy to find the most suitable driving position. I like the single passenger seat layout in the crew van that provides both driver and front passenger with plenty of shoulder room, allows for a manual handbrake to be fitted between the seats and means there is never a temptation to squeeze an unfortunate third person into the front of the cab. In addition, the front passenger seat in the crew van can be folded down to create more loadspace.
The 1.5-litre 100hp BlueHDI engine does not deliver blistering pace but performs well both in urban and extra-urban environments, is impressively torque-y even at low speeds and pulls strongly across the rev range. A turning circle of 11.4m helps to make the Enterprise XL easy to manoeuvre in tight city streets. This puts it on a par with the long-wheelbase Renault Kangoo but compares favourably to other LWB rivals such as the Ford Transit Connect (12.2m) and Volkswagen Caddy Maxi (12.1m).
The steering is nicely weighted and offers decent feedback when needed on winding roads where it combines well with the surprisingly slick six-speed manual gearbox. Meanwhile, the Berlingo seems to be equally content plodding along long stretches of motorway although the fact that the cruise control is not adaptable means I have not made use of it as I believe this can be more of a hindrance than a help to safety if you chance upon slow-moving or stationary traffic. Back within city limits and the Enterprise Edition’s side rubbing strips and hubcap-clad 16in steel wheels help to guard against the occupational hazards that could result in scrapes and scuffs.
Report card: Handling/performance = 4/5
For a no-nonsense working van both are impressive.
Enterprise Edition Crew Van XL BlueHDi 100
Mileage 1,165mls
Official combined fuel economy 47.0mpg
Our average consumption 42.7mpg
Price (ex VAT) £25,130
Warranty 3yrs/60,000mls
Service intervals 2yrs/25,000mls
Load length 1,450mm
Load width (min/max) 1,229mm/1,550mm
Load bay height 1,243mm
Load volume (with seats folded) 3.8m3
Gross payload 843kg
Braked towing weight 1,250kg
Engine size/power 1,499cc/102hp
CO2 158g/km
Options (prices ex VAT)
Rear parking sensors £200
Colour touchscreen with Citroen Connect Navigation £450
Spare wheel £105
1st Report
Citroën revamped the trim levels on its range of vans, including the Berlingo, in December last year.
The Berlingo consistently features in the top ten monthly sales lists for LCVs and often vies to be the most popular compact van with its Stellantis stablemate, the Peugeot Partner.
It should be noted that the models are also available badged as the Vauxhall Combo, Fiat Professional Doblo Cargo and Toyota Proace City as part of Toyota’s product-sharing deal with Stellantis.
Customers favouring the Citroën brand can now choose from Enterprise Edition and Driver Edition specs, which have replaced the previous Enterprise Pro and Driver Pro grades.
They can order their vans through Citroën’s new online reservation platform.
The manufacturer promises that customers who place an online reservation will be contacted within one business hour to confirm all the details and add any part-exchange appraisal. They then have the opportunity to pick their preferred Citroën Business Centre to supply the vehicle, and a local business manager will contact them to finalise and complete the order. Customers who progress their online reservation through to a confirmed order benefit from priority build and the option of home or office delivery.
The new arrival on What Van?’s fleet is an Enterprise Edition Crew Van in the longer XL body style. This derivative comes with five seats: two at the front, providing the occupants with plenty of personal space due to the lack of the middle seat, and three in the rear. The lack of windows in the back does make for a rather claustrophobic and dark environment for rear-seat passengers, but on the plus side it increases security if you want to make use of the fold-down rear seat row to create more storage space. The repositionable mesh bulkhead can be used to free up more space under the seats as well. With the rear seats and bulkhead in place, load volume is a modest 1.8m3 but if you make use of the fold-down rear seating and under-seat storage when provision for passengers is not required then this increases to a more generous 3.8m3.
The cabin has a functional and somewhat rudimental feel, with an old school handbrake positioned between the front seats and a key that actually has to be turned in the ignition.
The controls are on the old-fashioned side too but none the worse for this, with clear and easy to use dials and buttons and a chunky, not to say bulbous, gear knob, which may be on the large size for drivers with small hands. Storage provision inside the cabin is ample and includes an overhead shelf, 1.5-litre bottle holders in the front door pockets, a topbox storage compartment and cupholders at either end of the dashboard plus two more by the gear stick.
Report card: Practicality = 4/5
First impressions are that the crew van’s versatility will serve it well as both a load- and people-carrier.
Enterprise Edition Crew Van XL BlueHDi 100
Mileage 1,064mls
Official combined fuel economy 47.0mpg
Our average consumption 44.7mpg
Price (ex VAT) £25,130
Warranty 3yrs/60,000mls
Service intervals 2yrs/25,000mls
Load length 1,450mm
Load width (min/max) 1,229mm/1,550mm
Load bay height 1,243mm
Load volume (with seats folded) 3.8m3
Gross payload 843kg
Braked towing weight 1,250kg
Engine size/power 1,499cc/102hp
CO2 158g/km
Options (prices ex VAT)
Rear parking sensors £200
Colour touchscreen with Citroen Connect Navigation £450
Spare wheel £105
