My First Drive of a Peugeot Boxer

[colin]

At last a Sevel van became availlible when house building did not take priority. Unfortunatly due to Adria not answering my emails and messages and our local Fiat dealer closing, it meant test driving a Peugeot Boxer MWB low top 120hp commercial van, but I am used to driving Morvano's and Transit's so I can compare base vehicle.

 

Getting into van showed first problem, where's the grab handle? not to much of problem at moment but as I get older and when my back play's up I'd like one. Next to adjusting driving position, the hieght/rake adjustment of seat base is a pain to get right o.k. if like me and gf use same position, but not so good if couples need to regulary change it. Next the steering wheel, it slides in and out but no rake adjustment, this meant I could not get a 100% good position. Adjusting the mirror's was easy with the electrics.

 

Reverse out of parking and off we go, I had been warned that dash would bleep at me as rear doors had been broken into last week and dealer had not been able to fix 'closed' sensor, so now I know that if a door is open you get a bleeping up to around 20mph then it gives up. Driving trou town and onto country roads the handling was good, but there was excessive noise from empty rear, worse than Morvano/Transit. Also I found that the front pillars blocked view on some junctions, so keep a good eye out for cyclist's who might be obscured.

 

Next to motorway, a poke of the throttle saw us flying up the slip road and joining carraigeway, when I realised there was a car in fast lane I had not seen, I had looked right as normal and in wide angle mirror, but there apears to be a blind spot due to side windows being small, I did not think to drive slowly to see if overtaking cars where lost in a blind spot as I was keen to try at speed. At higher speed once again handles well, but noise is excessive. Also the steering wheel angle meant I could not comfatably rest my hands on wheel.

 

My conclusions? hopefully a fitted out van should be much quieter but Morvano's and Transit's are much quiter to start with. The blind spots mean more care needs taking at junctions. The van handles well. The lack of steering wheel rake adjustment has made me have second thought's about getting an Adria Twin, anybody any ideas how to get Aria to build a twin on a Movano base when thy seem less than keen to sell me a standard one.

[Guest starspirit]

Adria probably won't but there are plenty of small UK converters who would be delighted to build you a van to any design you want or copy the Adria for you and it will probably be built to a better standard too.

[colin]

I might end up doing it myself, but have little time to spare at moment. My prefered convertor would have been K&C but they 'disapeared' a couple of years ago, any recomdations for a convertor would be welcome