Fiat Doblo Range Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Fiat Doblo range
Prices: £10,500-£13,500 – on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 4-6
Emissions: 145-174g/km
Performance: [1.3 Multijet] 0-60mph 16.4s / Max Speed 97mph
Fuel Consumption: [1.3 Multijet] (urban) 42.2mpg / (extra urban) 58.9mpg / (combined) 51.4mpg
Safety: Twin airbags / 3-point seatbelts
Dimensions: Length/Width/Height 4159/1714/1800mm

BETTER LOOKING BY DESIGN

Our Rating: 4.6 / 10

Fiat have smartened up the Doblo’s act in recent times. Andy Enright takes a look at a prettier proposition

"Whoah! Don’t fancy yours much." That was the emotion I interpreted from fellow drivers in Turin’s traffic the first time I drove a Fiat Doblo. You couldn’t fault its practicality, its rugged build or its aggressive pricing but when it came to aesthetics, let’s just say the Doblo had a nice personality. Fiat have been beautifying their range of late, taking a scalpel to the excesses of the Multipla, launching the quite startling Grande Punto and now giving the Doblo a nip and tuck. It’s never going to turn it into an object of widespread desire but the latest version is no longer quite such an eyesore.

The rather odd looking front end has been thoroughly revised, Fiat ditching the gratuitously odd-looking horizontal bar that appeared plastered onto the front of the old car for a look that’s more like a compact 4x4. Bigger headlamps and wider underbumper intakes give the Doblo a little presence without looking like it’s been tagged by the ugly stick. The changes are likely to put the Fiat onto the shortlists of many buyers who previously rejected it on the grounds that it looked a little unconventional. Prices start at around £10,000 and there’s a choice of three trim levels – Active, Dynamic and 7-seat Family.

The availability of the 7-seat Family version reinforces the versatility of the Doblò range, with the addition of a third row of passenger accommodation in the form of a sliding, foldable bench seat. This is the most affordable 7-seater MPV in the UK market today. In addition, uniquely in this market segment, the Doblò can be specified as a High Roof version, this format offering capacious interior volume and making this Fiat ideal for use as a Motability vehicle, or in the rapidly expanding taxi market.

The old Doblo, from unpromising beginnings, developed into quite a decent package. It was certainly good enough – from a technical perspective at least - to worry the likes of the Citroën Berlingo Multispace, the Renault Kangoo and the Peugeot Partner Combi, the big players in the van-based MPV sector.

After this vehicle’s original launch, the company did themselves a big favour by ditching the lousy 1.9D diesel engine and replacing it with the 70bhp 16-valve Multijet diesel. The contrast was just night and day and excised the Achilles heel from the Doblo line up. This engine has now been massaged out to 85bhp, while a pair of 1.9-litre Multijet diesel powerplants of 105 and 120bhp are also offered. The old 1.2-litre petrol powerplant has felt the weight of Fiat’s axe, being supplanted in this instance by a 77bhp 1.4-litre unit. An extra 12bhp makes a lot of difference when you’re toting a fully loaded Doblo.

The 1.3-litre diesel unit is likely to be the big seller and it’s a very impressive piece of engineering. In traditional diesel engines, fuel is fed to the injectors by a mechanical pump, the injection pressure rising with the rpm of the engine. This has repercussions on how efficiently the fuel is burnt, leading to noise, poor emissions and so-so fuel economy. A common-rail engine, however, maintains a constant injection pressure regardless of the weight of the driver’s right boot, the Unijet injectors also using so-called pilot injection to pre-warm the combustion chamber. This decreases noise, and vibration. Fire up the Doblo 1.9-litre JTD and you’ll appreciate the technology. The 1.3-litre Multijet engine is a progression from the JTD, it divides that main injection into a series of smaller shots, the idea being to reduce emissions and noise while at the same time increasing performance. This latest version of the 1.3-litre engine is quoted at 200Nm of torque – exactly the same as the two 1.9-litre engines.

What will be of more relevance to prospective purchasers is the cavernous load bay. That rudimentary rear suspension comes into its own here, as it allows for a near perfectly flat floor, and the almost vertical sides of the Doblo help to create a 750-litre load space with the seats in place and a gargantuan 3,000 litres with the seats folded. Opt fo