New Citroën Berlingo Van review

The Citroën Berlingo Van is the best-selling compact van in the UK, just squeezing the Ford Transit Connect into second place and beating all its (almost identical) Stellantis-made siblings.

It must be doing something right then – but that’s not stopped Citroën giving the Berlingo a refresh to ensure it remains competitive for another few years.

That includes a new look on the outside, with the French brand reviving its double chevron logo from 1919 and placing it in the middle of a revised nose. There's also a bold horizontal bar running between the headlights and a new bumper, but everything has been done with a light touch.

Inside, the higher-spec model now has a 10in infotainment touchscreen mounted high in the centre of the dashboard, but other changes are few and far between. The Berlingo retains its impressive payload and car-like handling.

So far, so good – but the Stellantis stablemates have been updated too, so the competition includes revised versions of the Fiat Doblo, Peugeot Partner and Vauxhall Combo as well as the closely related Toyota Proace City. You'll also want to consider the Ford Transit Connect, Mercedes Citan, VW Caddy Cargo and several others.

Read on to find out how we rate the latest Citroën Berlingo against the best compact vans you can get in the UK and which version we recommend…

The Citroën Berlingo Van offers buyers the option of a petrol engine – a three-cylinder 1.2-litre unit – alongside a pair of diesel choices.

The PureTech 110 petrol is paired with a rather notchy six-speed manual gearbox as is the 1.5-litre BlueHDi 100 diesel. They develop 109bhp and 98bhp respectively, with torque outputs of 151lb/ft and 184lb/ft.

A tuned-up BlueHDi 130 is available with 128bhp on tap alongside 221lb/ft of torque, fitted with an eight-speed automatic gearbox. (There's also an all-electric model – to read about that see our Citroën ë-Berlingo Van review).

The petrol model’s lower torque figure will be felt when the van is heavily loaded but it’s a fine engine, offering smoother and quieter power than the diesel. With a higher top speed (107mph), it's unstrained on a 70mph cruise.

The diesel model feels more lively at low speeds, thanks to that higher torque figure being delivered low in the rev range, but it gets a little lethargic as speeds increase. Still, it’ll happily keep up on a motorway.

Under the Berlingo Van are underpinnings that, in one form or another, are shared with several car models – from the Vauxhall Corsa to the Peugeot 2008 – as well as the Citroën Berlingo MPV.

They give it impressive road manners, and if you ignore the workhorse interior and you could be in almost any small hatchback, with steering responses and body roll that are no worse than many road cars.

Rival small vans have upped their game recently, especially three closely related models – the Mercedes Citan, Nissan Townstar and Renault Kangoo – so the Berlingo no longer holds the lead, but it’s still up there with the best.

The Ford Transit Connect will soon be replaced with a new VW Caddy-based model, which should bring that up towards the top of the class.

An optional Worksite pack can be added to the base-level Enterprise models, adding rugged underbody protection, all-terrain tyres, a 30mm rise to the ride height, and Grip Control — a suite of electronics that includes hill-descent control and adjustable traction control for different terrains.

There’s little to separate the Citroën Berlingo Van's interior from that of other Stellantis small vans but minor changes can make a big difference.

The Berlingo's USP is its Advanced Comfort seats, which you get in the top-spec Driver model. They have denser foam and thicker bolsters than the standard seats to keep you in place and comfortable.

It works too – offering a slightly more luxurious experience that will keep you fresher in the driver’s seat than its related vans. Indeed, if you cover a lot of miles, the Berlingo is the model to choose.

Beyond that, you get a sensible if unexciting interior that feels well-built, albeit with a lot of hard and scratchy plastics.

Of course, the Berlingo Van is meant to be a workhorse, so hard-wearing materials are to be expected, although the hard top to the door will be felt by your elbow on a long journey.

Unlike with the larger Citroën Dispatch there's quite a difference between trim levels. The entry-level Enterprise model misses out on many of the goodies you’ll find on the higher-spec Driver.

For example, while the Driver gets a 10in infotainment touchscreen (with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay smartphone mirroring) the Enterprise makes do with a phone cradle. The cradle is actually more useful than it sounds: it’s a solid bit of kit that holds your phone firmly in place without blocking your view or access to any buttons on the dashboard.

There’s also a Citroën app for your smartphone, which links to the van and tracks the journeys you make, monitoring the distance, fuel consumption and driving efficiency of each journey. Below the screen or phone cradle are welcome physical controls for the heating and ventilation, with a slot below that can safely hold a mobile phone, loose change or a wallet.

Space is plentiful, especially on the Enterprise model, which comes with a single passenger seat, creating a vast area to use in the cab but limiting it to being used by two people. The Berlingo Van's relatively upright windscreen leads to a lot of head room – enough to create an overhead shelf for storing paperwork or kit.

The Driver spec adds a two-person bench seat that partly folds to create a table or worktop. The three-seat set-up means the passenger seats are narrower and the middle passenger will feel a little hard done by because the gear selector protruding from the dashboard eats into their knee room.

The Berlingo is also available in a crew van version (based on the longer, XL model) with a second row of three seats.

Citroën makes the Berlingo Van available in two body lengths with names that, like Starbucks coffee sizes, are a bit confusing.

The smallest isn’t the Small, but the M, presumably for Medium. The L is then skipped, leaving the XL as the other option. The difference is significant, with the M and XL models separated by 350mm in length.

In terms of load area, the XL is 20% larger: the M can take 3.3m³ of cargo while the XL extends that to 3.9m³. (The Berlingo crew van has just 1.8m³ of load volume but then it does have an extra row of seats to fit in.)

For comparison, the M’s load area is more generous than any of its small van rivals while the XL beats them all except the longer versions of the Renault Kangoo and its siblings, the Mercedes Citan and Nissan Townstar.

In higher-spec Driver trim the Berlingo van has a load-through area from the cargo box to the cab, adding another half a cubic metre of volume. That adds a significant amount of length to the cargo bay for thin items such as fence posts. The Ford Transit Connect and VW Caddy Cargo have similar load-through areas but not the Kangoo.

Payloads are important if you’re carrying heavy loads, and the Berlingo Van leads the sector here too. If you choose wisely (specifically the M length BlueHDi 130 Auto in Enterprise spec) you can carry up to 1,059kg in the back or 953kg on the longer but heavier XL model.

That’s more than 100kg better than the Transit Connect, 200kg more than a Kangoo and more than 350kg ahead of the Caddy Cargo. The difference narrows on XL models, but the Berlingo still edges ahead of the Caddy and Transit Connect – although the longer Kangoo can take another 34kg, for a total of 987kg.

As with all the compact vans here, two Euro pallets will fit in the back of the Berlingo Van and can be forklifted in through asymmetric double rear doors that swing open to 180 degrees. The XL models have a sliding door on each side of the van while the shorter M models make do with one door on the nearside of the van.

A single roof height means no Berlingo stands more than 186cm tall, so driving into multi-storey car parks or restricted height locations shouldn’t be an issue.

While the Citroën Berlingo Van range starts from just under £20,000, that gets a relatively underpowered and parsimoniously equipped van.

Even the most hard-nosed operators are likely to see the value in upgrading from the Enterprise model to the Driver model. The difference in equipment levels is significant, including both practical and luxury touches, much of the cost of which is likely to be recouped come trade-in time.

It’s also worth splashing out a little extra for a diesel model, with fuel economy reaching as far as 54.4mpg, according to WLPT testing results. With the petrol model that could dip down to 37.1mpg, potentially wiping out any savings from lower fuel bills quite quickly if you do decent mileage.

The Ford Transit Connect offers a slightly improved figure, reaching 58.8mpg, while the VW Caddy Cargo and Renault Kangoo are in the same ballpark, with best figures of 52.3 and 54.4mpg respectively.

Citroën limits its warranty cover to three years or 100,000 miles, which is the same as Fiat, Peugeot and Vauxhall siblings. The Caddy and Kangoo get the same, but Ford has a 60,000-mile limit.

The Toyota Proace City goes much further, with a service-activated warranty that, while also limited to 100,000 miles, can run for 10 years. It costs a little more than the Berlingo, but owner-operators and small businesses might appreciate the longer-term security.

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