Volkswagen Multivan vs Toyota HiAce

What's the difference?

Seventy-four grand is a lot of money for a seven-seater van but it's not the same as a similarly seated SUV. You can do a whole lot more in a Multivan and you can get yourself a VW badge into the bargain. There's something about that badge and the history of VW vans, though, that makes it popular. But it's got the chops to back up its history - it feels great to drive and easy to live with. It's also easy to use and phenomenally easy to get in and out of.

My wife and I genuinely found ourselves looking at each other and saying, "Yeah, we could have one of these." Obviously we came to our senses pretty quickly (we are not van people) but, if we had to have a van, the Multivan would go straight to the top of the list.

The rear barn-door option brings a significant boost in versatility, ensuring Toyota’s dominant market leader not only maintains its vast customer base but potentially expands it to include forklift-reliant operators who have previously overlooked the HiAce.

Given we had to wait 55 years for this barn-door option, we hope we don’t have to wait another half a century for a fold-down inboard armrest on the driver’s seat, which is now the only item missing from an otherwise formidable workhorse specification. 

Volkswagen's approach to this design is all about function but has yielded quite a strong result. That seems a bit silly if you just give the car a cursory glance, but if you spend a bit of time, it's a really nice job. The clay model clearly started as a big rectangular block and it was largely spared the chisel from the windscreen back.

In white it's close to anonymous but the Cruise's two-tone paint job adds a certain strength and some real character. I spent a lot of time looking at it and admiring the sparseness, but also what a clean design it is. That makes me sound slightly bonkers, but few cars get away with so few design features and look this good. Mitsubishi tried a basic design approach 10 years ago and the cars looked awful.

Perhaps the bigger surprise was the interior. Few commercial vans scrub up this well, so much so that you'd be hard-pressed to identify the Multivan in that way. The materials on the dash are typical VW - which is to say very good - and it doesn't feel or look like a knockabout interior, with some carpet and nicely covered seats in it.

It’s a typically robust design comprising MacPherson strut front suspension, a leaf-spring live rear axle that’s excellent for load-carrying, variable-ratio rack and pinion steering and four-wheel disc brakes on all automatic variants, like ours.

The rear-wheel drive chassis has an inherent traction advantage over front-wheel drive vans, particularly on loose or slippery surfaces and with heavy payloads. 

Its 1990mm height allows access to underground and multi-storey car parks and its 3210mm wheelbase boasts an impressively tight 11.0-metre turning circle.

The two-tone dash layout is neat and functional with easy-to-use controls and instrumentation. 

There’s still no fold-down inboard armrest for the driver’s seat to enhance comfort on long hauls, but given we had to wait more than half a century for a barn-door option, we know Toyota won’t be rushed on these decisions.

This needs a very solid breakdown because there is a lot to know about this particular car. Starting with sliding doors on both sides, which are electrically operated, and there are buttons on the remote to open and close them.

There is a phenomenal amount of storage inside. The driver's door alone has two storeys of pockets to carry plenty of different-sized and shaped items. There's so many places to put things you can almost get decision paralysis.

Down on the floor between the seats is a handbrake that seems to have been borrowed from a helicopter, but it's that long because it's attached right down on the carpet. That means you can walk from the third row all the way through the van, flip up the armrests on either of the captain's-chair style seats and plonk yourself down. Or vice versa. 

The second row features two separate captain's chairs (again) that are set on rails. You can slide them back and forth and - most impressively - swivel them through 180-degrees to face the third row so you've got yourself a meeting room on wheels, complete with the USB-C ports on one side of the back row, just above a double-cupholder set up. The seat belts for the second row are integrated into the seats themselves, which is why you can use them in motion.

Incidentally, the back row can also slide back and forth and can fold down as well. There are cupholders either side of the row, too (the previously mentioned double along with a generous-sized one that came with its own thermal cup...I think that's what it was) and with the aforementioned USB ports.

On top of all that, there are window blinds, little porthole windows in the sliding door windows themselves, a place to put, say, a clipboard on the dash in front of you and a cupholder with two USB-C ports next to the shifter.

Being a van, the total cargo volume is gigantic. If you hoof the seats out, the cargo area is 2.532 metres by 1.627 (1.220m at the wheelarches). The height is 1.32m, meaning if you're under five feet tall, you can walk without bending over. Suffice it to say, you can fit an enormous amount of stuff in.

If there's still not enough room, you can tow 2500kg with a braked trailer and 750kg unbraked. A two-bar roof rack will hold a further 100kg and a three-bar 150kg. Gross vehicle mass is 3080kg from a 2266kg unladen weight, meaning a maximum payload of 814kg.

That's enough stats on practicality to keep you going.

With its 2225kg kerb weight and 3300kg GVM, the HiAce has a genuine one-tonne-plus payload rating of 1060kg, and up to 120kg of that can be carried on the roof using Toyota’s genuine accessory triple-bar roof rack set. 

It also has a braked tow rating of up to 1500kg and with a GCM (how much it can legally carry and tow at the same time) of 4800kg, it can carry its peak 1060kg payload while towing that weight, which is a versatile set of numbers for a working van.

Cargo bay walls and doors are lined to mid-height, the roof is internally lined and there’s ample internal lighting. 

It’s accessed from either side through sliding doors with 1010mm-wide openings, or from the rear through the barn-doors which are both equipped with demisters/windscreen wipers and can swing open to 180 degrees. 

Each door also has a simple brace which can hold them at 90 degrees opening if required.

The cargo bay offers a sizeable 6.2 cubic metres of load volume, measuring 2530mm long, 1760mm wide and 1340mm high. 

With 1268mm between the rear wheel housings and six floor-mounted load anchorage points, it can carry up to two standard 1165mm-square Aussie pallets or up to three 1200 x 800mm/1200 x 1000mm Euro pallets. 

Its spacious driver’s cabin has numerous storage offerings including a large-bottle holder and bin in the base of each front door, small-bottle/cupholders in the centre and on either side of the dash, plus a single glove box.

The centre console is well designed, comprising an open storage tray at floor level and a large lidded box between the seats. 

This not only has cavernous internal storage but there’s also an external shelf at the front, two large-bottle holders at the rear and another shallow tray set into the lid, which when closed can double as a handy work desk. 

Our test vehicle is the LWB (Long Wheel Base) powered exclusively by Toyota’s well proven 2.8 litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel. It’s available with either standard six-speed manual or optional six-speed automatic, like our example.

Painted in standard 'French Vanilla', it has a list price of $46,760, plus on-road costs, but ours is fitted with the new $750 Barn Door option which bumps the list price to $47,510. 

It’s available on all LWB and SLWB (Super Long Wheel Base) variants except for the HiAce Crew, HiAce Commuter and LWB manual versions. 

Our test vehicle is also the Panel Van variant, which means a buyer can order a full-panel left-hand side sliding door instead of the standard windowed version at no extra cost.

The HiAce comes ready for hard work on sturdy 16-inch steel wheels with replaceable plastic covers and 215/60R16 tyres plus a full-size spare, along with a large centre console offering a variety of storage options. 

There are also useful creature comforts in the two-seater cabin like a tilt-and-reach adjustable leather-accented steering wheel, driver’s seat adjustable lumbar support, manual air-con, two 12-volt cabin accessory sockets, folding/heated exterior door mirrors with indicators, and more.

The two-speaker multimedia system has a big 8.0-inch touchscreen plus steering wheel audio controls and 'DAB+2' digital radio. 

Multiple connectivity options include Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, Siri voice recognition, Bluetooth, sat-nav and 'Toyota Connected Services', which includes an app for mobile phones and safety/security functions like 'Stolen Vehicle Tracking', 'Automatic Collision Notification', 'SOS Emergency Call', and more.

The 340 in the long name refers to the torque figure of the 2.0-litre turbodiesel four-cylinder. With 110Kw between 3250 and 3750rpm and 340Nm between 1500 and 3000rpm, it's a solid performer. In this guise, the seven-speed twin-clutch transmission delivers the power to the front wheels.

HiAce’s venerable (1GD-FTV) 2.8 litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel produces 130kW at 3400rpm and in auto models like ours a meaty 450Nm of torque between 1600-2400rpm. 

Maintenance procedures are simplified by its Euro 5 emissions compliance which doesn’t require AdBlue.

A smooth-shifting Aisin (AC60E) six-speed torque converter automatic optimises fuel economy with full converter lock-up on fourth, fifth and sixth gears, along with overdrive on fifth and sixth for relaxed highway driving. It also offers the choice of sequential manual-shifting if required. 

The live rear axle is equipped with an electronically-controlled automatic limited-slip diff, which optimises the inherent traction advantage of rear-wheel drive.

Volkswagen affixes a sticker to the windscreen with a 6.6L/100km combined-cycle figure. My week with the van was pretty busy and included a thorough fact-finding day on motorways and climbing Sydney's Blue Mountains, delivering an indicated 8.0L/100km over the week, which is well within the bounds of expectation with those official figures. That's pretty good going for a two-tonne-plus van with the requisite lack of slippery aerodynamics.

Toyota claims an official combined cycle average of 8.2L/100km. 

After 215km of testing, without a load and with the automatic engine stop-start function switched off, our figure based on trip meter and fuel bowsers readings came in slightly higher at 9.8L/100km. 

This single-digit economy was achieved purely in city and suburban driving, which is thrifty for a large commercial vehicle weighing more than two tonnes. 

So, based on our figures, you could bank on a ‘real world’ driving range of around 700km from its 70-litre tank.

I may have given you the impression that the Multivan is fun to drive, but it's not in the usual sense. It does feel a bit van-ish with the initially awkward steering wheel angle. The driver's seat is hugely comfortable and you quickly discover that, despite being nearly as long as a Hyundai Santa Fe or Mazda CX-9, it's surprisingly wieldy, with the front wheels achieving impressive angles when you're on full lock.

No, you're not going to pull a u-turn in a normal suburban street, but you can get some tight angles while parking and, given its shape is that of a chiselled brick, you know where the corners are, with the sensors and cameras picking up the slack.

It never feels anything like its size until you head down the driveway into a shopping centre car park and the dangling 2.1 metres clearance sign looks ominously close. It doesn't just look close, though. The view out front is awesome and you are literally eye-balling bus drivers. Dogs love it because they can talk to bus drivers out the window, as our furry idiot did.

Obviously it's long for car-park spaces, like an SUV or any other people mover for that matter, so you have to take the usual care.

So why is it so much fun to drive. Obviously it's not a GTI (although the Transporter Sportline looks like it might be...) but the diesel engine is exceptionally strong and dealt with everything I threw at it.

Sadly I wasn't able to rope in a group of folks to go with me, given our current restrictions, but the 340Nm figure feels conservative. Especially when slaloming around slow-moving clowns on the motorway in the right-hand lane.

So the fun? Everybody absolutely loved this thing. In fact, to take the parlance of one of the Mystery Machine occupants, they dug it, man. So many blokes in utes looking wistfully at a van that obviously sparked a yearning for... having five kids maybe? I dunno, but people just loved it and when I posted a pic of it on Instagram, the crowd went wild.

And I loved driving it around and was sad to hand it back. M'colleague Matt Campbell is scheming to get into one, and even other folks from competing publications expressed a yearning.

The big front doors swing wide open to provide easy access to the cabin, where it’s easy to find a comfortable driving position given ample seat adjustment that includes lumbar support, plus a height-and-reach-adjustable wheel and big left footrest. 

Responsive steering and strong braking, combined with a reasonably supple ride quality when empty or lightly loaded, makes for a comfortable daily work environment. 

This is enhanced by commendably low internal noise levels for a van without a bulkhead between the cabin and cargo bay. We suspect the full-length roof lining helps here.

Like all panel vans, the solid-walled cargo bay creates a huge blind-spot over the driver’s left shoulder which can’t be avoided. And the central join of the barn doors obscures vision through the cabin’s rear-view mirror.

However, the portrait-shaped door mirrors are a decent size and combined with a suite of driver aids like blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, rear parking sensors and reversing camera, a competent driver can easily steer clear of trouble. 

And it has easy manoeuvrability thanks to the tight 11-metre turning circle and lightness of the variable-ratio steering at parking speeds.

 The 2.8-litre turbo-diesel has good flexibility with strong low-rpm response thanks to its ample 450Nm of torque. 

The smooth and snappy shift protocols of the six-speed auto optimise engine response, which is most evident in stop-start city and suburban driving. 

It also delivers relaxed and economical highway travel, particularly with the cruise control activated, with overdrive requiring less than 2000rpm to maintain 110km/h.

The current HiAce generation came armed with a maximum five-star ANCAP rating when launched in 2019 and still sets a safety benchmark.

There are seven airbags plus a plethora of active features including AEB with day/night pedestrian and day cyclist detection, trailer sway control, hill-start assist, lane departure alert with steering assist, road sign assist, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, front and rear parking sensors, reversing camera, and more. 

As with other VWs, the Multivan Cruise has a five year/unlimited-kilometre warranty, which is now largely the norm, albeit not among German manufacturers. You also score a year of roadside assist into the bargain, which is extended with each service.

As for servicing, you can purchase up front, with five years for $1980, representing a $781 saving on pay-as-you-go assured-pricing service. A three-year commitment is $1300 and is a saving of between $159 and $357 on pay as you go.

The HiAce is covered by a five-year/unlimited km warranty.

Scheduled servicing is set at relatively short six month/10,000km intervals, whichever occurs first. 

Capped-price of $290 per service covers the first six scheduled services over three years or 60,000km.