Image by EuroMarco_NL via Flickr
Well today we have got our brand new oven cleaning van and it's a white Citroen Berlingo 750LX. This is first new van that we have bought for four years and it really is a cracker with a 1.6 HDI 90HP engine. So it's nippy (though it might not be as quite as fast as our Daihatsu Extols) and apparently is frugal too. It has three seats and lots of storage space, a really good bulkhead, but only one side door but the real bonus is the Traffic Master Navigation and Tracking system fitted to the van which has the fabulous facility where we will be able to phone the driver and he will be able to answer the call by just touching the Traffic Master screen whilst driving. Also it has built in tracking so the vehicle would be tracked if it was stolen.
If you read my post best oven cleaning vans about my recommendations for the best oven cleaning van to get then you would have noticed that the Berlingo was number three in that list and I put it there with two side doors and an extended guarantee. Number one was the Renault Kangoo and number two was the VW Caddy. My ideal van is a van with two side doors and a tailgate. But the reality of gaining a new van with this specifiction put paid to my ideal and I went for the best van that was available now without the wait for a factory order so a Berlingo with one side door (I didn't get the extended guarantee as they told me that I could extend it at any time before the current warranty expires and anyway the AA van warranty which we have on our other older Berlingo has been well worth the cost at a lot less than Citoren are quoting for theirs). For say a factory order of a Renault Kangoo they were quoting six to ten weeks and at one time there was one available with a side door but although the van had £7500 on the van in the forecourt that was apparently for a "cash only" purchase and in the end the price was going to be £12500 + VAT. I didn't bother with the VW Caddy as the price was more than the Kangoo and they were only available on lease. The other van I seriously was thinking about was the Nissan NV200 (number 4 in my list) but again as the second side door isn't standard (it also doesn't come with a tailgate which is extremely disappointing as the old Nissan Vanette did) there would have been a wait of up to eight weeks. They did say four but I didn't believe them! In all it looks like most van manufacturers have stopped making vans and if you want one especially with a side door then you've got to order it unless it's a Berlingo. I didn't check out Vauxhall or Fiat as I did like the thought of having one of their vans.
So with Berlngo's one side door how is it going to affect things? Well it is going to be fine and with just a small change to our system it will work well though the operative may get a bit wet if it's raining! But the real bonus is the Traffic Master system and if we get more of these vehicles we may look at using the benefit of the fleet management option of Traffic Master where we would be able to track the real time location of each vehicle.
A couple of weeks ago we nearly bought a second hand Renault Kangoo van that had already been fitted out as an oven cleaning van and was on Ebay but we couldn't verify the mileage on it.
So the next thing I got to do is to get our new Citroen Berlingo Oven Cleaning van kitted out and sign written which will all be carried out this week.
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