Vauxhall Vivaro Life review

If you need to move more than six people at a time, you really don’t have a huge number of vehicles to choose from. And, even if you don’t need quite so many seats, you might still need huge amounts of luggage-lugging space in your everyday life. So what do you do? Do you get a large seven-seat SUV like everybody else, or should you plump for an MPV – the default choice until not so long ago. Well, the Vauxhall Vivaro Life is here to tempt you with a Third Way.

While its commercial vehicle origins are plain to see, the Vivaro Life is more than just a van with windows. It might just win you over with its car-like driving manners, lofty driving position and high level of standard equipment. Similarly to other MPVs of this type, you can have the Vivaro in either Normal (medium in Vauxhall-speak) form or as a longer Long version.

Of course, there are other similarly luxurious alternatives out there, such as the Mercedes V-Class and the Citroën Spacetourer, which shares its basic design with the Vauxhall. You might even consider the cheaper (and less spacious) Ford Galaxy or our favourite seven-seater SUV, the Peugeot 5008. 

You can only have the Vivaro with a diesel engine, producing 148 or 178bhp. A manual gearbox is fitted as standard with the 148bhp engine, while the 178bhp one gets an automatic as standard. And, as the Vivaro shares a mechanical platform with SUVs such as the Vauxhall Grandland X, its road manners are much closer to those of a car than you’d think after glancing at its boxy body. But is this bulky beast a better buy?

Read on to find out the answer, and for our suggestions on which is the best version to buy. And don’t forget, if you want to buy a Vivaro, or any other new car for that matter, head to our New Car Buying section, where you could save thousands on your next car.