We recently traded-in our 2013 Cali SE, and I promised to post a review of the Ford Nugget we've bought to replace it. I appreciate this is a Cali owners forum, so everyone is sold on the idea of a Cali, I'm not trying to persuade anyone to follow suit, I just thought it'd be useful info.
It's worth noting the context of our situation, we're a family of five, with kids of 12,10 and 7. Our Cali was a well used, ex-hire, 2013 model and we had to use the 5th seat for travel (and then take it out again to camp or use the van for anything other than travelling).
We only spent the one night in the Nugget, just to make sure all was well ahead of our summer holiday. I've set out below the pros and cons, plus other thoughts.
Pros
- The Westfalia parts of the van feel very well put together, I'm no longer worried the kids will kick all the doors in (we had to replace a couple of doors in the Cali for this reason). I'd question whether white is a practical colour for the units though.
- Not having to remove the 5th seat is a game changer. Not only is that a major faff, it robs all the space inside when it's there
- Having three access points (tailgate, and side doors each side) opens the van right up when camping and is really practical with the kids when using it as a car
- I was able to make dinner in the kitchen while my wife played board games with the kids on the table. That will be so much more convenient on cold/rainy days than sending the kids into the roof.
- The roof bed is much wider than the Cali, so we can use that for all three kids quite comfortably. In the Cali we were putting two kids downstairs, one across the front seats and us upstairs. That meant carrying a KFoam cab mattress, which took up a lot of boot space.
- All bedding (for five) goes in a hatch behind the rear seats, all camping extras go under the seats (about 2x the size of the Cali underseat storage), and there is a cupboard for the Porta Potti. So the boot area remains free to start camping as soon as we arrive. For our summer trip I'll use that space for 2x inflatable kayaks and the SUP.
- There is a nice deep cupboard for five fold up Decathlon chairs. You get two Westfalia chairs with the van, but they are massive and there is nowhere obvious for them. Whilst we had the 2x VW chairs in the Cali tailgate, three more chairs in the Cali boot took up yet more space.
- It has an electric hot water boiler. I didn't think we'd need it, but actually being able to wash up in hot water in a decent sized sink was good and saved a trip to the washing up area. Now if I could only figure out how to turn the boiler off.
- Being 7 years newer, it feels more modern and has an auto gearbox to make things more relaxing.
Cons
- The Ford part of the van feels a bit more functional. It's more plasticky than the Cali, which may actually wear better, but is less plush.
- There is less kitchen storage. On the Cali we had one shelf for plates, one for pots, and then two for food. On the Nugget we have one shelf for plates, another for pots, a tall and thin cupboard (which would take about 4x wine bottle and some sauce bottles) and then a half shelf for food (think 10 cans of beans).
- The swivel seats don't lock into position facing backwards. It's annoying that they move around.
- The table is stored behind the rear seats, the table leg under the seats. That's more faff than the Cali, but actually to get the table up in the Cali we had to remove the 5th seat, so the Nugget wins
- We carry a roof box and single bike rack on the roof (and then four bikes on the back). We had the electric roof on the cali and that stayed up fine once we'd removed the bike and most of the weight out the roof box. The Nugget roof drops a bit with the weight of the empty roof box and bike rack. The actual roof does lock into position, so there is no fear of it coming down, but without the weight it sits about 5cm higher than the stopper on the locking mechanism.
- Having to put a towbar bike rack on is less convenient than folding down the VW rack on the tailgate
- I miss the waves from other Cali owners. Although I did have a roofer admire the van the other day, he also had a Transit.
- The Nugget name. Seriously, who thought of that?
In terms of cost, we paid £60k for the Nugget which was 17 months old and has 7,500 miles on the clock. We got £30k trade-in on the Cali, the same as I paid for it in November 2019. The Ford dealer in Christchurch had the Cali up for £38k, but it's been sat there for 2 months and is now down to £36k. £60k feels a lot for a Transit, but it's going to work much better for us, which is really down to the size of our family and the way we'll use it.
I can't see the Nugget catching on in the same way as the California, but I had a courtesy call from the Ford dealer last week and he told me they've taken lots of orders, but also lot of people were being put off by the 12 month wait. I'm still hopeful of seeing another on the road at some point.
Any questions, just let me know!
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