I have now done 4300 odd miles on the 4x4 Panda and it is freeing up nicely. On a trip to Yorkshire/Cheshire/Derbyshire and back home to Kent, recently covering about a 1000 miles of very mixed roads, eg motorway cruising (well loaded) at 70mph for a few miles motorway stationary for minutes on end and much of the M1 at 50mph, A roads doing what you can, plus a few fun miles for me finding as many really challenging roads/tracks in Derbyshire for a few hours the little beast did 45.2mpg according to the computer. I am happy with that. Overall in the 4300 miles I have topped up with just under 2 ltrs of oil.
Generally very happy with the car, but nothing is perfect. On long motorway trips I have noticed that steering can seem a little vague at times, but I put this down to the Mud/Snow tyres. I may experiment with altering the pressures to see what effect that has. A couple of my motorbikes (a Vincent and a BMW) are very very sensitive to tyre , pressures and indeed make and model of tyre, and handling can be totally transformed, by variations. At some stage in the future, as I intend to keep the car for the rest of my life (at least that is the intention at the moment) I may get another set of (steel) wheels and use non-all-round tyres (if you know what I mean)

Any comments/observations Pandamen/Pandawomen/Pandamoniums

Motorcyclist Colin said:

I have now done 4300 odd miles on the 4x4 Panda and it is freeing up nicely. ...
Any comments/observations Pandamen/Pandawomen/Pandamoniums

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Did you spot that you have submitted reply number 1000 to this thread? I think there should be a medal for that!
My 4x4 MJ, which had just 4 miles on it in August, now has 9800 and is chugging along very nicely thanks. 'Only' averages 52mpg in that time (I say 'only' as previous Euro 5 4x4 MJ managed 60mpg with ease... but also with 20BHP less)

Mrs J, with her sister as passenger, took Becky half way round the city bypass to get to Ikea today. I stayed home and watched an old war film on tv. She (Mrs J) reports she got into 5th gear for the first time since we bought her - almost a year ago - and that she cruised very nicely at 65 mph!

MOT at the end of next week so that will have given the Cat a good burn out!

Motorcyclist Colin said:

I have now done 4300 odd miles on the 4x4 Panda and it is freeing up nicely. On a trip to Yorkshire/Cheshire/Derbyshire and back home to Kent, recently covering about a 1000 miles of very mixed roads, eg motorway cruising (well loaded) at 70mph for a few miles motorway stationary for minutes on end and much of the M1 at 50mph, A roads doing what you can, plus a few fun miles for me finding as many really challenging roads/tracks in Derbyshire for a few hours the little beast did 45.2mpg according to the computer. I am happy with that. Overall in the 4300 miles I have topped up with just under 2 ltrs of oil.
Generally very happy with the car, but nothing is perfect. On long motorway trips I have noticed that steering can seem a little vague at times, but I put this down to the Mud/Snow tyres. I may experiment with altering the pressures to see what effect that has. A couple of my motorbikes (a Vincent and a BMW) are very very sensitive to tyre , pressures and indeed make and model of tyre, and handling can be totally transformed, by variations. At some stage in the future, as I intend to keep the car for the rest of my life (at least that is the intention at the moment) I may get another set of (steel) wheels and use non-all-round tyres (if you know what I mean)

Any comments/observations Pandamen/Pandawomen/Pandamoniums

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I'd be chuffed with 45mpg. I regularly get 37. I have now started to give the car some welly though. It definitely uses less fuel when driven a bit more briskly and doesnt use any more when driven very very fast... I am waiting for the new one and hope it gets here before we get import duties...

I get 52mpg and on 27500 miles now I drive mine quite briskly since 6000 miles used to be 46mpg when I got it

The Panda Nut said:

I'd be chuffed with 45mpg. I regularly get 37. I have now started to give the car some welly though. It definitely uses less fuel when driven a bit more briskly and doesnt use any more when driven very very fast... I am waiting for the new one and hope it gets here before we get import duties...

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Colin you may be right about a little vagueness . I do notice this a tad mainly on dry roads. My tyres are the Conti M+S. Ignore it at normal speed these things hang on gamely. I did have terminal under steer on a wet road recently but that was due to an excess of optimism...

Hi Panda Nut
Yep. It happens on dry roads, and I have M & S Contis too. It's not a problem as such just slightly irritating with small steering inputs. I don't do much mileage in this Panda (we have far too many other cars and motorbikes) but I will experiment with pressures.

Generally however I love the little beast

Hi.
Did my first long run since my wife passed away in January. It was to a friends in Strathpeffer and I was supposed to stay for five days, sadly there was a family crisis so I left for home yesterday. It was good therapy for me though. In all I did 406 miles and the Panda did 54mpg overall on the run. There was no problem climbing the long hill out of Inverness with me me doing over 60mph in 5th gear.

I also did a full service (again for good therapy) late in February on a very nice day. The car is running as sweet as a nut.

Trailer on the back with large rotorvator on board. We will be in the field installing turf matting tomorrow weather allowing and may be some tree cutting. More care will be exercised than the last time when i came within about 6" of crushing my company Vectra.... The tree was taller than my estimate!

Herts Hillhopper said:

Did you spot that you have submitted reply number 1000 to this thread? I think there should be a medal for that!
My 4x4 MJ, which had just 4 miles on it in August, now has 9800 and is chugging along very nicely thanks. 'Only' averages 52mpg in that time (I say 'only' as previous Euro 5 4x4 MJ managed 60mpg with ease... but also with 20BHP less)

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Still waiting for my medal!

I picked my brand new Panda 4x4 Twinair (90) up from the dealers.
After having driven a VW Polo for the last 9 years I found it all bit confusing what with all the different buttons to do various things and the change in engine noise ...... but I like it.
As I had previous read some good advice on this Forum, on starting-up I immediately disabled 'Eco' and 'City' - which even the dealer agreed with.

OldYorky said:

I picked my brand new Panda 4x4 Twinair (90) up from the dealers.
After having driven a VW Polo for the last 9 years I found it all bit confusing what with all the different buttons to do various things and the change in engine noise ...... but I like it.
As I had previous read some good advice on this Forum, on starting-up I immediately disabled 'Eco' and 'City' - which even the dealer agreed with.

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Enjoy your brand new Panda! The engine is a hoot. I would also disable the start stop system

Thanks TheR.
As you suggest I will disable the stop-start, a system I don't personally like - just hope that once the dash button has been pressed to disable that it will be permanently disabled and not have to be disabled at each engine start, as happens with the 'Eco' system.
One thing I have found out is, despite it still been in the handbook, that there is no longer a USB in the glove box.

OldYorky said:

Thanks TheR.
As you suggest I will disable the stop-start, a system I don't personally like - just hope that once the dash button has been pressed to disable that it will be permanently disabled and not have to be disabled at each engine start,

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Our 2010 Panda doesn't do stop/start, thank goodness! Unfortunately our "good" car - 2016 Ibiza 1.0 TSI does. I really dislike it so always disable it. Trouble is it reinstates itself on each start up. I've asked our VAG indie garage whether it can be permanently disabled but the answer is "not as far as they know". The problem is, apparently, that it has to do stop/start to achieve the emissions and fuel consumption figures. If the s/s is permanently disabled then it would, arguably, cease to comply with the legal aspects. That's their guess anyway as to why it can't be done.

So, I wouldn't be surprised if you find that your's is not permanently "disablable". Even more than the stop/start I hate the fact that you have to depress the clutch before you can start the engine. Last time we were in the States the chap I've become friendly with (he who is restoring the old Corvette) described to me how to splice a switch into the clutch pedal switch so you can "fool" it into thinking the pedal is depressed when it's not. They seem to have had this system over there for quite a few years and lots of enthusiasts disable them. It didn't sound all that difficult to do but my car seems to have two switches so I'm waiting for the good weather to warm my old bones up enough for me to go crawling around the pedal cluster.

I don't like "hill hold" either! Manufacturers please stop all this "nannying"! Just learn how to control your vehicle people - I get so much more satisfaction driving the Panda!

On our 2013 the stop start switch doesn’t reset, so its off all the time.

gullyfoyle said:

On our 2013 the stop start switch doesn’t reset, so its off all the time.

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Lucky you!

As I have said before but I will repeat it.
All these electronic gizmos just drive down the standard of driving.
I have just today come back home from a 190 mile ride on my old Vincent (with absolutely no electronics at all) and the general standard of driving, along M20, M26, M25, and M23 plus some miles on the A20 just to get off the motorways was worse than appalling.

One Black BMW overtook three time to find a traffic island in his path, so went the wrong side of the island. A few yards beyond one island a side road entered the A20, had there been anyone emerging from it they would have been looking to their right, and would likely have emerged just as the BMW moron piled into them. Unfortunately I had, only days before, moved my bike cam to another bike, so did not get any pictures

Some one once said the way to make idiots drive more safely would be to put a 6 inch spike in the centre of their steering wheel!:idea::idea:

It got Serviced.

New Oil.
New Oil filter.
New Pollen filter for Airco.

Panda is back on his 16" summer wheels, wheel cover are also back on after the picture was taken.

The Pretender said:

Panda is back on his 16" summer wheels, wheel cover are also back on after the picture was taken.

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Where are the 17"'s?