General 1,000 miles up

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General 1,000 miles up

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Sep 17, 2009
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Bit south in Devon like
Just came back from a trip down to South Devon yesterday and we've just completed our first 1,000 miles in the new Panda.

So far I have to say it's been an absolute pleasure to drive. What's really pleased me the most is that it's lost none of the fun and enjoyment that we used to get driving the 500.

Better still, it's also a major improvement on what I believe were the two main issues with the old 500. Firstly, the ride quality - it's like night and day compared to the 500. Admittedly ours was one which was built prior to 2010 when the 500s had the revised suspension and anti-roll bar fitted as standard, but the new Panda is far more composed around corners above 30mph. It still has a fair bit of body roll but it's nowhere near as bad IMO.

Secondly, the 1.2 seems to have had a few tweaks particularly in fifth gear and is now able to hold its own much more when dealing with hills. The magic point seems to be around the 2500rpm mark - previously in the 500 if you were going uphill in fifth gear and the revs started to drop below 3k then it quickly died on you. Not so in the Panda, it seems to be quite happy to hold its own around the 2500-3000 rpm mark.

We haven't really made much use of the various flex options yet either, so I can't comment too much on those. The cargo box has been more useful in terms of creating the flat payload; it makes things much easier getting stuff in and out of the boot. But we took it out before we went away to give us the full boot space for bags etc, and I have to say the standard boot configuration is very good as well.

Any dislikes so far? Well, there's only one so far which are the gear shift indicators. They are utterly crap and I wish I could turn them off! It's quite hilly around these parts and there are also a lot of speed limit changes. There's one which has a hill in a 30mph limit; I will drop down to fourth before ascending and will sometimes have to go down to third. However the car is convinced that I should be changing up to fifth gear instead, even when going uphill and the engine starts labouring. Not good!:eek:

All in all though, very pleased indeed!(y)
 
Any dislikes so far? Well, there's only one so far which are the gear shift indicators. They are utterly crap and I wish I could turn them off! It's quite hilly around these parts and there are also a lot of speed limit changes. There's one which has a hill in a 30mph limit; I will drop down to fourth before ascending and will sometimes have to go down to third. However the car is convinced that I should be changing up to fifth gear instead, even when going uphill and the engine starts labouring. Not good!:eek:

All in all though, very pleased indeed!(y)

Just like in the 500 then. Useless those shift indicators!

Glad you're enjoying the new Panda (y)
 
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