Mercedes Benz Vito Dualiner Review

Mercedes-Benz Vito Dualiner 115CDI - DUAL PERSONALITY?

Mercedes’ Vito Dualiner Can’t Seem to Decide Whether It’s A Minibus Or A Van, But That Could Well Make It The Perfect Vehicle For Some Demanding Customers.

Solving the problem of taking a family abroad with a full quota of luggage is a thorny issue that starts taxing my brain every December. If you enjoy an active lifestyle, you’ll have probably accumulated a fair amount of paraphernalia that surreptitiously migrates from the ‘nice to bring’ list onto the essentials. Every subsequent year you go away, the amount of equipment grows and the demands on the vehicle required to carry it all grow ever more stringent. For my family’s annual skiing trip, the usual estate car no longer cuts the mustard.

With four people travelling and no fewer than six pairs of skis and two snowboards in tow, it’s a mammoth undertaking. Factor in climbing gear, avalanche safety equipment and enough shoes to keep Imelda Marcos happy for a week and you need a serious vehicle. Step forward the Mercedes Vito Traveliner.

Hold on a minute, but isn’t this a commercial vehicle? Well, yes and no. In fact it’s half way between the Viano MPV and the Vito van, offering six seats in two rows of three plus a usefully monstrous luggage bay at the back. Pricing for this vehicle isn’t exactly easy to pin down. Mercedes require you to start with a Vito van and pay a premium for the conversion to Dualiner status. This adds the glass in the side windows, and two sets of bench seats. The Comfort version we tested was also laden with a whole array of additional equipment that certainly made the trip a whole lot more comfortable.

Satellite navigation looked a major bonus until it was apparent we were only equipped with the CD-ROM disc for the UK. Knowing the route to Dover fairly well, this proved to be something of a missed opportunity, especially when finding ourselves in the back streets of Lyon negotiating a one-way system the wrong way. The other two essentials for any such trip are a CD stereo and air conditioning, both of which were featured in the Dualiner. There were plenty of little touches which also made this a near perfect vehicle for a gear-heavy ski jaunt. The first was that skis could slot lengthwise on the floor and sit beneath the rear seats, ensuring that a section of the rear bench didn’t need to be folded forwards. Another feature that was hugely welcome was the fact that the rear seats could recline, allowing those who were sharing the driving duties to catch a little welcome shut-eye in the rear.

"A lot of thought has gone into transforming the Dualiner from a workhorse to a vehicle that can fulfil the family brief"

One cup holder up front led to the odd squabble, but the door bins are so large that bottles, atlases and other items could easily be accommodated. A glazed rear window would have been desirable for ease of parking, but the flipside of this is that you always felt your luggage was safely out of view when the vehicle was parked. The dashboard was laid out in typically efficient Mercedes style and the steering wheel is pleasantly upright. In fact it didn’t feel like a commercial vehicle at all, instead handling like a large family MPV.

Much of the driving pleasure came courtesy of the punchy 150bhp 115CDI turbodiesel engine. Mated to a six-speed manual gearbox, this was good for 330Nm of torque, making short work of the incline up to La Grave. When the road got very snowy, the huge amount of torque could break the traction of the rear tyres, but fitting an AutoSock traction aid helped enormously when the going got really slippery. The traction control system could be switched off when you were trying to extricate the Dualiner form a snow bank but in most other instances it was a very welcome assistant. The 2.1-litre engine was a little vocal at typical French autoroute speeds but its fuel economy couldn’t be faulted, regularly returning cruising averages in excess of 32mpg, even when loaded to the gunwales. The parking brake is foot operated, something that might seem strange for some at first, but it works well and one suspects it’s one of those things that you’ll just get used to over time.

Driving the Dualiner, even with nothing of substance in the back to subdue the heavy-duty suspension, you can’t help but be impressed with the quality of the ride. The springs and dampers set to work in gliding the vehicle over even the most rutted, uninviting surfaces but handling is not adversely affected. Should you get carried away and push the Vito beyond its limits of its driving dynamics, there’s a plethora of acronyms to reign the vehicle back in again. ABS you know but BAS, EBD, ESP and ASR may not be so familiar. Suffice to say that they’ll intervene in braking, and power delivery to help you come to a stop or continue onward safely. All of these systems are standard and that’s very encouraging but a driver’s airbag is something of a glaring omission from a modern commercial vehicle – you will find one on the options list though. The big door mirrors give a decent view behind and the twin sliding doors make access to the rear simplicity itself.

The Vito’s designers can give themselves a pat on the back and a big Christmas bonus for shoehorning the van’s rear-wheel drive transmission under the floor without pumping up the loading height (562mm in the long wheelbase model) by too much. Space must be at a premium down there but drivers benefit from the improved handling and the tighter turning circle associated with rear-wheel drive as well as the vertebra-friendly access for hoisting gear into the rear. The mechanicals squeezed under the floor might explain why the jack as been relegated to a mounting in the rear offside corner of the load bay but it’s easily accessible and shouldn’t get in the way. The only complaint about the plastic floor of the load bay is that it can get extremely slippery when wet. Those looking for a harder working Dualiner may well prefer a plywood liner.

Although an all-wheel drive version with a glazed rear window would have been nigh on perfect, the Vito Dualiner more than excelled itself when it came to heavy hauling over long distances. It offers a lot more in the way of everyday practicality than a Viano MPV and is a vehicle I could see proving very popular if prospective customers only knew it existed. The boom in double cab pick-ups has shown that buyers are interested in practical, hard working vehicles. The Vito Dualiner is a more viable everyday proposition and is keenly priced to boot. Roll on next winter.