New Cali Beach Tour Spec

[Jimmylondon07]

Is anyone carrying adult bikes inside their van? Wondering whether I’ll need to take the multiflex out totally in order to do it

 

[Amarillo]

Is anyone carrying adult bikes inside their van? Wondering whether I’ll need to take the multiflex out totally in order to do it

Chinese cargo tricycle

Multiflex removed.

 

[oceanson]

The resale thought did cross my mind but with kids aged 2 and six months (and being our daily driver), I just feel like the twin sliders offer us more practicality day to day than having a popout hob which won’t be used anywhere near as often. The tax difference is admittedly a b****.

Having a pop up kitchen is nice and i use it quite often,but for me the best part of the two seater Beach Camper is the space on the left,the storage space,you can either put stuff on top of it,like surf boards,put stuff inside it or remove it completely and have space for bikes etc. The other great thing about the two seater is that when in bed mode ( its huge) you can seat on it and your head doesnt hit the ceiling like the 3 seater one and you can use the pop up kitchen while in bed mode, if you need to warm up some milk or meal for the little ones you dont need to wake up everyone.

 

[Jimmylondon07]

Final question I think guys as I am planning to confirm the order tomorrow, was just on the configurator and noticed the option of ‘Electronic Stability Control (ESC)’. It’s not ticked as standard but also doesn’t add any cost when you do tick it. Worth adding?

 

[Corradobrit]

Final question I think guys as I am planning to confirm the order tomorrow, was just on the configurator and noticed the option of ‘Electronic Stability Control (ESC)’. It’s not ticked as standard but also doesn’t add any cost when you do tick it. Worth adding?

Something to whet your appetite before placing the order

 

[Amarillo]

Something to whet your appetite before placing the order

He has stowed the comfort mattress upside down so the rear corners get crumpled.

 

[Jimmylondon07]

Is it just me or is a bit disappointing that the digital dash isn’t available as an option? Would imagine a fair proportion of the Tour market will drive it as a regular vehicle and that’s a pretty standard feature on all cars these days. It can’t be a price thing as I’m not far off the price of an Ocean with it…

 

[Amarillo]

Is it just me or is a bit disappointing that the digital dash isn’t available as an option? Would imagine a fair proportion of the Tour market will drive it as a regular vehicle and that’s a pretty standard feature on all cars these days. It can’t be a price thing as I’m not far off the price of an Ocean with it…

I was particularly pleased to see that the Beach Tour comes with the builders’ van dashboard. It is just so functional with a multitude of little pockets to stash all sorts of things.

 

[andyinluton]

I was particularly pleased to see that the Beach Tour comes with the builders’ van dashboard. It is just so functional with a multitude of little pockets to stash all sorts of things.

If you get the digital dash it's only the area in front of the steering wheel where the dials are thats different, you still get all the little shelves and cubby holes if you go digital.

On the Ocean it's trimmed a lot nicer with some stainless steel strips, piano black etc so it looks less plasticey. Also looks like the gear selecter is all plastic, on an ocean thats leather trimmed with some aluminium inserts.

 

[Jimmylondon07]

I was particularly pleased to see that the Beach Tour comes with the builders’ van dashboard. It is just so functional with a multitude of little pockets to stash all sorts of things.

The option to have either would be great. It’s obviously a different segment but the car we’ll replace has a digital dash and things like a head-up display, keyless ignition etc. The trade-off is obviously that there are a lot of things we can’t do in our current vehicle that have led us to look at the Beach Tour, but VW already have the digital dash technology available in the Ocean and it seems a natural crossover that drivers of this more ’car-orientated’ Cali might want more car-like features inside. The dash display is very similar to my old 62 plate Mazda 6 and that’s 13 years old now.

 

[Jimmylondon07]

11 years rather, but the point still stands lol

 

[andyinluton]

The option to have either would be great.

I agree - it has been an option on other versions like the Coast so no reason not to be able to have it.

 

[Corradobrit]

Nothing wrong with the old skool dials. I prefer them and it was one of the selling points of the Coast, that I didn't have it forced on me. But then I like air cooled Porsche's so might be a generational thing.
If thats really a deal breaker then it can be installed retroactively at a price.

 

[Ch1pbutty]

Is it just me or is a bit disappointing that the digital dash isn’t available as an option? Would imagine a fair proportion of the Tour market will drive it as a regular vehicle and that’s a pretty standard feature on all cars these days. It can’t be a price thing as I’m not far off the price of an Ocean with it…

Digital dash is one more thing to go wrong if you plan on keeping the vehice long term. Its a commercial vehicle and so is built for quick low cost servicing in order to keep Fleet managers happy, otherwise they just switch to non VW vans to keep costs down....hence long service intervals.

Also wouldnt pay an extra for VW Audio options as tech seems way out of date, perhaps better off investing the money in third party audio / satnvav (mirror your phone onto the headunit). Reading a fair few posts recently that indicates problems with wireless apple carplay on with VW units mainly related to poor software updates where VW are out of sync with Apple updates.

 

[Jimmylondon07]

Yeah have already reached out to a couple of third-party retrofitters about it but want assurances from VW regarding the warranty effect before doing so, looks to be in the region of £1,800 to do the installation but could end up being a lot more if there’s an issue with it of course. Will provide VW’s feedback in case anyone else considers doing it in the future.

As Andy alluded to I do feel VW could have done a bit more with the Beach Tour in terms of finish. Once you’ve added your options it’s not great value compared to the Ocean.

 

[Kayleigh]

Personal preference, but I like traditional dials and there is less to go wrong.

 

[Corradobrit]

As Andy alluded to I do feel VW could have done a bit more with the Beach Tour in terms of finish. Once you’ve added your options it’s not great value compared to the Ocean.

Same could be said for the Surf eg only offering a silver awning which will look terrible on a dark colour body. Really we at the end of the T6.1 model cycle and this is how VW is trying to squeeze a few more quid out of the punters.

 

[Jimmylondon07]

Which of course begs the question of whether or not to wait for the next-gen Cali, but that only throws up more questions like what platform will it be built on and whether there will even be a Tour model in the future. Real crystal ball territory isn’t it.

 

[Ch1pbutty]

Which of course begs the question of whether or not to wait for the next-gen Cali, but that only throws up more questions like what platform will it be built on and whether there will even be a Tour model in the future. Real crystal ball territory isn’t it.

You will have a very long wait!....

Just get a well spec'd Tour; T5.1, T6, T6.1 (all similar) are well tested so chances of issues are very small as most have been ironed out over the years. If you wait for the newer model you will be the test pilot and suffer with all the teething issues.

Our current 2012 Beach is our youngest camper, previous vans have all been +20 years old when we sold them.

 

[andyinluton]

Digital dash is one more thing to go wrong if you plan on keeping the vehice long term.

Nothing wrong with the old skool dials.

Still yet to have a thread on here with someone where it's gone wrong unless I've missed it?

Being able to change the whole dash display from MPH to Kmh is a very useful if you hop backwards & forwards over the Chanel a lot.
I also find being able to have the same map displayed on two different screens at a different level of zoom is also very helpful when navigating cities that you are unfamiliar with.

It's the sort of thing that you don't miss if you've never had it, once you have, there's no going back.

 

[dspuk]

Still yet to have a thread on here with someone where it's gone wrong unless I've missed it?

Being able to change the whole dash display from MPH to Kmh is a very useful if you hop backwards & forwards over the Chanel a lot.
I also find being able to have the same map displayed on two different screens at a different level of zoom is also very helpful when navigating cities that you are unfamiliar with.

It's the sort of thing that you don't miss if you've never had it, once you have, there's no going back.

Agree. Never had a single issue with the dash nor carplay. When I went to France and it changed to KMH it made life a lot easier. I guess this new fangled not needing to double declutch still also mithers some.

 

[Ch1pbutty]

Still yet to have a thread on here with someone where it's gone wrong unless I've missed it?

Being able to change the whole dash display from MPH to Kmh is a very useful if you hop backwards & forwards over the Chanel a lot.
I also find being able to have the same map displayed on two different screens at a different level of zoom is also very helpful when navigating cities that you are unfamiliar with.

It's the sort of thing that you don't miss if you've never had it, once you have, there's no going back.

We have it on the EV but don't miss not having it in the van.

It's easy to change MPH / KMPh on the Satnav display which seems to gives more accuracy than the VW Speedo anyway, and can also be set to give a speed warning. It's also possible to switch the dash display to give KMPh reading (T5.1), but never do this find Waze is sufficient on the Kenwood head unit. Destination is set using an voice recognition so no need to touch the head unit whilst driving.

Find the waze gives good audio prompts for directions, so there not much need to look at the screen . Prefer to keep my eyes on the road.

 

[Ch1pbutty]

I guess this new fangled not needing to double declutch still also mithers some.

haha, think it safe to say that none of VW's tech is new fangled!

 

[Corradobrit]

Still yet to have a thread on here with someone where it's gone wrong unless I've missed it?

Lets revisit in 10+ years time as the electrical components wear, by which time spares might be hard to find and VW no longer support it. As tech goes its still relatively young.

Reminds me of the Sony G90 CRT projector I had. Over 60K new. There was a batch of proprietary chips installed on the main control board which bricked the 260lb behemoth when it died due to an inherent weakness. They started to fail around the 1500hr mark. If under warranty Sony replaced them for free but if out of warranty it was a $2000 job. Since they only produced two batches, many sets had this problematic chip and Sony soon exhausted its spares supply. The only option then if out of warranty was to acquire a parts mule and hope it had the good batch IC421. Thats the route I had to take and it took a year for a reasonably priced unit with burnt tubes to appear.

 

[Amarillo]

haha, think it safe to say that none of VW's tech is new fangled!

VW’s defeat device was “new fangled” tech.