Its the Fiat Coupe 20v Turbo looking at the autotrader prices from the price I bought at & my condition milage etc I seem to have retained 65% ish - clearly would actually have to sell it to realise the real loss. However ball park over near on 4 years thats impressive.

I have done a few sums on running costs/milage insurance/ etc and excluding depreciation the VRs is

sell it before it falls apart

Well 4 years and touch wood nothing has gone wrong. All thats needed replacement is one set of tyres set of brake pads filters oil and number plate bulb.

Oh yes pollen filter.

People often think its unreliable due to the Fiat badge yet they are totally unaware that its pininfarina who actually put them all together on the production line. Fiat supplied the wonderfull engine and thats pretty much it. Hence there is no electrical common faults on them. Note I am a member of the fiat UK car club and electrical faults are not common.

Its a very good car on a run I can get up to 38mpg the worst ever was 25mpg it usually averages around the 30-32mpg dependant on how heavy the congestion is. The drawback is the rear seats do not drop - just like any saloon/ coupe. The boot can get three sets of golf clubs + 2 trollys in there. Bose sound system & 6 CD autochanger as std.

Of course you then do have the 0-60 in 6 seconds std due to the fact boost is limited to 0.6bar in 1st & 2nd gear to avoid wheel spin when this is removed it does drop to 5.5 seconds. 0-100 is 14.2 seconds and v max over the 2 mile bedford aerodrome is 155mph.

If it could pull to the rev limiter in 5th it would be travelling at 186mph and Ive had her reving in France @ 6,500rpm - you can do the maths :-).

The problem I have now is I guess I do not want any drop in performance as I take this level for granted & mine is tuned.

Clearly performance wise it is a downgrade, quality for sure a 10 year old car vs 3-4 year old car is going to be an upgrade likewise safety. However I have huge Brembo 4 pots up front and in all 4 years of ownership I have never had the ABS kick in or the wheels lock up. Likewise due to the limited slip diff I have not ever lost traction from a standing start - note for any turbo cars launching them correctly gets the best times. I have only one span the wheels but that was in 3rd gear @ just under 40mph when I overtook on a dual carridgeway and gave it the beans.

Handling is clearly very good - some mags rate it on a par with the Integra Type R.

Seats I dont have the recaros or leather (nor would I ever have leather too hot and sticky in the summer heat) so the fabric stc items let me slide a little more than I did in the VRS.

Clearly now I guess the value will not drop much more & I can get classic car insurance. Mind you even though its group 20 ins it is only £63 per annum more than the VRS - which I guess is due to the market value.

I liike the idea of running the VRs on Veg oil/chippy oil but have heard so many contradictory stories that you can or cannot with PD engines. I even heard utter rubsish from one member about diesel engines - didnt that person realise that the whole reason Dr Diesel designed the engine was for it to work with any oil i.e. specifically for the 3rd world countries and hence it will run on peanut oil.

Insurers confuse me to death......my 13 year old 318iS was £200 more a year to insure than my '04 vRS, which is faster and worth £8000 more......

How a group 20 Fiat Coupe Turbo is only marginally more pricy is even more beyond me. Do they make it up as they go along?

Possibly or it could be due to the number of claims against a specific model.

i.e. not many people are aware how fast the 20V Turbo Fiat Coupe actually is and most are driven by older drivers. In addition to that there were only ever 70,000 Fiat Coupes ever made worldwide I believe it was 7000 which were UK RHD.

In malasia they have a couple of brand new showroom examples the very final run out models however they did stop making them 6-7 years ago now!!! More's the pity.

It does amaze me that today the big news is oh 212hp is the Focus RS or oh 220ho in the Renault Megane yet 10 years ago the Fiat Coupe developed that amount of power and it has a reverse vetec system i.e. at low revs where there should be turbo lag the reverse vetec kicks in then at 2.5-2.8k the turbo hits full boost resulting in very little lag.

10 years on, actually with the engine design probably 13-15 years later and the latest engines are barely more powerfull and they are in much weightier cars.

It reminds me of the 205 MI16 I had 800kg and 160hp.... = 200bhp/tonne!!

Couldn't agree more about the fiat. The 20v Turbo is impressive and still a well kept secret.

Did you include fuel costs in your calculations? If not, I suspect you'll save a lot in this area too!

Moving from the BM' to the vRS I'm saving £17 per month on insurance alone, not to mention the drop from unbanded VED tax (BMW was £96 for 6 months compared to band C for vRS). Then there's the fuel savings which I hope to be good as I do 64 miles round trip to work and back.

Surely going from a Fiat Turbo to a vRS would be cost effective? Not quite so with a remap, but then if you're used to some real grunt I get the feeling you'll need it.

Couldn't agree more about the fiat. The 20v Turbo is impressive and still a well kept secret.

Did you include fuel costs in your calculations? If not, I suspect you'll save a lot in this area too!

Yes it does:-

I've assumed ave Mpg in the fiat Coupe 20v Turbo to be 30mpg and 55mpg in the VRs

and cost of fuel per ltr to be

I didnt concider any of this. I just thought.

I want a vrs, i want it now. so i sold my mr2 and used that to buy my vrs.

i didnt care about servicing, insurance and fuel. It is costing me about £70.00 a month more, but i get to drive the car i want.

I wish i looked at things in the way you do, i could maybe save myself some more money then. Maybe when i buy a house hopefully sometime this year my views will change.

Would the Skoda be as good a drive, would you feel as good when you got out of it ?? These are both questions that you cant put a price on but if you love the Fiat why change, dont do it just for economics, a newer car is always nice to have but it needs to be enjoyable.

Have a long test drive in the skoda before you decide, answers on this Forum are bound to be Skoda biased

we had a Fiat on this years Furball & the guy certainly had a lot of fun with it

I guess one thing is my cars performance is possibly too much to use on the roads legally.

When you get into the meat & veg of the performance your very quickly up to 135mph without realising and you then have to brake hard.

When driving on the M way to be frank provided the cabin & seat are comfortable then it doesnt matter what you drive you just want the quietest & most frugal. When it comes to the A/B roads in Wales then it is nice to have the power to easily pass traffic on short stretches.

For 95% of the time overtaking in the S.E. just isnt possible so your just following the chap in front or if you do pass then your just stuck in front of the car that was in front of you so with age you tend to care less and less about it.

I guess the most sensible thing to do is to keep running mine into the ground especially as it has only just passed 50,ooo miles.

I remember when I had a test drive of the vRS when i had the test drive if felt quick and perfectly fast enough. However I then got into my car and drove the same route - with one less passenger it was much quicker.

i'm not a hater of the fabia vRS as i think it has its place but if your coming from a tuned 20vT coupe then i think the fabia will disappoint in everyway except the fuel economy as the fiat will handle way better, accelerate way better, brake way better and be a whole lot more fun to drive. seeing as you fiat has an LSD etc then you will never get the power down in the fabia like the fiat unless you get an LSD fitted at your own cost which is going to cost you about a grand if not more i'd say, along with all the upgrades your bound to do like suspension, remap, brakes etc as you will quickly start to miss what you have in your fiat and by the time you've done that you wil have spent a grand or two without realising it not be saving a great deal on fuel to boot.

i'd say stick with the fiat but your more than welcome to stick around here, we don't get funny over people being members but not driving skoda's

in fact if you were to come along to a meet of some sort i'm sure you'd be allowed passenger rides or even drives of cars to see how they feel

your more than welcome to give mine a go

You spend a lot of time in your car - make sure you make the right decision.

Sounds to me like you need to stick with the Fiat for sure. Until you find something you'll be happy with as a replacement (which would need 200bhp plus etc by the sounds of it).......otherwise you'd be downgrading in every sense other than MPG, tax and a few airbags for little financial gain.

I have driven the TDi 115 possibly over 30,000 miles and I did enjoy the performance - this was std. It was a Golf Mk 4 so the handling was understeer then if braking into fast corners the rear could step out...

What Im saying is that I know how to drive a TDi PD correctly.

The other thing to think about is when I buy a car I keep it for 3-5 years+ and no doubt the Fiat isnt practical if nippers would come along within the next say 5 years.

The thing which I thing would be good is if I bought one ran it for 3 years then gave the car to the would be by then wife at the time a nipper is born. Then I'd get myself something else, clearly then the safest car would have the nipper in it + then would need larger boot for luggage + kids stuff etc.

Well, buy a vRS then! God some people are hard to please....

According to your calculations you would save a few £ on a vRS....not a lot but you would be saving. The vRS does have 4 doors for baby seats, a boot for buggies/ shopping (albeit an average sized one) and some airbags etc.

Also, with kiddies around do you really want 200+BHP?

The Golf is a tiny bit more roomy though....and baby kit does take up a fair bit of space.....

Imvho, if you're thinking kiddies, the Fabia isn't really the car to go for unless you're literally just carrying the baby (sans luggage!) from A to B....

Chris

So if thats the case then it swings the equation to add in the 330D (£7k budget)

this would have better performance and more room + if opting for the touring model then a lot more room.

Downside milage will be well over 100k and the MPG will be lower + the doors dont "thunk" shut they slam/rattle.

See if a dealer will give you a vRS for 48 hours or something on an extended test drive and then you can do a proper comparison?

Mk1 Octavia L&K Diesel Estate, Brilliant car & well within your budget & room for several kids

Mk1 Octavia L&K Diesel Estate, Brilliant car & well within your budget & room for several kids

I agree that's a good option but the Octy 1 RS is also a good option. My wife who was very dubious about me buying mine (in Jan 2003) now loves it and reckons it is "the perfect car for us". Things she loves most are that there is plenty of room for the 2 kids & car seats and the boot is massive ... we went for two weeks camping in Southern France last year and had no problems with space If you can get a very recent Octy 1 RS you will get a lot of car for not much, it can still be fun for you but is massively practical .