Mercedes-Benz is well known for providing a vehicle to fit almost every niche sector in the car market, and it’s a similar story in the commercial vehicle world. With everything from a light van to a heavy truck, Mercedes seems to have the market covered.
The latest addition to this line-up is the smallest van yet to carry the three-pointed star. Mercedes has been offering its Citan urban van for more than a year now, in both Long and Extra Long body styles. Now it has added the Compact body to that range, available as a 108CDI or the 109CDI that we have here.
It’s an interesting addition to the range, given that Renault has stopped selling the smallest version of the Kangoo, on which Citan is based, in the UK.
Our 109CDI test van has the more powerful 90hp version of the 1.5-litre diesel engine, which is more than enough to push the little van along in a sprightly manner. Not surprisingly Mercedes will not be offering the recently introduced 110hp motor in this Compact van.
There are just five forward gears with this engine, but they are enough to see the smallest Citan esily keep pace with traffic in town and even tackle short motorway trips in reasonable comfort, though few people are going to use the Compact a long distance hauler.
The van is just like any other Citan in the cab, with the sturdy dash providing excellent sound proofing from the engine and driveline. However, as you are sitting so close to the rear wheels, you do get plenty of tyre roar from the back, unless you opt for a solid steel bulkhead.
Our test van had a mesh grille with a folding section (£96) and a fold-flat passenger seat (£174) boosting the load area and allowing you to carry longer loads above the folded seat.
The Compact has a load volume without the folding grille of 2.4m3, with a load length of 1,369mm to the back of the seats. It is surprisingly spacious for such a short van and the wide rear doors provide good access to the load area.
It’s reasonably well equipped too, with heated electrically adjustable mirrors, electric windows, central locking, a height adjustable driver’s seat, a trip computer and a Radio/MP3 player with Bluetooth.
All Citans benefit from Adaptive ESP as standard, along with ASR acceleration skid control, and BAS brake assist.
The load volume is on a par with the
Citroën Nemo/Peugeot Bipper and Fiat Fiorino and well ahead of car-derived vans such as the Vauxhaull Corsavan and Ford’s Fiesta Van. A payload of just 490kg is a
bit below the 610kg available in the Nemo/Bipper/Fiorino though.
Mercedes promises fuel consumption of up to 61.4mpg if you opt for the BlueEfficiency model, with a CO2 output of just 123g/km. Again that compares well to the Fiat, Peugeot and Citroën vans, but does fall some way behind Ford’s latest Fiesta Van, which promises up to 78.5mpg and just 95g/km. The interesting addition to this sector next year will be Ford’s Transit Courier, which if it can combine the efficiency of the Fiesta with the load carrying of the French vans could be a real threat.
The Citan Compact starts at £13,375, though Mercedes is currently offering the van on a contract deal for around £240 per month.
What we think
The Compact won’t be the biggest seller in the Citan range, but the addition of another body size does broaden the van’s appeal to a wider spread of potential customers.
Specification
MODEL Mercedes-Benz Citan
Compact 109CDI
BASIC PRICE £13,375
ENGINE 4-cyl/1,461cc
FUEL INJECTION Common-rail
POWER 90hp @ 4,000rpm
TORQUE 200Nm @1,750-3,000rpm
Weights (kg)
GVW 1,785
KERB WEIGHT 1,295
PAYLOAD 490
MAX TRAILER WEIGHT 1,050
Dimensions (mm)
LOAD SPACE LENGTH 1,369
LOAD SPACE WIDTH 1,460
LOAD SPACE HEIGHT 1,258
LOAD HEIGHT (unladen) 568
LOAD VOLUME 2.4m3
Cost considerations
FUEL TANK CAPACITY 60 litres
COMBINED MPG & CO2 61.4mpg/123g/km
OIL CHANGE 2 yr/25,000 miles
WARRANTY 3 yr/unlimited miles