Not needed courtesy cars recently as the Citroen dealership in MK do a while u wait service and the Skoda garage is five minutes from work on the Brompton.
Berlingo in for a cambelt change today. Advised at service earlier in the month that it was due at 112,500 which is just about to come up. It's a long job so courtesy car needed. Also first time using the newly appointed local(ish) Citroen agent Bristol Street. Northampton. The town was long the home of Moto Baldet who flooded the local market with BX, ZX etc, but they were absorbed into a chain which then closed the site and the town was bereft of an agent for last few years.
Bristol Street are a multi franchise outfit and seem to have Citroen tacked on as an afterthought at their Vauxhall premises.
Courtesy car is a Red 20 reg Corsa. No clear trim badging but its got a decent number of toys. Radio and other ICE etc is on a central touch screen but heater controls are a mix of rotary and piano keys in the centre console in front of the gearstick. Radio is digital and, at pickup, set to a Heart station playing some dire youth genre. Couple of jabs at the screen brought up a station list and the calming voices of the Today prog.
Radio display seems to have some sort of auto brightness and, in low sun/in out of shade, constantly flickered from dim to bright and back again. Can't be bothered faffing in the menu to stop it but it's not a feature I'd use if it were mine.
Engine is (per DVLA) 1199cc and has the now near universal 3 cylinder configuration. Performance is adequate but nothing like as sprightly as my Fabia. That, and CO2 of 126g/km, suggest it's a basic 70PS unit.
Driving wise it's in the if it were a sandwich it would be processed cheese on white bread category. Everything is adequate although it wasn't until I got home that I could get the steering wheel retracted back towards the dash - uncomfortably close to start with. Display on the dash notes the speed limit although it was a bit erratic tracking it on various sections of the Nene Valley Way/ring road and subsequent rural lanes. Usual nag light telling me to change gear far too soon leaving the engine feeling like it's labouring. Stop/start not working for some reason, maybe too much local use leading to the battery being undercharged.
Looks as though it would set 5 albeit not in comfort and the boot passes the Brompton test.
OK for what I'm using it for but wouldn't want one for my own use but then I prefer the next size up albeit the Fabia is closer to a Polo than a Golf.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 22 Oct 21 at 10:34
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