• Diesel most economical
• Petrol will do over 35mpg
• Figures from our own testing

What are the running costs?

A diesel engine is best or if you’re looking for the cheapest Caddy running costs, but you’ll need to regularly making longer journeys to make the most of this capability. Short hops around town are unlikely to allow the TDI technology to warm up enough to be properly efficient, and may even cause reliability issues – especially with the diesel particulate filter (DPF) – down the line.

Both the 100hp and 122hp diesels should comfortably achieve over 50mpg (miles per gallon). We’ve tested the 122hp model on a variety of trips, including a lot of motorway work, and found this to be exactly the case. Admittedly, that was only with two people on board, but at cruising speeds we wouldn’t expect the diesel mpg to dip too much if you regularly travel with lots of people and luggage. Especially with the DSG automatic transmission managing the gear selection.

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In our six-month test of the 1.5-litre TSI turbo petrol Caddy, reviewer Adam Binnie recorded an overall fuel economy average of just under 36mpg. That’s doing a wide variety of journeys, often with two adults, two kids and plenty of kit onboard. With bikes on a roof rack on the top this dropped to around 31mpg, while longer motorway trips were closer to 40mpg. Not too bad for a petrol-powered vehicle shaped like a box.

For the official WLTP figures and other stats, see our VW Caddy specs page.

Servicing and warranty

VW recommends servicing every year or 10,000 miles (whichever comes first). The company also offers fixed servicing that can be bundled in with the cost of the car.

The Caddy comes with a three-year 100,000-mile warranty (with unlimited mileage cover in the first two years). Official VW extended warranty cover is available at extra cost.

Reliability

• Parts shared with lots of other VWs
• Infotainment can be flaky
• We’re not expecting big problems

The Caddy features a lot of the same tech and hardware as the Volkswagen Golf and many other VW Group products, so a lot of hard miles have been covered by the engineering that underpins this vehicle. Generally speaking, we would not expect you to suffer any major problems if you buy one of these. Especially as the Caddy is fundamentally built to be a commercial vehicle, where reliability is even more important – the Cargo model always does well in the FN50 van reliability survey every year.

However, that doesn’t mean faults haven’t been reported. Sudden clutch failure has been an issue for some unlucky owners, while others have experience electrical issues. The touchscreen infotainment system is notoriously fickle as well – usually it reboots itself if it crashes, but we’ve personally experienced (in a different VW Group car) a total system failure, so that isn’t beyond the bounds of possibility.

There have also been a few official safety recalls involving items such as incorrectly made suspension components, tyres that don’t meet the right standard and seat-belts that may have been damaged during installation. These will be fixed free of charge by VW, but if buying used it’s worth checking to make sure nothing is still outstanding.

Beyond this, if you’re buying a Caddy within warranty, there isn’t much reason to really worry, but as the earliest examples go beyond the three-year period we may begin to see more issues emerge.

Already own a Mk5 Caddy? Why not leave a Parkers owner review to help guide other people.