- The date of the cells:
There is a date sticker on the battery crates but this is no gurantee, cell's can be changed etc. Cell's made before year 2000 are know to have a manufacturing error that leads to early cell death, try avoid them or consider them duff and take this in to considering when offering a price. As of 14/10-2011 new cell's cost 629,51 € each, they can be ordered here: http://www.stueber-automobile.de/ A 6 page test report descriping the problem can be found here: http://www.evdl.org/docs/saft-failures.pdf
- Watering:
The cell's need to be watered every 5000 km. Since not many dealers can or will touch an electric berlingo you might be better off doing this yourself. To do this you need and evlite unit and watering kit. Go here to get it: http://www.tuer.co.uk/evlite.htm Of course if the seller has not done this on a reg. basis or only done it when the water light comes on consider the cell's to be badly maintained. On the test drive you could try water the cells and see how many liters it takes. This again can indicate if the cell's have been proper looked after.
- Range:
Have the car charged by the seller and tell him to leave the plug in. Before the test drive make sure the charge is done. Drive as far as you can go before the recharge light comes on, this will tell you the range you can expect and not what the seller tells you. Good cell's will give you about 80-90 km's with top speed of 72 km/h in mixed driving. Rain and very cold weather takes about 20% of the range. The lifetime range is about 100.000 Km is cells have been taken good care of. The closer or over the 100K km mark the shorter the trip range will be due to normal vear. Remember to use as much regen as possible, ie to brake just let of the speed instead of touching the brake.
- The Brushes:
Check the brushes, by taking off the cover on the motor, holding the spring aside and withdraw the visible brush. They have a line on the side if the wear left is less than 5mm then they need urgently replacing. Look at the comm on the motor, it should be nice and smooth not ridged and uneven, this would also be reflected on the end of the brush. NEED LINK WHERE THEY CAN BE ORDERED
- The front discs
The front discs corrode/rust, as they don't get enough use. Replacement is not expensive and will transform the braking.
- The drain holes in the cases
Check the drain holes in the cases, if there is any draining deposit on this, it could indicate a leak in the coolant, or a holed battery. Take a short lenght of stiff wire and make sure the holes are not blocked to mask problems.
- The rear void bush
Check the rear void bush on the front suspension arms, if they are loose and torn they need replacing. Not costly, but this is the cause of the outer tyre wear. The weight of the electrique make this really important.
- Heater
Run the heater for about 10 mins to check that it works and can produce heat. Important for sub zero winters
- Vacuum Pump
The vacuum pump (sounds like a compressor) comes on periodically to keep the brake server system under vacuum. Normal duty cycle is about 20 secons on couple of minutes of. If the pump comes on longer than that it might indicate a leak in the system.
- Charging - 'Electrical Fault Light' On
Occasionally If you remove the charging plug before it is fully charged, the 'Electrical Fault Light' comes when the ignition is on and stays on until a full trickle charge is performed.
did take the info from there.... i just recall that it was every 5000 km