We rack up quite a few miles throughout the year, our Jaguar Estate car piling on nearly 70,000 in a little over 15 months. Upto now we have hired vans in, partly because we have an excellent deal with a local van hire company, and partly because we didn't want the rapidly depreciating drain on our books that any vehicle represents. However since our acquisition of Chocolate Experience, the chocolate fountain hire company, we have had a need for a smaller, lighter type van than those we have been hiring. Traipsing down to Norwich in a jumbo long wheelbase high roof transit averaging about 26 to the gallon wasn't really suitable when you had around half a dozen smallish boxes in the back. The van hire company has a single Transit Connect, but this tended to be out on long term hire all the time.
Anyway, we have just acquired a Citroen Dispatch specifically for these smaller jobs. Its a little larger than a Connect, but smaller than a transit, and has 3 seats which is an added bonus. We haven't had the van long enough to make a decision on how reliable it is, but on our first trip to London and back it averaged 39 miles to the gallon, which is only about 6 MPG behind our Jag, and well in front of the Transits we use. The Dispatch is identical to the Peugeot Expert and Fiat Scudo, the only difference being the Dispatch is fitted with Traffic Master navigation. This is a GPS system with a monochrome screen about the size of a credit card, and I was doubtful as to its utility, being more used to the widescreen full colour Garmins we have been using (although with their terrible back up service the Garmins are being replaced with Tom Toms shortly). However in use the system seems to work as well as any other we have used, also it links to the Traffic Master system and routes you around traffic delays. It also gives me the ability to prepare routes online and send them to the satnav system, so I can reprogram a staff members destination on the fly. The system must also be the most polite navigation system on the market, it doesn't tell you to take an exit on the roundabout, it asks if you would "Please take the exit".
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Anyway, we have just acquired a Citroen Dispatch specifically for these smaller jobs. Its a little larger than a Connect, but smaller than a transit, and has 3 seats which is an added bonus. We haven't had the van long enough to make a decision on how reliable it is, but on our first trip to London and back it averaged 39 miles to the gallon, which is only about 6 MPG behind our Jag, and well in front of the Transits we use. The Dispatch is identical to the Peugeot Expert and Fiat Scudo, the only difference being the Dispatch is fitted with Traffic Master navigation. This is a GPS system with a monochrome screen about the size of a credit card, and I was doubtful as to its utility, being more used to the widescreen full colour Garmins we have been using (although with their terrible back up service the Garmins are being replaced with Tom Toms shortly). However in use the system seems to work as well as any other we have used, also it links to the Traffic Master system and routes you around traffic delays. It also gives me the ability to prepare routes online and send them to the satnav system, so I can reprogram a staff members destination on the fly. The system must also be the most polite navigation system on the market, it doesn't tell you to take an exit on the roundabout, it asks if you would "Please take the exit".
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