Tradies Reviews

Although Mitsubishi has increased prices across the board for its Triton fleet in 2021, the popular Japanese ute continues to represent excellent value for money. It also remains firmly entrenched in a solid third place in the local 4x4 ute sales race, behind the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux.

The commercial van market is a hotly contested one and any point of difference is crucial. The Ford Transit Custom DCiV is purpose-built for long work days and for clocking up lots of kilometres with a load onboard.But, as well as a large load space, this double cab in van has six seats, so it has cargo- and passenger-carrying capability.So, is it worth your attention?

Work utes like the Mazda BT-50 Single Cab Chassis used to be pretty affordable, because they represented basic options designed for one thing only - loaded up driving. Now, however, safety equipment, new technology and comfort are all considerations, so the new-generation Mazda BT-50 single cab work ute is a lot more expensive and content rich than before. Is it any good at hard work, though?

Toyota Australia's freshly facelifted HiLux range offers not only the usual base-grade Workmate 4x4 dual cab-chassis but also mid-grade SR and high-grade SR5/SR5+ variants for the first time.

Isuzu has invested more than four million kilometres and six years of development in creating the all-new third-generation of its D-MAX ute. And feedback from the Australian market had significant influence in its design, given that Australia is the D-MAX's largest global export market behind Thailand.

The Mazda BT-50 2021 range only arrived in dual cab guise, with the other models - single cab and extra cab - to follow. But that didn't stop us doing a tradie test with our recent BT-50 XT manual dual cab pick-up.

The LDV Deliver 9 van is a large vehicle made for hard work. It isn't your average model, with a range of wheelbase and height choices, a cab-chassis model, and two different mini bus examples for sale. We drove the version LDV expects to sell a lot of: the Long Wheel Base Mid Roof model, which is automatic only and costs less than forty grand drive-away for ABN holders. That's less than a HiAce!

The growing popularity of mid-sized (2.5-3.5 tonne GVM) commercial vans that can carry up to six people, generically known as crew vans, has seen an increasing number of rivals from mainstream manufacturers with a second row of seats. These include Toyota, Ford, Hyundai, Renault, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz.There’s no argument that 4x4 dual cab utes are by far Australia’s most popular and versatile light commercial vehicles. However, not everyone needs high-riding off-road ability and some would happily trade that for more spacious rear seating and a huge fully-enclosed cargo bay to carry their crew and all their gear – be it for work or play.It's those two key attributes which present a compelling argument for crew vans – but which one would you choose? We’ve combined our most recent road test activity of three of Australia’s best examples from Toyota, Ford and Renault to see how they measure up in a side-by-side comparison.

Super-sized US-style pick-ups - like the Ram 1500 and Chevrolet Silverado - are hot stuff right now, but modified versions of existing Aussie-market utes are another way to get yourself into a jumbo utility. Adelaide-based Adaptive Manufacturing is responsible for VW-approved Amarok conversions, which add 650mm to the ute's wheelbase, and Pedders GVM upgrades, which boost GVM from 3080kg to 3305kg.

The market for vehicles like the Volkswagen Crafter single cab-chassis is pretty small, but that doesn't mean it isn't competitive. There are a number of quality offerings in this segment, and this was our first change to sample the new-generation Crafter in chassis-cab derivation.