As the title suggests, im thinking about getting one of these.

Does anyone have any views or even own the car?

Thanks in advance

Send sharkrider a pm,

He is very pleased with his.

I've got a 1.4 77bhp Active as a courtesy car at the moment , and think it's great.

It's very well screwed together with a nice interior - surprisingly spacious too - and handles very well.

For a base model it's also quite well specced. My only complaint would be with the relatively low power engine , though it's no worse than any of the competitors in that respect , and it is very quiet and smooth.

A 1.9TDI sporting would probably make a very nice car indeed. I'd be a little wary of the 1.6 sporting that replaced it though - there are DPF issues on Fiat's latest generation of engines.

a lad thats just signed up on tdisport has one. he've very happy with it and has 189 bhp with rolling graphs to show. very good pics show how nice it actually is..

Hi happy to give my review....

first what model are you considering? I know you say 1.9 but the later sporting deisels come with the 1.6 m/jet (new engine) which by all accounts is just as good, but the partical filters have been giving problems.... the 1.9 only had a DPF as an option though, so if you go for one of these you should be good!

first it replaced my vRS, which I was very happy with, apart from the poor skoda customer service and warrenty issues... I bought it new in April 07, and I have now covered 87,000 miles with no real issues. I had it mapped by Angel at 4,000 miles. we'll start with the bad, things replaced during its 2 year unlimited miles warrenty....

1) door lock

2) drop links

3) seat base

4) at least three wheel bearings

5) EGR valve

and er... thats it! they are built much better than they were before

the service intervals are 18,000 miles, the cam belt doesn't need to be done until 90,000 miles, my front brakes lasted 62,000 miles and the rears are still original and about half worn. There are no issues with the brakes either pleanty of stopping power and no fade (as the guy leading the yorkshire meet last week will testify after melting the brakes on his octy 4x4 trying to get away ) there have been no issues with DMF or clutch or gearbox or turbo, the car basically drives like new at 87k, the only thing that feels tired is the suspension, it was sharper when new, i could probably do with some coilovers! lol...

Kit is amazing, 17's standard, ESP standard, Blue & me media standard (hands free phone, media player ect, I have an 8 gig stick in one of the USB sockets) it would be nice if you could get one with the skydome, really lights up the interior, and leather was an option. The later models have rain sensors and auto lights, they were an option on earlier models.

ride handling, very good. comming from the vRS, the actual ability to turn the front in was a revelation, the ride is comfy enough without being rock hard like the fast Seat's, cupra's FR's ect. The traction control also works, In the vRS I would turn it off when wanting to "press on", not ness in the fiat, on all the time.Some people dont like the steering as its light (why Fiat put the city button from the other GP's in here instead of the sport button from the panda 100 I'll never know! ) but I do like it, as its very small ammount of turn lock to lock, which makes the car feel SO agile, when I drive another now, I feel the steering is a but dull and unresponsive (except Simons EVO X which is a world unto its own!) Not a good car to take to the track though, as the ESP cannot be turned off, on the plus side this helps the insurance group of only 9

engine. Fantastic. when I first bought the car, I was quite worried, seem sooooo slow compaired to the vRS, and was only giving circa 40 mpg :( I started to panic, but as it ran in everything improved, and the first camping meet proved it was as quick as a standard fabia vRS, it just gives the power in a smooth way, unlike the sledgehammer lump of the VAG PD enigine,which is why it felt slower. this is because of the commonrail technology (which Fiat invented by the way, this engine is in the 1.9 Saabs and the 1.9 Vauxhalls)

I still felt shortchanged as the excitement wasn't there so in came the remap (conservative for reliabilty, you can map them as someone above said to circa 190bhp, but they tend to blow up, the bigger turbo from the bravo 150bhp 1.9 is the way to go if you want serious power, the bigger turbo and a custom map will see 205bhp (i.e similar setup to the astra 888) Now I get good speed (Ians 170 PD octy vRS just holds me up (Sorry Ian! ) and I kept up with the mapped octy 4x4 last weekend (circa 200bhp?) with no real worries i'm not being an idiot, its just a way to evaluate real world performance 314 lbs/ft of torque is alot in a small car.... (If anyone thinks I'm exaggerating, I'm sure they will post up! )

here's a bit of action for you, the camera car is a suzuki swift sport (we were going downhill ) and boy do they handle well! the yellow fabia vRS is massively modded, circa 200bhp..... it was fun... YouTube - Briskoda North West run.

I also got 45 mpg at that meet "making progress" and 57 mpg on the reletively conservative cruise down the M6 to get there.... best I've had is 64mpg, but you have to drive unrealistically carefully to acheive that, I tend to average 47mpg in the real world, normal driving ect.

looks. I like it, someone discribed it as a baby masarati! I never keep mine clean though, it looks good clean

any other questions just let me know! try and buy one thats been owned by an old man like me, they tend to attract the barry boys :rotz:

How rude....lol

Have to say I was mightly impressed that you made best part of 90 miles on my last meet on the reserve....even with some spirited driving shall we say.

Anyway it's a good job I hold you up....in my heavy barge....or you'd never make it to the ice cream stop...lol

How rude....lol

Have to say I was mightly impressed that you made best part of 90 miles on my last meet on the reserve....even with some spirited driving shall we say.

Anyway it's a good job I hold you up....in my heavy barge....or you'd never make it to the ice cream stop...lol

lol... thanks.... I'm sorry I made everyone stop for fuel, thought I'd make it through the meet on reserve, just too optimistic......

And on a serious note, I like the way you lead a drive.... no breaking the speed limits, but still a nice "boot it and have fun" on the national speed limit twisties

when is the next one? I'm feeling a drought!

Lets the Evo X keep up driving like that....

Lets the Evo X keep up driving like that....

lol... yeah...

I very much enjoyed mine, great car, shame about the FIAT dealer network though. If you know that your local dealer is a good 'un i would have no issues recommending one. Unfortunately the dealers near me really put me off (9 visits to get an EGR valve replaced, i was suffering flat spots) and after getting a dog the lack of practicality put the final nail in the coffin.

As sharkrider has already stated the engine is great (i had the 1.9), especially re-mapped, it handles well, brakes very well and the standard kit is phenomenal. My favourite was the seats, the comfiest ive sat in by a long way. If you're buying used look for stone chips, of the ones i’ve seen the paint on the bumper and wings is wafer thin, mine was only just over 2 years after i got rid of it and it needed a re-spray really. Pay attention to the alloys too, they have a diamond cut finish and stick out proud of the tire wall and if they are kerbed they take a lot of effort and money to get looking right. The DPF takes some getting used too, the ‘burn off’ phase is noisy, economy is good for the performance, i averaged 48mpg over 7 months, with spirited driving (hard to resist).

I must add even though i had to visit the dealers a lot is wasn’t particularly the cars fault, the only problem i had during my ownership was the EGR sticking and creating flat spots during acceleration, one of those niggly little problems. I also had a headlight unit replaced as the bulb retaining clip fell out, creating wobbly beams. The list of warranty work was quite extensive between me and the previous owners: 3 headlight units (clips), new seat rails (corrosion), new door looks (wouldn’t work from the inside), new wheel nuts all round (corrosion), new EGR valve as well as a couple more that i cant remember. Nothing particularly serious, but all annoying things that if you have a bad dealer would get really annoying.

I must add even though i had to visit the dealers a lot is wasn’t particularly the cars fault, the only problem i had during my ownership was the EGR sticking and creating flat spots during acceleration, one of those niggly little problems. I also had a headlight unit replaced as the bulb retaining clip fell out, creating wobbly beams. The list of warranty work was quite extensive between me and the previous owners: 3 headlight units (clips), new seat rails (corrosion), new door looks (wouldn’t work from the inside), new wheel nuts all round (corrosion), new EGR valve as well as a couple more that i cant remember. Nothing particularly serious, but all annoying things that if you have a bad dealer would get really annoying.

indeed, my dealer is a small family owned outfit that really looks after its customers,....

as for the vRS, it was a great car, I loved it, but I hated the dealers, and the warrenty service, so left skoda... funny how things are swings and roundabouts! you left fiat for skoda, and I left skoda for fiat.... neither of us were upset with our prospective cars, just with the customer service fom the dealers! lol...

Edited 28 October, 200916 yr by sharkrider

Send sharkrider a pm,

He is very pleased with his.

He might be, but it's so slow ;)

He might be, but it's so slow ;)

lol....

Thanks for all the help guys.

Going to have a look around and test drive one next week after the long awaited payday!

I think Mr SharkRider has summed it up nicely and I seriously looked at them when I was replacing the Mondeo. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to drive the demo car at the time because it had a puncture and the car doesn't come with a spare so the car had to be off the road I also found that the A-pillar was fairly obstructive, although probably something that you get used to.

I hear a lot about bad dealerships, but the two I've used (by chance) have been excellent. 36k service coming up in the next couple of weeks though, so let's hope that doesn't change

Chris

I hear a lot about bad dealerships, but the two I've used (by chance) have been excellent. 36k service coming up in the next couple of weeks though, so let's hope that doesn't change

Chris

It's all relative isnt it, like Sharkrider said, i found a couple of duffers, his local dealer is really good. Fortunately enough the poor dealer in Swansea went bust at the end of last year and is now run by the Day's franchise, whether theyre any better or not though i couldnt tell you.

As an aside, do the FIAT owners not find FIAT servicing costs compartively high? A major service for the GPS was twice what i just paid for my Fabia. Granted my Fabia isnt CR and doesnt have a DPF but still, minor service was the same story too.

As an aside, do the FIAT owners not find FIAT servicing costs compartively high? A major service for the GPS was twice what i just paid for my Fabia. Granted my Fabia isnt CR and doesnt have a DPF but still, minor service was the same story too.

My finding is that the minor services (oil and filter) are about the same price but the Panda is much cheaper for major services (about half the price), despite needing new spark plugs. Ringing around a few Fiat dealers, it does seem to vary much more than the VAG pricing though, although I wonder how much is the special oil VAG specify....

Chris

Not cheap, about £60 for 4/5 litres if i remember correctly (probably not). I found that there was more variation in the Fiat prices between dealers, but they were less willing to haggle, Skoda dealers were very similar but were more willing to discount.

Not cheap, about £60 for 4/5 litres if i remember correctly (probably not). I found that there was more variation in the Fiat prices between dealers, but they were less willing to haggle, Skoda dealers were very similar but were more willing to discount.

MY (good) dealer also has high servicing prices compaired to the vRS, but the way I think about it is the vRS was every 10k the fiat every 18k.... kinda works out...

fortunatley he is willing to haggle too.... at one of my services (cant remember the miles 38k or something) he said it was brake fluid change time, I got this knocked off as the car was less than a year old, and not enough time for the fluid to degrade... lol.... did the brake fluid at about 60k I think.... set of front discs/pads at 62k, he wanted £400+ :eek: the pads on e-bay were the same as the dealer price, but the discs were literally a fraction of the cost,like £80... showed him a quote, he phoned a "pattern part" place, and matched the price, And I got front pads and discs for less than half what he originally wanted!

I'm soon due the cambelt change, he said to me, come and speak to us, and we'll 'negotiate'.... So I'll get some independant quotes, and he will probably come close to matching them.... I treat fiats quoted service costs as a 'guide'

Im going to look at one tonight, 42,000 miles 06 plate. with the intention of buying

Any particular things I should be looking out for on bodywork or engine?!

Thanks!

Do modern Fiats still have the extra Red key? If so, you must get it with the car, or it costs a fourtune to replace iirc My Fiat Sedici 1.9tdi doesn’t have one though, but it has a lot of Suzuki DNA in it. The 120bhp is a bit agricultural, but it is a 4x4 and I get about 43 mpg out of it:), which is pretty good for my driving style and the fact it is quite tall.

Nope , I got one nice flip key with my Bravo and a cheapo non-flip key as a spare.

Grande Puntos are the same - there's no red key.

Nope , I got one nice flip key with my Bravo and a cheapo non-flip key as a spare.

Grande Puntos are the same - there's no red key.

I got one remote fob/key thingy and one plain key (bit tight I thought:()

I got one remote fob/key thingy and one plain key (bit tight I thought:()

It is a bit penny pinching , isn't it.

I know that a Fiat is a bit of a cheaper alternative , but things like that still grate on the nerves.