Recommend me a van (?) / Estate for cycle transport for £10k….

[DRM]

Better 156k on the motorway than 100k around town, over speed humps potholes, kids bashing it around etc.

This is true, my current work van is just shy of 50,000 miles, I got it brand new August 21, I reckon you can add another 12,500 to that by the time it's 2 years old, so far so good.

 

[Alex321]

This, lots of areas will charge you to go into them with a van if it's not Euro 6 Compliant, so you then have to put Ad-Blue in too with diesel engined vans, and another thing is the speed limits for a van are lower than a car, for example on a National Speed limit A road it's 50 Mph on the single carriage Way, 60 Mph on Dual Carriage Way, 70 Mph on Motorways, lower limits are applicable as posted.
You may be ok with that, but it might be a deal breaker, and the camera vans now like sitting on the bridges above A roads to catch speeders.

That depends on what type of van it is. If it is what is defined as a "car derived van" then the same speed limits apply as to cars.

 

[bonzobanana]

I'd be thinking a Japanese brand estate car or maybe Korean. There is a great site that sadly got taken down but is available on the internet archive. It doesn't work faultlessly but can give you great info on reliability and cost of repairs. It's data purely taken from warranty claims so the more frequently the warranty is claimed and by how much the lower the car sinks in the ratings and the higher the cost of warranty. As ever Japanese cars come out best with much less repairs although some repairs can still be expensive compared to other brands and the garbage German cars with frequent repairs with ridiculous pricing at the bottom. Also the more complicated a car the further the reliability drops so if its got lots of gadgets and upgrades that can cause issues. Turbos are less reliable than simple injection engines and automatic gearboxes are less reliable than manual boxes. Keeping a car simple can have huge rewards for long term reliability and reduced costs. I've had mainly estate cars I find them super practical, reasonably sporty compared to a SUV and reliable. I don't do many miles though so my logic is keep the car simple with lower mpg rather than buy a complicated car with better mpg where I'm spending huge money on dealing with reliability issues. Hence my car has a manual box and simple injection and I've had it since 2013 and done absolutely nothing to it apart form servicing and simple consumables. Still on the original battery, tyres and coolant (sealed) although the front tyres will need changing with my next MOT. I've only done about 20,000 miles in the car though from new. I really don't use it much that is only about 2,000 miles a year however it has been massively abused with being extremely overloaded on occasion. The rear seats go pretty much completely flat so it can become a van of sorts. It's a Chevrolet Cruze LS Estate which I got for £7999 less than half price as Chevrolet were leaving the UK market and there was some big discounts. It normally cost £17k. It's got air conditioning, great 6 speaker sound system, cd player, powered windows and mirrors, traction control, ABS and various other minor gadgets. It's very similar to the Vauxhall Sports Tourer of the same vintage. Slightly better made though as made in Korea at the old Daewoo factory.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210430103028/https://www.reliabilityindex.com/manufacturer

 

[Jameshow]

I'd be thinking a Japanese brand estate car or maybe Korean. There is a great site that sadly got taken down but is available on the internet archive. It doesn't work faultlessly but can give you great info on reliability and cost of repairs. It's data purely taken from warranty claims so the more frequently the warranty is claimed and by how much the lower the car sinks in the ratings and the higher the cost of warranty. As ever Japanese cars come out best with much less repairs although some repairs can still be expensive compared to other brands and the garbage German cars with frequent repairs with ridiculous pricing at the bottom. Also the more complicated a car the further the reliability drops so if its got lots of gadgets and upgrades that can cause issues. Turbos are less reliable than simple injection engines and automatic gearboxes are less reliable than manual boxes. Keeping a car simple can have huge rewards for long term reliability and reduced costs. I've had mainly estate cars I find them super practical, reasonably sporty compared to a SUV and reliable. I don't do many miles though so my logic is keep the car simple with lower mpg rather than buy a complicated car with better mpg where I'm spending huge money on dealing with reliability issues. Hence my car has a manual box and simple injection and I've had it since 2013 and done absolutely nothing to it apart form servicing and simple consumables. Still on the original battery, tyres and coolant (sealed) although the front tyres will need changing with my next MOT. I've only done about 20,000 miles in the car though from new. I really don't use it much that is only about 2,000 miles a year however it has been massively abused with being extremely overloaded on occasion. The rear seats go pretty much completely flat so it can become a van of sorts. It's a Chevrolet Cruze LS Estate which I got for £7999 less than half price as Chevrolet were leaving the UK market and there was some big discounts. It normally cost £17k. It's got air conditioning, great 6 speaker sound system, cd player, powered windows and mirrors, traction control, ABS and various other minor gadgets. It's very similar to the Vauxhall Sports Tourer of the same vintage. Slightly better made though as made in Korea at the old Daewoo factory.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210430103028/https://www.reliabilityindex.com/manufacturer

Good buy.
Reliable and dependable.
I'm guessing the diesel engine is an izuzu 1.7 TD which is old but dependable.

 

[DRM]

That depends on what type of van it is. If it is what is defined as a "car derived van" then the same speed limits apply as to cars.

This is true, but realistically means something like a Ford Fiesta van, which is no good for bike transport, Even the Berlingo is classed as a van with lower speed limits, in all honesty, having had a Ford Galaxy I'd consider that, bigger than the S-Max, the second and third row seats fold into the floor making it not far off a Transit Custom inside, that or a Tourneo Connect, same as a Transit Connect, but the LWB is a 7 Seater, comfy and Reliable too, I had a Transit Connect as a previous van and it never let me down.

 

[FishFright]

Leave your ego at home with one of those!

Great advice for any driver.

 

[Gillstay]

I used to have Citroen Berlingo's and they were fantastic for carting stuff and camping cycling holidays. Wanted a bit more comfort so tried out a simple Toyota car and took the back seats out, fitted the high mpg tyres and its working well. Its like a low level van and gives 50+mpg, plus handles and accelerates better for the less weight.