Faults:

Nothing so far. 50k kilometers without a warning light or spare part.

General Comments:

The Doblo is a nice car to drive, quite agile and easy around town, and fun enough out in the countryside. There is a bit of body roll due to the height of the car, but the excellent suspension keeps it from getting out of hand. The gearbox is well suited to the 1.6 petrol turbo engine, and getting away from the traffic lights or stealing a gap at a roundabout isn't a problem due to some good low-end acceleration.

The interior space is very good, but a lot of it is above head height - useful if you have bulky loads which can be stacked, but a bit of a waste if you need surface area rather than height. The car is ideal as a family bus to get the kids to clubs and has a 7 seat option, but those back seats get cramped for anybody taller than a preteen on a journey of more than a few minutes. Luckily those extra seats can be removed to leave a normal boot space, and the second row of seats is also completely removable to create a very large interior. The rear doors have a very low and flat floor at the bottom, so loading even heavy items is easy. We went for the rear "barn doors" option rather than the vertical tailgate, and have been very pleased with them.

There isn't a lot of technology available (and even less on my Doblo because I hate having all that stuff on my cars), but the stereo can be paired with a smartphone very easily. Cruise control is an optional extra, which shows in the impractical placement and operation of the lever which controls it; it was never in the original design and had to be fitted in somewhere. The rest of the controls are simple and practical, the seats are in the "OK, they do the job" category, the interior appears to be largely kidproof so far and the visibility all-round is outstanding. I also need to mention the heated seats, which work brilliantly but (as another optional extra) have been wired in such a way that they stay on and drain the battery flat if you forget to switch them off manually...

Now to the elephant in the room... fuel economy. It is absolutely shocking. It is just about possible to attain the claimed 9 litres per 100km (26mpg) running around town, but by modern standards that is already quite heavy consumption. That however is not the shock. The trip computer has a "live fuel consumption" option, which can become morbidly fascinating once you get onto the motorway. So far we have managed a high reading of 32 litres per 100km (about 7.35mpg) going up a steep hill at 130kph with no vehicle in front to make a hole in the air, and a low of 4 litres per 100km (59mpg) going downhill behind a large truck at 80kph. On flat terrain in normal motorway conditions we tend to get between 12 and 15 litres per 100km (16-20mpg). The engine has a sweet spot at between 80 and 100 kmh in 6th gear where you can keep the fuel consumption reasonable, but once you go above that the numbers just start climbing. If you never had to go on long trips in the car then it wouldn't be much of an issue, but it is something that needs to be factored into a purchasing decision if you intend to do any motorway cruising.

All in all, as a family runabout this is an excellent, practical option. Just watch out for the headroom if you are going into a parking garage!