Hi!
I'm Del, and I'm a very happy new Panda owner.
Believe it or not, I've downsized from a Mk3 Granada Scorpio but my wife has some medical issues which meant that the low seating and wide sills of the Granada meant it was no longer suitable, so after trying dozens of different cars, it turns out that the ideal car for us was a Panda.
With that decided, it was just a question of which one, and we plumped for the Easy+, in black with the funky red mirrors and roof rails.
We've had it just over a week, and absolutely love it. The Blue&Me is great, the City steering is super-light (maybe a little too light!), the rear parking sensors are a boon.

Here he is:

He's been christened Kryten (hence the username) and if you're a fan of the BBC TV show 'Red Dwarf', you'll know that Kryten is painted black and kind of angular looking. We thought it suited the car down to the ground!

The only teensy criticism I have so far is that the brakes seem a tiny bit graunchy when applied firmly, especially at low speed. Is this usual?

Perhaps you could use the non-City steering setting for most driving and go to City for parking and so on.

Welcome, Del.
Nice red accents.

Kryten said:

The only teensy criticism I have so far is that the brakes seem a tiny bit graunchy when applied firmly, especially at low speed. Is this usual?

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Yeah.
I've never had a new Fiat that didn't have crappy sounding brakes.

In recent years they've got worse as they don't make brakes pads and shoes with nasty asbestos in them anymore.
There's a lot more metal particles in the brake linings these days that tend to grind a bit.

Just wait until it rains, in the morning they sound like coffee grinders as the discs rust really quickly!

Just wait until they are worn, then fit some good quality German pads and discs, like Pagid and count yourself lucky you haven't a model with discs all round like the 4x4's, they grind, hum and honk terrible.
Mines started clonking too, I think the pads are slapping in the calipers!

Very smart - you are justifiably proud! Enjoy your new Panda!

Nice ride! Never used the city steering but I believe it only works below 30km/h or something like that.
Can't relate to the brake issues you are describing maybe they just need to bed in some more or put some copaslip on the rear of the brakepads.

1000 miles up