| Motoring Discussion > Citroen Berlingo Multispace II - The new Berlingo and the old | Miscellaneous |
| Thread Author: tyro | Replies: 0 |
|
New Mon 19 Apr 10 22:09
Citroen Berlingo Multispace II - The new Berlingo and the old - tyro
|
|
After driving an old Berlingo for 8 years, I got the chance to drive a new Berlingo (tinyurl.com/y66nrgg) for 12 days in France. I’m not exactly comparing like with like, since my Berlingo is a very basic 2002 car (the only options we ticked were ABS, a passenger airbag, and metallic paint) with 1.6 110 bhp petrol engine - whereas the new car was a fairly top of the range vehicle with a 1.6 Hdi engine - probably 90 bhp. Fit, finish, and general impressions: The new car is much better finished and less crude than old one. In fact, it’s on a par with a normal car. Space: Space is what the Berlingo is all about, and both are spacious. The old Berlingo had a big boot - but the new one is bigger. As for the rest of the car, there was not much difference in practice - with one exception. My wife told me that while passenger knee room was fine, the footwell was not quite as long as in the old Berlingo, so she could not stretch out her legs. Storage: There are a lot of cubbies. The big difference is the large cubby between the front seats.(tinyurl.com/yydx42a) This makes up for the fact that the rest of the cubbies are not that big. The old Berlingo had huge front door pockets - about 4 inches wide, and would accomodate 3 1½ litre Volvic bottles. Those on the new Berlingo (tinyurl.com/y33bazh) (tinyurl.com/y6p4qxy) will take just one - and only with a bit of pushing. (A litre bottle of Buxton will fit more easily.) Back door pockets in the new Berlingo are very thin - wide enough for an OS map. (tinyurl.com/yynl5nl) The door pockets on the old Berlingo were much more useful - about 2 inches wide. However, the new model does have lots of small cubbies - including a handy one on the dashboard in front of the driver (tinyurl.com/y6qujqj) . Equipment: Bells and whistles everywhere. This one had cruise control, climate control, rain sensitive wipers, privacy glass (or maybe it’s not to keep prying eyes out, but to keep the heat of the sun out?), armrests between the front seats. As far as I am concerned, these are simply a pointless nuisance that were always getting in the way. Visibility: Good, like the old one - but with the advantage of a small wide-angle supplementary mirror above the main rear view mirror. As with the old Berlingo, there are nice big door mirrors. Driving experience: Like the old one, it rides well (it ought to on 205/65 15 tyres) and probably handles a little better than the old Berlingo. However I find the old one somewhat more nimble. I’m not sure why this is. It could be something to do with the steering. It could be because the new Berlingo also feels quite a bit wider than the old one. This is obviously partly because it is 3.4 inches wider - (6 inches wider if one includes door mirrors) - but it may also be because I found it more difficult to know where the edges of the vehicle were than I do in the old one. Again, I’m not sure why. In terms of refinement, the new one had a lot fewer rattles than my old one, and was a very refined motorway cruiser - but when pottering around on country roads at 40 mph or so, the diesel engine was very clattery. This surprised me, because I’ve hired a number of diesel cars (a couple with the PSA 1.6 HDi engine), and I’ve never noticed this before. I doubt that it was anything to do with the engine not being “run in”, because all the diesels I’ve hired have been fairly new. But the upshot is that, to my surprise, I actually found the new car less refined than my old one. In terms of performance, there’s not really much between them - the engine pulled along the new Berlingo’s bulk quite effectively. I got 52 mpg over the course of the rental, which struck me as pretty reasonable. Other comments: 1) The petrol filler cap on the new Berlingo is better than on the new one - it is both easier to open and close, and also a better height. The old one is only 2’5” off the ground, which means that I have to stoop when filling up. 2) I thought that the sliding door mechanism on the new Berlingo was probably better than that on the old one. 3) The pedals in my hire car looked a bit odd. I’ve never seen anything like this before. (tinyurl.com/yynhwd8) Conclusion: In many ways it is a nicer car than the old one - but I prefer the old one - basically because the new one felt too wide, and felt less nimble. p.s btw, I guess I’ll also be posting a review on another forum - for old time’s sake. Last edited by: Pugugly on Mon 20 Dec 10 at 22:17
|
Forum Version 3.0 - By Khoosys
Car4play Forum
