General First Impressions - Latest 2011 Dobby

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General First Impressions - Latest 2011 Dobby

Yobbo

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Jul 27, 2011
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I recently bought the latest 7 seat Eleganza 1.6 Multijet with 6 speed box.

First impressions;

The Good

It drives better than it looks. I usually leave the car smiling.
Its usefully larger than the previous version. I got 3 scrap washing machines in it last week and I could have just about squeezed in a fourth.
I love the red interior. Having sat in a few with black interiors as a comparison it looks a lot better than you might think.
Height adjustable seat is great. You can have truck driver or car driver positions depending upon your preference.
I love the Giant rear tailgate. Even my 6 foot 3 can stand under it without bumping my head.
Car unexpectedly came with a spare wheel.
Parking sensors, Cruise control, Climate control and 4 electric windows are all 'nice to haves'.
Roof rails look great and don't attract wind noise until you fit the crossbars.
Stop start is 'interesting'
Radio/CD is decent.

The bits I am unsure about.

Engine has less torque than I hoped for, but this should improve.
Individual third row of seats are a faff to fit and you need to know the technique as they are heavy. These seats are tight if you are over about 5 foot 10.
Economy not as good as I hoped. I am getting 45 mpg. This should improve as it has done with all my diesel cars.
Car understeers in tight roundabouts so you need to be careful in the wet.
Not as much internal storage as I would like for small objects. The passenger glove compartment could certainly be larger and a lidded dashtop storage area or a cubby box in the centre consule would have been great. The van version can have an optional passenger underseat storage drawer which would have been nice in the car version, but its not available.
No small bin to put used sweet wrappers, old car park tickets etc
Hill holder is inconsistent. Sometimes it works other times not.
The washer jets are not adjustable and they don't throw enough water to the top of the screen on the motorway.
I get lots of micky taking about buying one, but I have a thick skin.:whogives:

Generally I am very pleased so far. I will update in a few months once its settled down to my style of driving. (y)
 
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Vauxhall will be selling a shedload from next year, even if they are mainly to the Post office :D:rolleyes:
 
Thanks for this. Tell us more about your experience of the start-stop technology. Importantly, can you override it to run the vehicle at idle should you want to? Thanks again.
 
Stop start seems to work okay and yes you can switch it off (there is a switch between the seats), or if you keep it in first gear the engine keeps running anyway. The only drawback is that I find I get 'Traffic light anxiety' using it i.e. It does seem to take that extra half second or so to get the car moving when it is working and that is usually enough time for some muppet behind to start blaring their horn at me and doubting my parentage. :mad: This means that I am constantly thinking, when will the light go green? when will the light go green? when will the light go green ? so I end up anticipating the lights and shoving it into first to restart the engine, often way before I really need to. As I said I find it slightly stressful to use.

The manual explains why it doesn't work sometimes, but the 'rules' that determine if it works or not were so complex, I decided instead not to attempt to remember them and settled for 'sometimes it works and other times not'. :)
 
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just ordered my new dobbie 1.6 and build date quoted as 01/01 this is because i wanted rear doors.thanks for your review.82k sevice quoted at £650,this will be at approx 2 years with the mileage i expect to do
 
Hi there, I picked up my 1.6 MJ last week, I swapped it for a 1.4 Qubo. They are like chalk and cheese, Qubo looked good but thats where the positive stopped. The Doblo is in a different class, the ride, space, and engine are 100% better, would have never bought Qubo if I had tried it first. Doblo is an excellent vehicle.(y)
 
Someone was telling me something similar about the Qubo only last week, she didn't like it either.

I have found one shortcoming with the new Doblo now that the winter is here. Its demisting of the windscreen is frankly pathetic. I don't think I have driven a worse car for demist performance. It can take a full 10 minutes to get the screen clear first thing in the morning. Trouble is you try to give it a rub with a demist pad and the residue promptly freezes on the inside of the glass (n) Anyone got any suggestions to improve demist speed ?
 
Part of the problem is that the Max Demist button doesn't work like it does on every other modern car I have used. On other cars I have used, as soon as you press max demist the fan runs flat out and it directs all the air to the screen with either max heat or aircon or both.

With the Dobby climate control it seems to realise that the engine has only just started from cold and won't increase the fan speed until the secondary glow plug circuit has switched off which is 2-3 minutes even though you have pressed max demist as soon as you stepped in the car. You see the headlights suddenly brighten as the glow circuit eventually switches off and straight away the fan speeds up to flat out to give max demist. This means that any chance of clearing the screen is compromised.

I have found that it can be overridden manually but this being a Fiat it can't be done quickly and needs much pressing of other buttons.

It may sound like I am whingeing but until you have seen how poor it is you will just have to take it from me that it is something that needs improving.
 
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Fiat are pulling out of their commercial joint venture with Peugeot/Citroen so the Qubo will soon be history. I guess with the merger with Chrysler they dont need the capacity anymore, plus with the deal with GM to sell the Doblo as an Opel/Vauxhall they have a bigger commercial market from that.

They are starting up production of other Fiat Commercial vehicles in Mexico.

I would love it if they build a 4x4 version of the Doblo they did make one in Brasil I believe...
 
I gave an American colleague a lift last week and he reckoned that the Doblo is going to be sold as a Dodge Ram in the US. Can that be right ?
 
I don't know why but the more I see of the new shape, I'm thinking hmmm not bad.
When following one has anyone noticed how the rear springs are mounted at centre line of the wheel level ie quite low. Looks almost like they would catch on anything lying in the road.
 
had my new active 1.6 a month now,its done 5250 miles avg mpg 42.9. I was hoping for better.Its a good vehicle ,ride ,space, all good.build quality is a little skimped,the plastics feel cheap considering Fiats list of £15,700 (I did,nt pay list :) )
 
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