Anyway, here it is on the day I brought it home:
Engine cover was present, but I had to remove it as it was only held on with 2 dampers & was chafing one of the hoses. Got serviced a couple of weeks ago & got another couple of dampers put on, but now don't have enough top clips:
This light crazing effect appears in a few places on the bodywork, but no signs of shoddy respray anywhere. In fact the whole driver's side rear panel is a bit iffy as the paint is very rough at the rear pillar (but not on the bootlid) & there are also some signs of rust starting at the very edges of the wheelarch. Any ideas?
Interior comes with worn out door handles as standard. Replacements in the correct colour are nearly £20 each! Plain old plastic van items are less than £15 posted for the pair, so ordered a set & fitted them a couple of weeks ago. May not look as pretty at first, but they'll certainly stay presentable for longer:
Folded the rear seat down to find that I couldn't get it back up as the centre seatbelt jammed. Should have learnt from my old 406 to pull some out before folding. Unbolted the seats so that I could get the backrest vertical again & the seatbelt came out again. Something to do with ball bearings I'm told:
I originally looked to spend up to £4k for a low mileage one in near mint condition, but then found that hardly any have air con, so ended up settling for this one with 95k, the all important air con, a newly fitted timing belt & water pump & 15months warranty for £3200. However, my hatred of used car traders has gathered more momentum as my plan of buying from a dealer & having a little more comeback was dealt a blow when an issue surfaced after 2 weeks of ownership.
When I first looked at the car before buying, the blower was permanently on full blast & couldn't be turned down. One of the conditions of sale was that the blower controls would get fixed. When I picked the car up a week later, there was a set of heater controls sat on the passenger seat (which the salesman said was the old set) & they seemed to be working as the blower could now be turned up & down. However, a few days later I had my first drive of it in the dark & found that I have no illumination on the controls at all. This was in addition to the fact that the hot/cold control would not turn all the way round to full cold without springing back.
After 2 phone calls to the car sales which ended in "I'll get back to you" I phoned them back the morning before it went for a service to ask if they were going to get their garage to fix the problem (since it obviously stemmed from them not doing the job right the first time) or whether they were happy to let my guy do it & save me having to drive an hour up the road to Bracknell. Rather than the standard "I'll get back to you" fobbing off, this conversation resulted in the salesman using the also standard "what do you expect from a 10 year old car", "I'm not making any promises" & finally "Well it's working now isn't it?" to which I replied that it wasn't if the cold control was springing back. He ended up hanging up the phone in a hissy fit, & I've now ended up footing the bill for my guy to have a look at the controls.
When I picked it up after the service, the specialist had managed to sort out the hot/cold control (the other guys hadn't attached the cable correctly), but said that he couldn't get the illumination working. He'd removed all of the bulbs without actually having to remove the panel & said that all 3 that he removed were blown, but the new ones that he fitted weren't lighting up either. He suspects that there may be a short somewhere in the panel, but couldn't be sure as he hadn't previously experienced this in a Berlingo or Partner. He also said that if we need to replace the control panel it will be a bit more of a job than what he did as the cables are a pig to do when completely removing it. He also managed to get my front foglights working as it turns out that the COMM2000 wasn't correctly configured - thought the stalks were suspiciously tight feeling & fresh looking.
As it turns out I may have found the problem when I fitted my Sony MP3 player. The rear of the heater controls has space for 2 plugs. One small square one that seems to be part of the recirc control (as it says air recirc on the reverse of the panel where the plug goes) & another longer rectangular slot. When I reached down the back of my heater controls in the car I found that I have something in the small square socket, but nothing in the other slot & also can't find any loose plugs or wiring hanging around anywhere. The specialist has a Berlingo van, so hopefully he'll be able to check where the plug originates in his van & find where it has gone in mine. It's due to go back to him soon as he said that the wheel cylinders are starting to leak (covered in the warranty so getting my money's worth) & that I have cruise control capability so he's going to configure it when I get the stalk.
Getting it to my standard of cleanliness is a long & arduous task (anybody that knew my old 406 can testify to that), but I did manage to get some odd time the other week to start work on it. So far I've got to the door shuts & interior:
Also fitted a new bracket that holds up the overhead shelf at the front. Plans for the future (apart from a lot of tidying) include some 15 or 16ins 306 or 406 alloys & some Berlingo Desire or XTR seats (for the armrests & picnic tables).
long time no see.
Installed in a characteristically immaculate motor 
I hate people like that - they're your bestest mate right up until you hand over the folding and then it's..............
it's actually quite dangerous to have unlit controls (distracting for the driver trying to see what's what).
