Gee, when did vans get so good?
Seriously, I was expecting a circa 18-hour drive in a van to be, if not unpleasant, then still a bit of a chore.
However, I was in a Ford Transit Custom, which proved a comfortable way to haul a cargo bay full of my partner’s clothes, kitchenware, and even some furniture from Melbourne to Brisbane.
I’d love to tell you how the Transit Custom compares with the Hyundai Staria Load or the top-selling Toyota HiAce across a similar distance but, ah, I think I’m good for cross-country road trips for a little while.
Let’s talk about what the Transit Custom does right, though, and where it needs improvement.
How much does the Ford Transit Custom cost?
You get a choice of two trim levels in the diesel-powered Transit Custom range: Trend and Sport.
| Model | Price before on-road costs |
|---|---|
| Ford Transit Custom Trend SWB | $56,590 |
| Ford Transit Custom Trend LWB | $57,590 |
| Ford Transit Custom Sport SWB | $59,990 |
| Ford Transit Custom Sport Double Cab | $62,990 |
Both are available in short- and long-wheelbase body styles, however, the long-wheelbase Sport is what Ford calls a Double Cab and it includes a second row of seating.
The Trend LWB, therefore, is the one to choose if you want maximum cargo space. If you want it with plug-in hybrid power, you’ll need to cough up an extra $10,000, while the electric version commands an additional $10,000 premium on top of that.
It’s far from the cheapest vehicle in the mid-size commercial van segment. For example, the Toyota HiAce LWB – which has a similar overall cargo bay volume – is several thousand dollars cheaper.
To see how the Ford Transit Custom stacks up against its rivals, use our comparison tool
What is the Ford Transit Custom like on the inside?
We did the bulk of our drive in one day, which worked out to around 14 hours in the Transit Custom. Not once did our bodies complain.
Kudos to the designers of the Transit Custom’s seats, because they proved comfortable and supportive. That’s despite the passenger seat actually being more of a bench than a traditional bucket seat.
The cloth upholstery is pleasant, and the outboard seats even feature heating.
The driver’s seat has a fold-down armrest that you can ratchet into your desired position, and the lack of a centre console means you can easily shimmy across the front seats if, for example, someone has parked too close to the driver’s door. This is aided by a completely flat cabin floor.
The steering wheel has tilt and telescopic adjustment, though we found the pedal placement to be a bit awkward.
About that steering wheel: it’s wonderful. The switchgear is logically laid out and tactile, while the leather wrapping is wonderfully soft and the size is spot-on. It’s a better steering wheel than you’ll find in many passenger cars!
Overseas, an optional Mobile Office Pack includes a folding version of the steering wheel, allowing you to use it as a work surface or, let’s be honest, an easier way to eat your Maccas. Sadly, it’s not yet available here.
As expected of a van, there’s ample storage even up front. Storage shelves span the width of the dashboard, while the doors have a small pocket for items like pens, and then larger pockets at their base.
These larger storage cavities incorporate bottle holders large enough for 1.5-litre bottles, while we were able to safely stash items like 3L milk bottles and even a vase in the other part of the lower cavity.
Each side of the dashboard has a cupholder that can fit a medium McCafe beverage or a 600ml soft drink bottle, while there’s another cupholder that folds out from the centre stack.
Everything feels solidly assembled and hard-wearing, and the cabin overall appears modern.
Our tester came equipped with a metal bulkhead, helping to insulate the front of the van from any sounds (but not necessarily smells) in the rear and featuring a clever load-through hatch which we didn’t end up using.
You can still see through the window in the bulkhead and out through the windows in the barn doors, but at night time the reflection of the touchscreen almost completely obscures your view out the back.
You can get a digital rear-view mirror in the Transit Custom, but this comes only in an option package that includes a solid bulkhead with no window.
Fortunately, the Transit Custom comes standard with blind-spot monitoring, while the exterior mirrors feature two different types of mirror so you’ve got multiple viewing angles. There’s no surround-view camera, though you get a reversing camera with decent resolution plus front and rear parking sensors.
The windscreen is huge and the view out the front is expansive, though we were perturbed by a demister that would turn itself off far too quickly.
That brings us to perhaps our greatest gripe: the lack of physical climate controls. There are shortcuts anchored to the bottom of the touchscreen, but they can be finicky on the move – particularly temperature adjustment – and would likely prove cumbersome if you’re wearing gloves.
The centre stack has virtually no switchgear, apart from a handful of shortcut buttons for functions like the driver assistance systems menu plus a volume knob.
The touchscreen is an impressive 13-inch unit running the SYNC4 operating system, and features wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
The latter connects quickly and maintained a stable connection during our road trip, thankfully deciding to wait until we were in Brisbane to occasionally throw up a repetitive “The inserted USB device isn’t responding” error message when we had a phone plugged in. This was fixed by unplugging my phone.
There is a wireless phone charger so in theory you don’t need to ever plug in your phone, but in my experience wireless phone chargers charge too slowly and heat up your phone too much. Cue Alborz chiding me for having an Android.
There’s a simple 7.0-inch instrument cluster screen that’s presentable and logically laid out, and is flanked by a couple of more traditional metres for fuel level and engine temperature.
Moving to the rear, there’s a single sliding door on the kerbside, though you can option a driver’s side sliding door as well.
Unlocking the vehicle once doesn’t unlock the rear, so you’ll need to press that button on the fob again; alternatively, you can separately unlock just the rear of the vehicle, which is handy if you are unloading goods and don’t want anybody to nick your van.
You’ll need to give the sliding door and the barn doors a firm slam to close them, though even still we experienced a handful of phantom ‘tailgate open’ alerts in the instrument cluster.
Inside the cargo bay, you’ll find bright LED lighting. There’s a helpful switch at the rear to turn on additional lighting, while along the sides of the cargo bay you’ll find eight tie-down points as well as padding so your stuff doesn’t damage the walls of the van.
As standard, there’s a single sliding door within an opening 1030mm wide and 1301mm tall, though you can option a second sliding door.
The rear door opening is 1400mm wide and 1316mm tall, and the Transit Custom LWB is rated to fit four Euro (1200mm x 800mm) pallets.
| Dimensions | Ford Transit Custom LWB |
|---|---|
| Length | 5450mm |
| Width | 2275mm |
| Height | 1980mm |
| Wheelbase | 3500mm |
| Cargo bay volume | 6m3 – VDA, behind bulkhead |
| Cargo bay length | 3002mm |
| Cargo bay width | 1392mm – between arches |
| Cargo bay height | 1425mm |
| Payload | 1018kg – at kerb weight |
| Kerb weight | 2207kg |
| Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM) | 3225kg |
| Braked towing capacity | 2500kg |
To see how the Ford Transit Custom stacks up against its rivals, use our comparison tool
What’s under the bonnet?
For now, the Transit Custom is a diesel-only affair in Australia, however, plug-in hybrid and electric versions are coming soon.
| Specifications | Ford Transit Custom |
|---|---|
| Engine | 2.0L turbo-diesel 4cyl |
| Power | 125kW |
| Torque | 390Nm |
| Transmission | 8-speed auto |
| Drive type | Front-wheel drive |
| Weight | 2207kg |
| Fuel economy (claimed) | 8.0L/100km |
| Fuel economy (as tested) | 7.8L/100km |
| Fuel tank capacity | 70L |
| Fuel requirement | Diesel |
Out of an abundance of caution, we filled up at a quarter of the tank remaining both times we filled up the van. That means we could have easily done Melbourne to Brisbane on two tanks.
The Transit Custom quickly settled into a fuel consumption groove, and couldn’t be shaken from 7.7 to 7.8 litres per 100km. The final score was 7.8L/100km across over 1800km of driving.
To see how the Ford Transit Custom stacks up against its rivals, use our comparison tool
How does the Ford Transit Custom drive?
The first thing you notice about the way the Transit Custom drives is its excellent steering.
Not only is the wheel lovely to hold, as mentioned earlier, but the steering is nicely weighted – it’s light enough to help you manoeuvre around tight carparks, but confidence-inspiring out on the road, too.
Then there’s the powertrain. The eight-speed automatic occasionally exhibits a not-so-smooth shift at low speed, but otherwise it’s well-matched for the torquey turbo-diesel engine.
You change gears using a stalk on the column, which may trip up people for whom the Transit Custom is among a fleet of vehicles they regularly drive. If this will be your primary source of transportation, however, you’ll find you quickly get used to the stalk.
The Transit Custom feels like it has more grunt than its outputs suggest, while the cabin is quite well insulated from the usual clatter you get from a turbo-diesel. Mind you, the cabin does get a bit boomy at high speeds with tyre roar, but this is a van after all.
We drove over some rather rotten rural roads in New South Wales, and the Transit Custom took them in its stride. It has a surprisingly loping ride for a van, and unusually features independent rear suspension. And yet, despite being softly sprung, body control was commendable.
When we picked up the car, we found the headlight beam didn’t extend far enough, but adjusting the headlight aim with the toggle to the right-hand side of the steering wheel fixed this.
What we couldn’t fix, however, was the automatic high-beam. It proved erratic and inconsistent, dipping the lights on pitch-black country roads. It got to the point where I just wished the Transit Custom didn’t have the feature, as I was constantly having to flick the headlight stalk anyway and this was just giving me another detent to flick through.
The low-beam headlights are LEDs, which are lovely and bright. The high-beams may elegantly fade on, but they’re disappointingly halogen units. Ford refers to these headlights as “hybrid” headlights, which makes them sound more clever than they are…
You fill up the Transit Custom via a flap on the passenger’s side, though you’ll need to open the passenger-side door in order to open this flap. Fortunately, the filler itself doesn’t have a cap.
The blind-spot monitoring worked well, as did the lane-keep assist though there’s no lane centring. There is adaptive cruise control, which would often allow the van to exceed the speed limit by 2km/h – not ideal, but that shouldn’t be enough to get you in trouble with the law.
There is an annoying overspeed alert, but you can turn it off or easily drown it out with music. The driver fatigue monitoring feature doesn’t scan your eyes like in some cars, though if you swerve over a lane marking or drive for a long time without a break, it will flash up a helpful reminder.
The safe exit warning feature is a welcome inclusion, sounding a chime if the van detects you’re about to open your door into oncoming traffic.
The Transit Custom is under 2m tall, so it should fit in most carparks. Very handy.
To see how the Ford Transit Custom stacks up against its rivals, use our comparison tool
What do you get?
The Trend is the entry-level Transit Custom.
2025 Ford Transit Custom equipment highlights:
- 7.0-inch instrument cluster screen
- 13.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system
- Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto
- DAB+ digital radio
- Satellite navigation
- 5G embedded modem
- Wireless phone charger
- FordPass app connectivity
- 4-speaker sound system
- 8-way manual driver’s seat with single armrest
- Heated front seats
- Leatherette-wrapped steering wheel
- Drive mode selection: Normal, Eco, Slippery and Tow/Haul
- Load Area Protection Kit
- Side and rear door protection
- Moulded load floor liner
- LED load bay lighting
- Metal bulkhead
- Kerbside sliding door
- Integrated roof racks
- Halogen and LED ‘hybrid’ headlights
- Rain-sensing wipers
- Quickclear heated windscreen
- Push-button start
Metallic paint is a $700 option, though our tester came in standard Frozen White. You can also spend $1400 and get SVO Paint, allowing you to choose from a wider range of colours than the monochromatic trio of $700 finishes.
Other options include:
- A two-seat configuration: $150; deletes the load-through hatch
- Rear liftgate: $700; replaces the barn doors
- Secure Visibility Pack: $1500; includes steel rear doors with no windows, a metal bulkhead with no window; and a digital rear-view mirror with an integrated dash cam
To see how the Ford Transit Custom stacks up against its rivals, use our comparison tool
Is the Ford Transit Custom safe?
While like most vans the Transit Custom hasn’t been crash-tested by ANCAP, it does have a 96 per cent rating in assessment of its driver assistance systems.
Standard safety equipment includes:
- Autonomous emergency braking
- Intersection assist
- Reverse AEB
- Adaptive cruise control
- Blind-spot assist
- Evasive steering assist
- Lane keep assist
- Rear cross-traffic alert
- Safe exit warning
- Traffic sign recognition
- Reversing camera with 180-degree view
- Front, rear parking sensors
- Front, front-side, and curtain airbags
To see how the Ford Transit Custom stacks up against its rivals, use our comparison tool
How much does the Ford Transit Custom cost to run?
Ford backs its vehicles with a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, with 12 months of roadside assistance included at the time of purchase and extended with every service provided they’re completed within Ford’s network.
| Servicing and Warranty | Ford Transit Custom |
|---|---|
| Warranty | 5 years, unlimited kilometres |
| Roadside assistance | 12 months – from purchase, then service-initiated |
| Service intervals | 12 months or 30,000 kilometres |
| Capped price servicing | 4 years, $499 each – retail, small business only |
| Total capped price service cost | $1996 |
For other buyers, the first four services are priced at $580, $915, $715, and $915 respectively.
To see how the Ford Transit Custom stacks up against its rivals, use our comparison tool
CarExpert’s Take on the Ford Transit Custom
An 18-hour drive can be a real torture test of a vehicle. If something is bugging you when you set off, it’s bound to infuriate you by the end of the trip.
I’ve been in cars with uncomfortable seats, or with annoying lane-keeping aids, that would have had me raging at the end of 18 hours.
But any faults the Ford has are minor, and I quickly came to respect this van. Hell, at one point I even thought, “Hey, would I want to own one of these?” (The answer is no: I hate moving my own stuff, so the last thing I’d want as a van owner is to get roped into helping every friend and family member move).
With its comfortable interior, spacious load bay, punchy powertrain and slick infotainment, the Transit Custom should be on your shortlist if you’re buying a van.
Interested in buying a Ford Transit Custom? Get in touch with one of CarExpert’s trusted dealers here
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