Volkswagen ID. Buzz LWB long-term test: does our EV need an exorcist?

Verdict

We are loving our time with the hyper-practical Volkswagen ID. Buzz. The powered side doors aren’t a highlight, even with the ghostly electrical fault rectified, but it’s a great utility vehicle that is up to almost any challenge family life might throw at it.

• Efficiency: 3.1 miles/kWh
• Mileage: 6,718

Can a car be haunted? I’m not talking about some dilapidated wreck that’s been languishing in the outbuilding of an abandoned stately home for 50 years, hiding the kind of horrifying past that no online history check will ever show up. This is a showroom-fresh Volkswagen ID. Buzz.

You’d think the answer would be ‘no’. And yet, there have been some strange goings on of late. In the dead of night – sometimes in broad daylight, too, but that doesn’t really fit the narrative – the ID. Buzz started opening its own door for no apparent earthly reason.

The passenger-side sliding door was always the culprit. It’s electrically powered, so it can be opened from the key fob or a button inside the car, but it started opening itself at apparently random moments while the car was locked – and always when it was charging.

The door would slide open in its ghostly way, and because the VW was locked, the alarm would go off. This happened infrequently, but usually about once every couple of hours, and it meant that you couldn’t leave the ID. Buzz unattended while it was charging – or have it plugged in overnight – unless you wanted regular alarm calls where you were forced to go outside to close the door and lock the car.

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Now, I’ve seen The Exorcist, but rather than a priest, it still felt like the first port of call in this instance should be my local Volkswagen Van Centre (the manufacturer classes the ID. Buzz as a commercial vehicle, so it sells them through its van specialist network).

Sure enough, Eurovans Crawley, West Sussex, identified the issue without rosary beads or vomit – a rogue door latch. The part was placed on order, and two weeks later the mystery was solved, all under warranty.

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This little episode led me to consider the sliding doors on the ID. Buzz in a bit more depth than I would otherwise have done. They’re an excellent addition to a vehicle like this, because they create such a wide aperture for getting people and stuff inside. Accessing the third row of seats is a walk-through operation, with none of the clambering you have to do in many seven-seat SUVs.

Unlike the tailgate on the Buzz, which needs a huge amount of space behind the MPV to swing open, the sliding doors can be opened in really tight spaces without the worry of kids damaging adjacent cars that you constantly have with conventional doors. While the doors on our Style model are powered, the entry-level Life versions feature manual ones that you have to slide yourself. Powered doors can be opened from the driver’s seat to let passengers out, or via a press of the key fob button. But if you turn the electric motors off  – as I did while trying to solve the door saga – they are very heavy and hard to handle. When opening electrically, they’re also a little slow in operation, sometimes getting confused if you accidentally press the release button twice.

You can save yourself £4,800 by choosing a Life model instead of the mid-range Style version. I’d be very tempted to forgo the automatic doors and tailgate of the Style, but then you also miss out on quite a few other trinkets, including the upgraded  ‘Plus’ infotainment system, the LED Matrix headlamps and the 13-speaker Harman Kardon stereo, which really is rather good.

In the end, the ID. Buzz excels as a utility vehicle and pretty much all of that practicality is present in the cheaper Life trim – which makes me feel like that’s the one most buyers would be better off choosing.

Volkswagen ID. Buzz LWB: first fleetwatch

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Cleaning the ID. Buzz is proving more difficult than expected

The Volkswagen ID. Buzz is a behemoth of practicality, but not everything about driving a 4,962mm long and 1,985mm wide, 2.7-tonne electric vehicle is a walk in the park. Cleaning it, for example. 

There is simply a huge amount of bodywork to wash on the Buzz. The old bucket-and-sponge method is a back-breaking task involving a stepladder to reach the roof, and as soon as you roll into a hand car wash, the staff are reaching for their calculators so they can charge you their inflated rate for ‘extra-large vehicles’. My favourite jet wash doesn’t have a long enough hose on it to reach the far side of the car, so I’ve been using another local one that’s better set-up for vehicles of the larger persuasion. 

I do still find myself more motivated to keep the ID. Buzz clean than I have done with other cars, however. Mainly, that’s because so many people seem to enjoy seeing the Volkswagen. The two-tone paint job is a £2,790 option, but it looks so much better than the single-colour options. In Style specification with LED matrix lights and 20-inch wheels, it’s got to be the best-looking ‘van’ out there.

Volkswagen ID. Buzz LWB: first report

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For our second long-term test of VW’s retro SUV, we have the new long-wheelbase version. But does bigger mean better?

• Efficiency: 2.9 miles/kWh
• Mileage: 1,196

The more observant among you will have noticed that Volkswagen’s ID. Buzz electric people carrier has already done a stint on our fleet. So why are we testing it again? 

The answer is that VW has addressed both of the main criticisms we had of this retro EV by launching a new long-wheelbase model. The ID. Buzz LWB has seven seats and a bigger battery which, in theory, should bring major boosts to both practicality and driving range. The question is, will this be enough to turn the Buzz from lovable fashion statement to first-rate transport for big families? When it originally launched in the UK, the ID. Buzz was available as a five-seater only. It’s extremely practical in that form, but it didn’t quite maximise the car’s potential. 

These days you can get the standard version as a six seater, with three rows of seats, for only £150 more than a five-seat model. That seems very reasonable, until you see that the long-wheelbase seven-seater is only another £360. These unusually small gaps make this LWB model look like the pick of the range. The only obvious downside is its extra size.

Prices for the ID. Buzz LWB start at under £60,000 and for that you get a vehicle that’s 4,962mm long – 250mm more than the standard SWB car. The sliding side doors are longer for easier access to a cabin that also has more passenger and luggage space. 

The other major upgrade you get with the LWB Buzz models is the battery. The standard model we tested in 2024 had a 77kWh battery that struggled to break the 200-mile range mark in cold weather, although new SWB versions now get an upgraded 79kWh item. 

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This ID. Buzz LWB has an 86kWh unit and VW’s special 282bhp ‘high-efficiency drive’ electric motor. So far we’ve been getting 2.9 miles per kWh and the indicated range has been consistently over 250 miles. In the midst of the recent heatwave, it showed 281 miles.   

Our ID. Buzz is in mid-range Style trim. You can get the all-wheel-drive GTX for another £3,000 or so, but rear-wheel-drive Style seems a good fit unless you really need extra traction. 

The options fitted include the Candy White and Starlight Blue two-tone paint job (£2,790). That’s the same price as all the other two-tone paint options, but they do help to accentuate the ID. Buzz’s design and are understandably popular in what is a very style-led car choice. 

We’ve also got the Comfort Seat Package (£2,310), which includes adjustable ambient lighting, arm rests, heated, massaging and electrically adjustable front seats, and a more durable carpet. There’s no protective floor mat in the rear, so that carpet upgrade may prove worthwhile, but I’m already worried about the cream-coloured ‘Mistral’ seat fabric that seems likely to show up the dirt. 

Finally, there’s a £980 retractable towbar, which we’ve been using for our bike carrier, and the 21-inch Bromberg alloys (£515) thatlook great, but also vulnerable to kerbing. One option missing is the £1,050 heat pump, which would do a lot to boost cold weather range. 

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It makes a total of £71,615 for our car. That’s a lot, but there aren’t many EV options if you need ID. Buzz levels of space and versatility. 

Early impressions are that the VW is a first-class long-distance car. It doesn’t cope well with rough surfaces or corners taken at speed, though, so the message is to keep your passengers happy by taking it easy. 

The steering is nicely weighted, the turning circle is tight and the high driving position and parking cameras make it surprisingly easy to manoeuvre, after some familiarisation. You can fit it into most car park spaces, and the sliding side doors mean less worry about kids opening them into parked cars or trolleys.

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