The Berlingo Shed
Discussion
Sort of new to the forum, posted once earlier this year and have been lurking since.
The last time I posted, it was my little £190 fiat punto. I drove that car around for a few months but I quickly found that it was too small for what I needed, it didn't like having rear seat passengers (especially three 20+ stone door supervisors) and it couldn't cruise comfortably on the motorway with those passengers in the car. After trying to sleep in the car a few times when I worked a few festivals and the missus getting fed up with not being able to get the pushchairs in the boot, I finally gave in and sold my £190 shed to a coworkers sister for £200.
I set out with a £1000 budget to find something that was Diesel, Comfortable, Big enough to carry four passengers somewhat comfortably and had a boot big enough for two pushchairs or sometimes a german shepherd. Being cheap, I didn't want to spend £1,000. I set my ebay max price to £500 and found this Berlingo 5 minutes before the auction was due to end... a quick look at the pictures showed that the car was filthy but I thought a few hours of cleaning would sort it and the rear seats had been removed but should just bolt straight back in. The description said it had a short MOT but had recently had front discs and pads done, had the belt and waterpump done 10,000 miles ago and had a decent amount of paperwork to go with it. Its a 1.9 diesel that had covered just over 100,000 miles...If I could get it for less than £300 I was happy to take a chance on it not going through the next MOT..
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A (literally) last-minute bid was put in for a max of £300, I won it for £266.
A week later I collected it (seller had gone on a last minute holiday so I had to wait), The seller had owned it for the last eight years and always had whatever work it needed done but had been using it as just a tip run van for his business. Hed bought a new car to use for tip runs so wanted it gone.
I drove it home wearing gloves and a dust mask but to my surprise it handled the 30 mile drive home as well as an old diesel Berlingo could. I thought that Id take it to my local hand car wash for a laugh, expecting to be laughed at and turned away but after 10 minutes of them all standing around it, looking at it in shock "£35 boss and leave here 2 hour, we do as good as we can"
I definitely wasn't going to moan at that, It was a lot worse than the pictures showed. I waited around while they did their thing, All eight of them attacked the car and had it clean in an hour and a half. Total spend at this point was £301.
The next job was the rear window, The side windows had been tinted but the rear one hadn't. It was bugging the hell out of me, the same guy who tinted my punto (I need to keep the rear of the car as cool as possible for my dog/the kids) quoted me £30 to tint that one window. I took it in and half an hour later it was done. (no pictures, unfortunately) Total Spend now £331.
The seats needed to go back in quite sharpish, but I didn't expect the bolts to be spline bit type.. another £12 later (thanks toolstation) i had the correct tools to go about doing it.. The single seat went in fine but when it came to the double seat i ran into quite a serious problem, the middle seatbelt was jammed and the seat wouldn't unfold. The car had been rear-ended previously so I assumed that the tensioner had jammed on like it should in a crash.. I hopped on ebay and saw that another seat would be £200.. HELLLL NO i wasn't spending that. A quick call to my mate who works in an accident repair centre, He reckoned he could sort it and only wanted a box of San Miguel for doing it, another £15 and two hours, my seats were in and all seat belts were functioning as they should. Total spend now £358.
A quick trip over to my MOT tester for a pre MOT inspection for £10 and the only thing he could see it failing on was the wing mirror housing on the passenger side being cracked - sharp edges that someone could cut their hand on. I've ordered a new one for £20 which should be here tomorrow and have booked it in for MOT on Wednesday.
Total spend so far now £423 which presuming it passes the MOT on Wednesday, I don't think is bad for what I've ended up with considering A berlingo in similar condition (now its been cleaned up) will easily fetch £1,250 locally.
The last time I posted, it was my little £190 fiat punto. I drove that car around for a few months but I quickly found that it was too small for what I needed, it didn't like having rear seat passengers (especially three 20+ stone door supervisors) and it couldn't cruise comfortably on the motorway with those passengers in the car. After trying to sleep in the car a few times when I worked a few festivals and the missus getting fed up with not being able to get the pushchairs in the boot, I finally gave in and sold my £190 shed to a coworkers sister for £200.
I set out with a £1000 budget to find something that was Diesel, Comfortable, Big enough to carry four passengers somewhat comfortably and had a boot big enough for two pushchairs or sometimes a german shepherd. Being cheap, I didn't want to spend £1,000. I set my ebay max price to £500 and found this Berlingo 5 minutes before the auction was due to end... a quick look at the pictures showed that the car was filthy but I thought a few hours of cleaning would sort it and the rear seats had been removed but should just bolt straight back in. The description said it had a short MOT but had recently had front discs and pads done, had the belt and waterpump done 10,000 miles ago and had a decent amount of paperwork to go with it. Its a 1.9 diesel that had covered just over 100,000 miles...If I could get it for less than £300 I was happy to take a chance on it not going through the next MOT..
A (literally) last-minute bid was put in for a max of £300, I won it for £266.
A week later I collected it (seller had gone on a last minute holiday so I had to wait), The seller had owned it for the last eight years and always had whatever work it needed done but had been using it as just a tip run van for his business. Hed bought a new car to use for tip runs so wanted it gone.
I drove it home wearing gloves and a dust mask but to my surprise it handled the 30 mile drive home as well as an old diesel Berlingo could. I thought that Id take it to my local hand car wash for a laugh, expecting to be laughed at and turned away but after 10 minutes of them all standing around it, looking at it in shock "£35 boss and leave here 2 hour, we do as good as we can"
I definitely wasn't going to moan at that, It was a lot worse than the pictures showed. I waited around while they did their thing, All eight of them attacked the car and had it clean in an hour and a half. Total spend at this point was £301.
The next job was the rear window, The side windows had been tinted but the rear one hadn't. It was bugging the hell out of me, the same guy who tinted my punto (I need to keep the rear of the car as cool as possible for my dog/the kids) quoted me £30 to tint that one window. I took it in and half an hour later it was done. (no pictures, unfortunately) Total Spend now £331.
The seats needed to go back in quite sharpish, but I didn't expect the bolts to be spline bit type.. another £12 later (thanks toolstation) i had the correct tools to go about doing it.. The single seat went in fine but when it came to the double seat i ran into quite a serious problem, the middle seatbelt was jammed and the seat wouldn't unfold. The car had been rear-ended previously so I assumed that the tensioner had jammed on like it should in a crash.. I hopped on ebay and saw that another seat would be £200.. HELLLL NO i wasn't spending that. A quick call to my mate who works in an accident repair centre, He reckoned he could sort it and only wanted a box of San Miguel for doing it, another £15 and two hours, my seats were in and all seat belts were functioning as they should. Total spend now £358.
A quick trip over to my MOT tester for a pre MOT inspection for £10 and the only thing he could see it failing on was the wing mirror housing on the passenger side being cracked - sharp edges that someone could cut their hand on. I've ordered a new one for £20 which should be here tomorrow and have booked it in for MOT on Wednesday.
Total spend so far now £423 which presuming it passes the MOT on Wednesday, I don't think is bad for what I've ended up with considering A berlingo in similar condition (now its been cleaned up) will easily fetch £1,250 locally.
These are great cars and just keep going and going. My Dad 'replaced' his much abused '04 car about 6 months ago but couldn't bear to part with it so he now runs 2 cars. It's very loud inside, has a crap stereo and no aircon but it takes whatever is thrown at it and parts are dirt cheap.
Quhet said:
These are great cars and just keep going and going. My Dad 'replaced' his much abused '04 car about 6 months ago but couldn't bear to part with it so he now runs 2 cars. It's very loud inside, has a crap stereo and no aircon but it takes whatever is thrown at it and parts are dirt cheap.
Im very happy with it, In the short time I was able to drive it on what MOT it had left it was put through its paces, we did a little over 3,000 miles in three weeks without it giving us any issues. It is loud but once on the motorway in 5th its not too bad if you have music on. Im going to be swapping the speakers out for some that were removed from my punto before it got sold so hopefully that will solve the crap stereo issue. I drive a company provided 2018 Berlingo 1.6HDI dog van which seems to put up with the abuse just as well, so we will probably upgrade to one of those in a year or two.
Went to take the car for MOT today only to get there and be told the MOT tester is off sick. I've left the car there in the hopes it gets done tomorrow. Couple of issues I need to sort, the indicator stalk isn't functioning properly, when turning right it self-cancels but clicks into left indicator. Common issue apparently, I'll go down to the breakers to get another one soon. The indicators still work it's just annoying.
The radio no longer puts out any sound. Hopefully, its just a wire that's come loose but I might take the opportunity to upgrade the sound system a little.
The radio no longer puts out any sound. Hopefully, its just a wire that's come loose but I might take the opportunity to upgrade the sound system a little.
I've been clocking up the miles since my last post, I've done a little over 4,000 miles in the last month and it hasn't wanted for anything apart from the head unit packing up. Its due a service in 1,000 miles so that will be getting done when I get a quiet day at work.
A couple of things have changed..
A dog guard/bulkhead has been fitted from an ex-forestry commision Berlingo van. Won on eBay for £18. The dog decided to chew his lead off and jump over the backseat to sit on my passengers lap while doing 60mph down the M6 so I had to do something to stop that happening again. It's in a little wonky but Ill sort that when I get some time, It just needs a little grinding off of the bottom left hand corner and it'll be in straight but for now it's secure and stops the dog getting over the back seat.
The head unit stopped working, rain water had been getting in through the Ariel and had gone down through the Ariel itself into the head unit shorting it out. I used a Bluetooth speaker for a while but it got annoying really quick. Radio removal keys = £5 cheapo ebay head unit £25 and some Silicon sealant = £5.
Total spend now £476.
A couple of things have changed..
A dog guard/bulkhead has been fitted from an ex-forestry commision Berlingo van. Won on eBay for £18. The dog decided to chew his lead off and jump over the backseat to sit on my passengers lap while doing 60mph down the M6 so I had to do something to stop that happening again. It's in a little wonky but Ill sort that when I get some time, It just needs a little grinding off of the bottom left hand corner and it'll be in straight but for now it's secure and stops the dog getting over the back seat.
The head unit stopped working, rain water had been getting in through the Ariel and had gone down through the Ariel itself into the head unit shorting it out. I used a Bluetooth speaker for a while but it got annoying really quick. Radio removal keys = £5 cheapo ebay head unit £25 and some Silicon sealant = £5.
Total spend now £476.
Edited by BigHeavy10 on Friday 9th November 17:02
E31Shrew said:
Cracking cars. Bought this luxury Desire model (cough) 6 months ago. Agree with the radio. Being a total car radio numpty is it just a simple case of swapping them out?
Good luck with yours
It depends on which head unit you go for. With mine, it was a straight swap apart from needing an ariel adaptor which are only £2 on ebay. Everything was just plug and play, bluetooth, aux and USB work straight away with no switching wires. You do lose the display on the clock on the dash and use of the steering wheel controls if you have them though. Ive just stuck the remote that came with the head unit on the dash near the steering wheel though using some double sided tape. Good luck with yours
As long as it has the ISO connectors on the back of the head unit, it should just plug and play. The cage was already on the head unit, just had to pull the tabs out at the side to get it to click in.
My son and daugher do dog walking.
I bought a Peugeot Tepee Outdoor at a car auction. I drove it from Poole to Aberdeen without problems. But after one week with my daughter the clutch had gone. Since then it has been fine and my daughter has grown very attached to it.
My son used to drive a Mercedes Citan van. Unfortunately it was damaged on ice. It had to br replaced in a hurry, and he found a cheap Peugoet Partner van.
There was a problem with the door locks. The AA man introduced another problem. He had taken the fuses out and then put them back again.
But in not quite the same place.
The fuse that was out of place caused everything to reset after 30 minutes. It was some sort of display mode for cars on sale.
The problem with the car locks was sorted out.
We had the timing belt replaced. Just as well because the van had been neglected and the belts were old and frayed.
Four new all season tyres.
A self leveling device on one headlight failed. The headlight unit was replaced. That headlight is now much brighter than the other one. Bulbs do not make such a big difference.
The plastic headlight become opaque over time.
That's about it.
+++++
Because I was concerned about my daughters car, I bought another Berlingo. A relatively low mileage one.
The exhaust is somewhat smoky. Hopefully it will clear up with use. In practice it has not been used. MoT on Tuesday.
+++++
I enjoy going to auctions. I bought another blue/gray one. Mine is a Berlingo, my daughter's is a Peugeot.
Mine has only done 50,000 and is a 2015 model with folding wing mirrors and Led daylight running lights.
It has got a hoist for a disabled person in the back.
++++++
Indicator lights not cancelling immediately is a feature you have to live with.
I find the standard radios are fine - even good. They are standard throughout the Citroen range.
Removing rear seats: This is now an easy job not requiring tools.
++++++
And my daughter phoned me in Gran Canaria because her car was making grinding noises and would not go. Kwikfit recommended a local garage. They did a very cheap job using good parts (Luk).
And the problem. The clutch again, this time it failed because of the clutch bearing.
She drives a lot in traffic and keeps the clutch depressed for long periods of time.
++++++
Paintwork is not the best, partcularly on the bonnet.
I bought a Peugeot Tepee Outdoor at a car auction. I drove it from Poole to Aberdeen without problems. But after one week with my daughter the clutch had gone. Since then it has been fine and my daughter has grown very attached to it.
My son used to drive a Mercedes Citan van. Unfortunately it was damaged on ice. It had to br replaced in a hurry, and he found a cheap Peugoet Partner van.
There was a problem with the door locks. The AA man introduced another problem. He had taken the fuses out and then put them back again.
But in not quite the same place.
The fuse that was out of place caused everything to reset after 30 minutes. It was some sort of display mode for cars on sale.
The problem with the car locks was sorted out.
We had the timing belt replaced. Just as well because the van had been neglected and the belts were old and frayed.
Four new all season tyres.
A self leveling device on one headlight failed. The headlight unit was replaced. That headlight is now much brighter than the other one. Bulbs do not make such a big difference.
The plastic headlight become opaque over time.
That's about it.
+++++
Because I was concerned about my daughters car, I bought another Berlingo. A relatively low mileage one.
The exhaust is somewhat smoky. Hopefully it will clear up with use. In practice it has not been used. MoT on Tuesday.
+++++
I enjoy going to auctions. I bought another blue/gray one. Mine is a Berlingo, my daughter's is a Peugeot.
Mine has only done 50,000 and is a 2015 model with folding wing mirrors and Led daylight running lights.
It has got a hoist for a disabled person in the back.
++++++
Indicator lights not cancelling immediately is a feature you have to live with.
I find the standard radios are fine - even good. They are standard throughout the Citroen range.
Removing rear seats: This is now an easy job not requiring tools.
++++++
And my daughter phoned me in Gran Canaria because her car was making grinding noises and would not go. Kwikfit recommended a local garage. They did a very cheap job using good parts (Luk).
And the problem. The clutch again, this time it failed because of the clutch bearing.
She drives a lot in traffic and keeps the clutch depressed for long periods of time.
++++++
Paintwork is not the best, partcularly on the bonnet.
I forgot to mention. My daughter has large cages in the back for the dogs. These screw into the floor quite easily.
+++++
Wheels and Tyres
When I bought my Berlingo it had summer tyres on rather nice alloys. I decided to buy new steel wheels and I had them fitted with all season tyres.
On the Red Belingo that I bought for my daughter, which was not actually needed. I replaced the steel wheels that had summer tyres with alloy wheels that I bought on Ebay. I also bought some winter tyres on Ebay.
I took a bit of a risk with the alloy wheels. They were cheaper than steel wherls and they had come off a more recent Berlingo (slightly different model).
For some reason, my son and daughter are a lot less interested in cars than I am. They are interested in dogs.
All our cars are the ATX models or Outdoor model with 16 inch wheels. My son's van has 15 inch wheels.
I will get wheel trims as soon as possible. I think they help the car to be seen at night and at road junctions they enable other drivers to see if the car is moving.
+++++
Wheels and Tyres
When I bought my Berlingo it had summer tyres on rather nice alloys. I decided to buy new steel wheels and I had them fitted with all season tyres.
On the Red Belingo that I bought for my daughter, which was not actually needed. I replaced the steel wheels that had summer tyres with alloy wheels that I bought on Ebay. I also bought some winter tyres on Ebay.
I took a bit of a risk with the alloy wheels. They were cheaper than steel wherls and they had come off a more recent Berlingo (slightly different model).
For some reason, my son and daughter are a lot less interested in cars than I am. They are interested in dogs.
All our cars are the ATX models or Outdoor model with 16 inch wheels. My son's van has 15 inch wheels.
I will get wheel trims as soon as possible. I think they help the car to be seen at night and at road junctions they enable other drivers to see if the car is moving.
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