Fiat Doblo test drive since 2010 minivan

Doblo Master

According to VTsIOM polls, 77 % of Russians celebrate the New Year at home, another 15 % - visiting, restaurant or club. And only two percent of fellow citizens decide to move beyond the city, to the country or to the boarding house. Not wanting to celebrate the 2007 New Year, like all of the previous 27, we decided to make a voyage to the Black Sea with a friend, and our carpet-passenger van Fiat Doblo Panorama was chosen by our carpet, which will soon begin to collect at the Zma factory in the embankments Chelny.
Looking ahead, we can say that the fiat’s plane turned out to be not very fast, for nothing, that Italy is the birthplace of Ferrari, Maserati and Lamborghini, but the rest of the war was successful and the New Year was more than worthy ...
Carpet carpet with comfort
Doblo has been produced since 2000, but restyling, spent a couple of years ago, decorated the car with spectacular large headlights with transparent glasses and made the van very modern and attractive. The shape of the body is absolutely practical. The rectangular lines are only slightly rounded in the front, and the rear is as if cut down with an ax. If it were not for the large vertical lanterns and the large classic round emblem of the Fiat sample of the beginning of the last century, Doblo could be mistaken for any other van.
But large sliding doors provide a convenient landing on a spacious rear sofa, and two rear gates open 180 degrees and the trunk has a minimum loading height and a shape close to the ideal. Still to protect the painted wheeled arches with plastic, not afraid of scratches, and it would be very good. But it is easy to do it yourself. In the five -seater version, the luggage volume is 750 liters, and if the seats are folded, the compartment will increase to 3 cubic meters this indicator is absolutely unattainable for traditional universals or minivans, their volume rarely exceeds 2 cubic meters.
Volumetric pockets in the doorway, a comfortable shelf above the glove box and a huge container above the windshield also give out a commercial or tourist essence of the machine. But for some reason the glove box itself turned out to be surprisingly small and nondescript, there is even no backlight in it. From different sides of the driver and the front passenger, 4 cup holders surround, only one of them is overlapped by an ashtray, and smoking people can accidentally shake off ashes into their drink. However, this is already a pickup.
The sweeping rounded lines of the front panel at first seem too cumbersome, but you quickly get used to it and easily, even on a shaking road, you get into any key, since they are large and there are very few of them on the central console. Hard plastic in the salon of the van is perceived for granted and does not insult aesthetic feelings at all, moreover, in the lower part it is decorated with light inserts. The ascetic picture is complemented by a simple three -spoke bank, covered on top of the oval pebbles of the sound signal, like much in Italy, simple and tastefully.
There is no red zone on the tachometer in sports. Rather, the entire scale is red and it is marked up to 7000 rpm. In fact, the limiter is triggered around the mark of 6000 rpm. That's just the instrument panel has too small digitization, which, combined with red backlight on the long run, tires his eyes. But the high landing of the driver significantly reduces the blinding with oncoming vehicles, and the seats themselves were very comfortable after such a long road of fatigue. For even greater comfort, I would only like to have a higher back, but this is again nit -picking.
We take off
We did not expect special agility from Doblo in the factory characteristics in black and white that the maximum speed of Doblo is 148 km/h, and the line of acceleration time to a hundred was completely left empty, clearly hinting that the Schumacher is engaged in refinement of other vehicles of the Italian auto giant.
Having received the car before the New Year, we managed to get used to it and even made a small run -in 500 km, because Doblo got us completely new. In the urban mode of movement, Fiat was limited to a flow rate of 8-9 liters per hundred, which inspired hope for the modest budget of the event. However, a tall and wide body, in which in the back seat you can sleep almost in full height and enter the car only with a slight bow, made their amendments to our calculations. Significant aerodynamic resistance greatly affects the fuel consumption. At a speed of 100-110 km/h, it is possible to achieve a very optimistic indicator of 8 liters per 100 km. And if you move even more slowly, then the declared number of 6.4 liters is quite comprehensive. But to go with such a speed of 1,500 km is not a lesson for the faint of heart, and we ultimately added at close to maximum speed-130-140 km/h on the on-board computer rolls over 15 liters, which is worthy of the appetite of the sedan with a 3-liter motor when moving along the highway from speed of 200 km/h.
Doblo owes such a gluttony not only to a high body, but also an unusually converged gearbox of the gearbox. At a speed of 140 km/h in the last fifth gear, the engine revolutions are exceeded for 4500 rpm, which does not correspond to the concept of economical driving.
But in an acute -angled language, a doblo serpentine, he showed himself from the best side. The van, despite the greater height, confidently screws into the bends, practically without slipping out the turn of the turn with front wheels. Surely, with a significant load, the handling will deteriorate, since the balance of the amusing will shift back, however, it is difficult to imagine a van that storms turns with a full body.
But regardless of loading, the driver is spared from unnecessary manipulations by the steering wheel of the steering wheel from the stop to the stop only 2.5 turns, and in those turns where it would have to intercept the steering wheel on any other car, it is enough to turn it on a small corner. As a rule, the flip side of the short steering medal is the excessive nervousness of the machine when driving along the highway, but Doblo is completely eliminated from this ailment. The van does not pay any attention to the rut, and even the lateral wind bypasses it and practicality does not cause swing. On Russian autobahns, you can drive almost a kilometer with a completely released steering wheel and the car does not deviate from the straight line by a centimeter. At the same time, the car reacts to the turns of the steering wheel very quickly at night more than once happened to painlessly go around the road defects at a speed of more than 100 km/h.
The only thing that there is not enough Doblo to give it to the owner a real driver's happiness is a powerful and thrust engine, most likely, diesel with a stretched gearbox. A 1.4 liter with a capacity of 77 hp. Obviously rather weak for a large van. Even when there are two people in the cabin, it is possible to achieve more or less tolerable dynamics, only squeezing 4000-5000 rpm from the engine and quickly switching gear, it is often necessary to do this and it takes a lot of time.
After 110 km/h, Doblo seems to rest against the wall from the air, and the driver cannot affect further overclocking only with full gas and only on a flat road. Even the light lifting of the motor is contraindicated to switch to the fourth gear and listen to the engine screech in the region of 6000 rpm.
But Doblo pleasantly surprised excellent sound insulation. During the test, the van was shod in the winter studded tires of Michelin X-reic North, while up to 130 km/h in the cabin you can talk without raising the voice. And even at maximum speed, you can not strain the vocal cords. For a commercial car, a great result. And the sound of a motor, often working at high speeds, does not irritate hearing at all, but, on the contrary, recalls the kinship of Fiat with Ferrari.
Total
For the entire time of test, the mileage amounted to more than 4000 km on the bare asphalt of the tire, despite the strict operating conditions, did not lose a single spike. The average fuel consumption during the test was 10 liters per 100 km. Of course, by the standards of a compact passenger car, this is too much. On a regular hatchback with a 1.4 - 1.6 liter engine, similar voyage can be done with a flow rate of 7-8 liters, completely without limiting itself in dynamics. However, Doblo is not a very ordinary car with its pros and cons.
If we consider the issue of buying a van as a commercial car, then Fiat has a lot of advantages over competitors. It has the most spacious interior in the class (up to 3.8 cubic meters in truck), a nice design and excellent handling. And the carrying capacity of 730 kg puts the opponent on the shoulder blades. In addition, Fiat Doblo is cheaper than its main opponents by Peugeot Partner and Volkswagen Caddy, and the more affordable Renault Kangoo has a smaller body and poorer is equipped.
When purchasing Doblo as a family car, you should think about whether such a bus is needed: with a huge salon, but very slow. So far, it’s difficult for me to come up with a regular use of 3 cubic meters and a carrying capacity of 600 kg, so in a given price category I would rather pay attention to traditional hatchback or station wagon. They have more powerful motors, albeit with a smaller volume of the body.
It turns out that the cargo-passenger Doblo Panorama equipped with a 5-seater salon can be recommended either to businessmen who will use the van for cargo and passenger purposes, or outdoor enthusiasts, whose precortiones, for example, bicycles or folded kayaks, do not fit into a light car. By the way, a high clearance of Doblo allows you to storm small mountain rivers to the ford and confidently move along rocky roads.
How much?
By the way, the Doblo Panorama’s test drive is the most expensive version of the van on the test drive. The car is equipped with an ABS, frontal airbags, air conditioning, a pair of shift doors, a radio with a cd, an on -board computer, an electric packet, a central lock with DU, roof religions and a heated driver’s chair (the passenger will have to freeze). The price of Doblo in such a configuration is 485 thousand rubles ($ 18300). The most affordable commercial version of the van with a similar motor and dull body sides is estimated at 365 thousand rubles ($ 13,800), and the base Doblo Panorama costs 430 thousand (16,200 dollars).
  

Leonid Pavlov
 
   
 

A source: Carclub.ru