Volkswagen Crafter Pricing and Specs

The reason for deleting a temperature gauge is the same as for any other time a manufacturer deletes equipment; to save money. While your Crafter doesn’t have a temperature gauge per se, it will have a warning light that will illuminate if the temperature starts to rise above normal. At which point, the onus is on you to stop and find the problem, or risk blowing the engine up. The problem with these light is that the damage is sometimes already done by the time the light flickers on, while an actual gauge might have given you more warning that there was a problem.

Car makers get away with this sort of thing these days because cooling systems are quite reliable and don’t tend to give problems. Which is absolutely no comfort to anybody who has had a catastrophic engine melt-down.

Fitting an aftermarket temperature gauge in the old days was simple because there was no computer control of the car and its driveline. You simply found a convenient, threaded spot in the cylinder head or block and screwed a temperature gauge sender into it, mounted the gauge in the cabin where you could see it easily and job done. That doesn’t apply nowadays as to mount the sender, you’d probably need to disconnect some other intrinsic sensor that the computer relies on to make the car work properly.

But there is a modern solution. You can now buy a virtual gauge cluster that plugs into the on-board diagnostics port on modern cars. From that data, the cluster can determine all sorts of things (including engine temperature) and display that info on a small screen you mount in the cabin. You’ll also be able to display a heap of other information, including transmission temperature, air-fuel ratio and plenty more.

Single-cab Crafters sold in Australia are available with three seats in the front, while dual-cab variants can seat up to seven passengers.

Volkswagen hasn't provided official fuel consumption figures for the 2018-spec Crafter as there are 59 variants available, and they will have wildly different fuel efficiency. The medium-wheelbase van will surely be much more frugal than the long-wheelbase high-roof model with extended rear overhang, or the heavy duty 4x4 light truck version! Still, Tim Robson saw an average of 10.2-litres per-100km on his short drive around Auckland at the Crafter launch this year.