Driving a California for the first time

[JollyGoodShow]

I did lots of research before driving a California for the first time. I went to the NEC show, sat in used campervans on dealer forecourts, read thousands of forum posts, and watched countless YouTube videos. Many of those sources suggested that driving a California was okay, but everyone has a different frame of reference, and I'm lucky that my other cars are reasonably luxurious and comfortable.

One of my concerns in getting a campervan was that it is a van. Would driving it on long distances be noisy, hard work, uncomfortable and tiring? Would it be like flying economy long haul, where you need a holiday to recover from going on holiday? I didn't know.

So here's my personal review of what it's like to drive a VW California.

Comparison cars

My other cars are a 2016 Volvo XC90 diesel with air suspension, and a 2023 Volvo XC40 twin-motor EV (with 408 bhp). The van I test drove was a 150PS T6.1 Ocean. All three weigh over 2 tonnes, I think, and the XC90's length and width are comparable to the California.

Driving the California

My personal observations were, for what they are worth:

• The driving position was great for me; I'm 6' tall. It's very high, and very upright. The angle of my ankles to the pedals is more acute than in a car, and I have tight ankles/calves so I would have preferred a slightly more raked angle. But I got used to it in about 10 minutes.
• The seats are not height adjustable and I question whether very short people would be able to get a good driving position. My wife claims to be average height for a woman of her age and found there was no angle where she could keep her heel on the carpet and use the brake - her feet aren't long enough. She had to adapt her driving position a lot more than I did.
• The seats themselves are comfortable, much more so than I expected, and the armrests are awesome. I found I was really comfortable on a run (we drove 450 miles in our test drive).
• The high driving position is great. It's much higher than the XC90, itself reasonably high.
• Visibility is great forwards and using the large wing mirrors. The rear view mirror is blocked by the locker behind the bench and I couldn't see very far behind me. I found I used the wing mirrors exclusively and didn't miss the rear-view mirror.
• I missed having an electric hand brake, because when e.g. coming to a halt at a roundabout in other cars I'd be able to rest my foot and the car wouldn't creep forwards. But I soon got used to it and it didn't bother me.
• The ride was surprisingly good. On smooth roads, it's excellent. It was a bit juddery on very worn-out road surfaces, which these days is a lot of roads. I was much more conscious of changes in road surface than in my other cars.
• Cornering is not good. I felt that the van would understeer quickly if pushed too hard into corners. It's a heavy van on relatively small wheels and presumably fairly soft springs. Whatever, I drove a lot slower round corners and gave them a lot more respect than I'm used to.
• Acceleration was okay and I can see why many people are perfectly happy with the 150PS variant. It makes no difference to journey time and it's easy to adapt driving style; I couldn't "nip out" at junctions, but as I reflect back on the driving I did, I can't think of many occasions where that would have made any difference.
• The DSG gearbox is brilliant. I loved the way it "coasts" if you take your foot off but figures out when you need engine braking.
• The whole van hardly rattled at all. That really surprised me. Road noise generally was much less than I expected; I thought it would be noisy at speed but I drove the same speed as I would in a car - at the speed limit, constable - and there wasn't much road noise or sense of engine strain.
• The adaptive cruise control works well but I miss the feature from my Volvos that tells me how fast the car ahead is going. When coming up behind a car, knowing its speed relative to mine is useful because if it's 10 mph slower, I'll overtake, but if it's only a few mph different, I'll probably cruise behind it. The car must know the speed of the car ahead because it's adapting to it, so I don't understand why the engineers don't display that information like they do in the Volvos. Perhaps Volvo have a patent on it or something?
• The LED headlights are fine and the automatic windscreen wipers work well.
• My other cars have 360 cameras which make manoeuvring a doddle, but the rear view camera works quite well and proximity sensors help a lot.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the experience of driving what is, after all, a van. It's obviously not a sports car or going to be a fun drive on a winding B-road, but it munches effortlessly through the miles and is a nice place to be. My concern that it wouldn't be any good on long journeys is completely unfounded.

 

[WelshGas]

I did lots of research before driving a California for the first time. I went to the NEC show, sat in used campervans on dealer forecourts, read thousands of forum posts, and watched countless YouTube videos. Many of those sources suggested that driving a California was okay, but everyone has a different frame of reference, and I'm lucky that my other cars are reasonably luxurious and comfortable.

One of my concerns in getting a campervan was that it is a van. Would driving it on long distances be noisy, hard work, uncomfortable and tiring? Would it be like flying economy long haul, where you need a holiday to recover from going on holiday? I didn't know.

So here's my personal review of what it's like to drive a VW California.

Comparison cars

My other cars are a 2016 Volvo XC90 diesel with air suspension, and a 2023 Volvo XC40 twin-motor EV (with 408 bhp). The van I test drove was a 150PS T6.1 Ocean. All three weigh over 2 tonnes, I think, and the XC90's length and width are comparable to the California.

Driving the California

My personal observations were, for what they are worth:

• The driving position was great for me; I'm 6' tall. It's very high, and very upright. The angle of my ankles to the pedals is more acute than in a car, and I have tight ankles/calves so I would have preferred a slightly more raked angle. But I got used to it in about 10 minutes.
• The seats are not height adjustable and I question whether very short people would be able to get a good driving position. My wife claims to be average height for a woman of her age and found there was no angle where she could keep her heel on the carpet and use the brake - her feet aren't long enough. She had to adapt her driving position a lot more than I did.
• The seats themselves are comfortable, much more so than I expected, and the armrests are awesome. I found I was really comfortable on a run (we drove 450 miles in our test drive).
• The high driving position is great. It's much higher than the XC90, itself reasonably high.
• Visibility is great forwards and using the large wing mirrors. The rear view mirror is blocked by the locker behind the bench and I couldn't see very far behind me. I found I used the wing mirrors exclusively and didn't miss the rear-view mirror.
• I missed having an electric hand brake, because when e.g. coming to a halt at a roundabout in other cars I'd be able to rest my foot and the car wouldn't creep forwards. But I soon got used to it and it didn't bother me.
• The ride was surprisingly good. On smooth roads, it's excellent. It was a bit juddery on very worn-out road surfaces, which these days is a lot of roads. I was much more conscious of changes in road surface than in my other cars.
• Cornering is not good. I felt that the van would understeer quickly if pushed too hard into corners. It's a heavy van on relatively small wheels and presumably fairly soft springs. Whatever, I drove a lot slower round corners and gave them a lot more respect than I'm used to.
• Acceleration was okay and I can see why many people are perfectly happy with the 150PS variant. It makes no difference to journey time and it's easy to adapt driving style; I couldn't "nip out" at junctions, but as I reflect back on the driving I did, I can't think of many occasions where that would have made any difference.
• The DSG gearbox is brilliant. I loved the way it "coasts" if you take your foot off but figures out when you need engine braking.
• The whole van hardly rattled at all. That really surprised me. Road noise generally was much less than I expected; I thought it would be noisy at speed but I drove the same speed as I would in a car - at the speed limit, constable - and there wasn't much road noise or sense of engine strain.
• The adaptive cruise control works well but I miss the feature from my Volvos that tells me how fast the car ahead is going. When coming up behind a car, knowing its speed relative to mine is useful because if it's 10 mph slower, I'll overtake, but if it's only a few mph different, I'll probably cruise behind it. The car must know the speed of the car ahead because it's adapting to it, so I don't understand why the engineers don't display that information like they do in the Volvos. Perhaps Volvo have a patent on it or something?
• The LED headlights are fine and the automatic windscreen wipers work well.
• My other cars have 360 cameras which make manoeuvring a doddle, but the rear view camera works quite well and proximity sensors help a lot.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the experience of driving what is, after all, a van. It's obviously not a sports car or going to be a fun drive on a winding B-road, but it munches effortlessly through the miles and is a nice place to be. My concern that it wouldn't be any good on long journeys is completely unfounded.

Even better in a 4Motion. Just saying.

 

[The Tall Luthier]

I’m glad to hear that they compare well JGS.

Agree about the lack of electric handbrake. It is quite a laughable omisison given that the seats swivel around.

 

[Skiver]

I did lots of research before driving a California for the first time. I went to the NEC show, sat in used campervans on dealer forecourts, read thousands of forum posts, and watched countless YouTube videos. Many of those sources suggested that driving a California was okay, but everyone has a different frame of reference, and I'm lucky that my other cars are reasonably luxurious and comfortable.

One of my concerns in getting a campervan was that it is a van. Would driving it on long distances be noisy, hard work, uncomfortable and tiring? Would it be like flying economy long haul, where you need a holiday to recover from going on holiday? I didn't know.

So here's my personal review of what it's like to drive a VW California.

Comparison cars

My other cars are a 2016 Volvo XC90 diesel with air suspension, and a 2023 Volvo XC40 twin-motor EV (with 408 bhp). The van I test drove was a 150PS T6.1 Ocean. All three weigh over 2 tonnes, I think, and the XC90's length and width are comparable to the California.

Driving the California

My personal observations were, for what they are worth:

• The driving position was great for me; I'm 6' tall. It's very high, and very upright. The angle of my ankles to the pedals is more acute than in a car, and I have tight ankles/calves so I would have preferred a slightly more raked angle. But I got used to it in about 10 minutes.
• The seats are not height adjustable and I question whether very short people would be able to get a good driving position. My wife claims to be average height for a woman of her age and found there was no angle where she could keep her heel on the carpet and use the brake - her feet aren't long enough. She had to adapt her driving position a lot more than I did.
• The seats themselves are comfortable, much more so than I expected, and the armrests are awesome. I found I was really comfortable on a run (we drove 450 miles in our test drive).
• The high driving position is great. It's much higher than the XC90, itself reasonably high.
• Visibility is great forwards and using the large wing mirrors. The rear view mirror is blocked by the locker behind the bench and I couldn't see very far behind me. I found I used the wing mirrors exclusively and didn't miss the rear-view mirror.
• I missed having an electric hand brake, because when e.g. coming to a halt at a roundabout in other cars I'd be able to rest my foot and the car wouldn't creep forwards. But I soon got used to it and it didn't bother me.
• The ride was surprisingly good. On smooth roads, it's excellent. It was a bit juddery on very worn-out road surfaces, which these days is a lot of roads. I was much more conscious of changes in road surface than in my other cars.
• Cornering is not good. I felt that the van would understeer quickly if pushed too hard into corners. It's a heavy van on relatively small wheels and presumably fairly soft springs. Whatever, I drove a lot slower round corners and gave them a lot more respect than I'm used to.
• Acceleration was okay and I can see why many people are perfectly happy with the 150PS variant. It makes no difference to journey time and it's easy to adapt driving style; I couldn't "nip out" at junctions, but as I reflect back on the driving I did, I can't think of many occasions where that would have made any difference.
• The DSG gearbox is brilliant. I loved the way it "coasts" if you take your foot off but figures out when you need engine braking.
• The whole van hardly rattled at all. That really surprised me. Road noise generally was much less than I expected; I thought it would be noisy at speed but I drove the same speed as I would in a car - at the speed limit, constable - and there wasn't much road noise or sense of engine strain.
• The adaptive cruise control works well but I miss the feature from my Volvos that tells me how fast the car ahead is going. When coming up behind a car, knowing its speed relative to mine is useful because if it's 10 mph slower, I'll overtake, but if it's only a few mph different, I'll probably cruise behind it. The car must know the speed of the car ahead because it's adapting to it, so I don't understand why the engineers don't display that information like they do in the Volvos. Perhaps Volvo have a patent on it or something?
• The LED headlights are fine and the automatic windscreen wipers work well.
• My other cars have 360 cameras which make manoeuvring a doddle, but the rear view camera works quite well and proximity sensors help a lot.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the experience of driving what is, after all, a van. It's obviously not a sports car or going to be a fun drive on a winding B-road, but it munches effortlessly through the miles and is a nice place to be. My concern that it wouldn't be any good on long journeys is completely unfounded.

Interesting - thank you.

My other car is R56 Cooper S and I would add the following comments:

1. It’s much harder to induce lift off oversteer in the van as it rolls a lot more.

2. Although it has a more powerful engine and picks up nicely, the lack of paddle shift does limit over taking opportunities.

On the plus side my Mini doesn’t have a bed or kitchen, so it’s not really suitable for overnight stays.

Skiver

 

[Californication69]

Even better in a 4Motion. Just saying.

Totally agree, having had both 204 FWD and now a 4Motion