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Post by Martin on Mar 11, 2020 18:13:25 GMT
I bet the neighbours think we’ve bought one because of the new arrival, but no fear of that, tomorrow is the one day (in many years) that I need a van. I don’t need a proper transit, but a Vauxhall Combo doesn’t have the required 2m load length. An Alhambra/Galaxy was about the same price as the combo (£80 for a day vs £110 for a transit) and I don’t have van love like most, so that what I went for. I booked a manual, but they gave me the choice of the car I’d booked which had leather and a panoramic roof, or an automatic without either. I took the auto. Only driven it a few miles, but it’s OK for what it is. It’s spacious inside and rides well, but the materials inside aren’t any better than the combo van they picked me up in, it feels very dated and it’s rather slow. Most annoying things so far are the lack of auto hold / electric handbrake that you have to use manually, the rotary gear selector and lack of reversing camera / surround view.  |
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Post by PG on Mar 11, 2020 19:46:51 GMT
You should have gone for a van.....
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Post by Martin on Mar 11, 2020 20:09:44 GMT
You should have gone for a van..... I have! |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2020 20:44:42 GMT
The last time I drove a Galaxy it was infinitely worse than the last Transit. A long time ago but seems not to have changed.
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Post by ChrisM on Mar 11, 2020 21:55:54 GMT
Interesting.... for a couple of trips this week I'm tooling around in one of our pool vehicles, a silver 2010 Galaxy with just over 108,000 miles on the clock.
If I thought that my old Mk I Galaxy was big, this thing is huge. It's ex-DVLA or VOSA and has the scars to prove it, holes filled with blanking plugs in the roof where the light bar was once present, and a myriad of other holes inside where the ANPR cameras and goodness-knows-what-else were fitted. However it appears that it was probably maintained almost without regard to cost as it runs pretty smoothly (2.0 diesel 140 PS 6-speed auto, according to the Ford ETIS site, but it doesn't say what trim level it is. No dark-tinted rear windows though) and has genuine Ford-branded wiper blades that can't be the originals. Paint has gone rather dull and flat and I picked it up just after it was returned by a colleague who'd done the thick end of 900 miles on a trip to Belgium and back. Naturally I've given it a wash in the dark under the streetlight outside my house, and treated it to a quick spray-on-wipe-off polish (apart from the roof which I simply can't reach to clean) which must have taken all of 5 minutes.
Some (most) of the interior plastics are "hard and scratchy" although the dash itself is not too bad. It has a special calibrated speedo that's seemingly 100% accurate up to at least 70mph when checked against the GPS indicated speed on my satnav. It rides and handles amazingly well for something so big and tall (yes, I have been throwing it around the bends on the way to the south coast and back) although it's a little reluctant to pull away from rest, and on an uphill road there is some sort of strange vibration going on in the transmission as you move away from rest. It also appears to be reluctant to change up early, suggesting that the transmission has seen better days. It's got the weird pull-bar manual handbrake which makes an odd squeak each time it's applied, but at least it's a manual handbrake. So far the OBC suggests I've been getting about 45mpg over 150 miles, a significant improvement on the average of 36.something that was showing when I was handed the keys.
Tomorrow, Nottingham beckons followed by Melton Mowbray before hopefully we head to my colleague's home to drop him off before I return to my home (and hopefully I won't have to wash it again.....).
Martin - now you share my frustration with the Kuga's electric handbrake not applying automatically when you come to rest. Does the handbrake in "your" Galaxy not release automatically when you touch the accelerator to move off, though?
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Post by Tim on Mar 12, 2020 9:41:04 GMT
Most annoying things so far are the lack of auto hold / electric handbrake that you have to use manually, the rotary gear selector and lack of reversing camera / surround view. A very first world set of problems there!!  |
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Post by Martin on Mar 12, 2020 9:48:03 GMT
Most annoying things so far are the lack of auto hold / electric handbrake that you have to use manually, the rotary gear selector and lack of reversing camera / surround view. A very first world set of problems there!! True, just annoying because they’re simple things to get right and you notice regularly. I’ll be in it for the next couple of hours so I’m sure I’ll find more! |
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