Fiat 500 has anyone bought recetly and managed a discount?

Exemplar

I think I must be another of those lucky Fiat owners!! never had one go wrong on me (although I did once go to buy a 1.2 Brava and the head gasket went when the sales guy started it!! he paid for my fuel getting there/home!)... had 3 Puntos, Brava and Bravo, 126 Super etc

mikey72

Never had any problems with Fiat.
Worse car I had was a Golf, that had paint that fell off, then rusted away underneath.

Tilt

Tigerspain wrote: »

Well you have either been exeptionally lucky or slightly dishonest with your problem free run, 'any mechanic worth his salt' will advise you to stay away from fiat as they have an expetionally poor record of build quality, Please do ring around other mechanics for their opinions and im sure ou will find the back up what I say, When I used to work in a a garage it would be fiat after fiat after fiat coming in with problems, Especially the punto's they are quite possibly one of the worst there are!!!!

Dont just take my word for it, Ask other independant mechanics Im sure they will back up what Im saying, Iv spent long enough in the trade to know what im saying isnt 'a load of old cobblers' lol!!!!!

I have been neither and I don't like the 'dishonest' suggestion. I have worked in the trade also both in Ford and Fiat dealerships in after sales. I am not aware of this 'expetionally poor record of build quality'. Comparing the two I would say that Fiat offers better value. As far as reliability is concerned, both seemed to have their fair share of minor issues but major ones were equally rare. I do know a lot of independant mechanics who certainly would not back up what you are saying apart from perhaps the newer the car, the harder it is to work on which applies to most manufacturers. Perhaps you are referring to Alfa Romeo (owned by Fiat) in the mid 90's who did have build quality issues which were considerably worse that Fiat's suprisingly. But in both marques, the engines are without doubt, well built and renowed for their performance. Being a mechanic, you would know this and as for myself, I speak from vast experience.

P.S. I've just noticed that you are in Spain. Perhaps this is where or experiences differ?

Strider590

Back to OP

tillycat123 wrote: »

I went to look at a new Fiat 500 yesterday. Really liked it. Dealer I was at had one already that arrived last week unregistered that would be fine for me, was not looking for extras on it. They came down a couple of hundred when I said I may want it on finance with them.

I came home and started to ring around to see what other better prices I could get, I could not get the 2 other garages to budge on the RRP that I called.

I just wondered if anyone has got a good deal recently on a 500 are there deals out there to get on them?

Many thanks

Firstly nobody is gonna discount anything via the phone, they never do.... Why? because they need you there in person to be able to confuse you with all the sales patter.

Any discount you get will be quickly negated with "extra selling" and there are hundreds of pointless things they can sell you. You'll walk out thinking you got a great deal having actually paid thousands more than you first intended.

There's no reason at all to buy from a dealership over anyone else, they just give you cups of tea and throw a few dealership flags about the place to make you feel secure, butmany dealerships are just as bad as the rogues (if not worse in some cases), they're just nicer about ripping you off.

bigjl

And don't bother with sureguard or supaguard crap.

Just buy some quality polish products and give it a weekly polish.

Much better than paying several hundred for some product that will be no better than proper care and polishing.

Kilty_2

Strider590 wrote: »

There's no reason at all to buy from a dealership over anyone else, they just give you cups of tea and throw a few dealership flags about the place to make you feel secure, butmany dealerships are just as bad as the rogues (if not worse in some cases), they're just nicer about ripping you off.

Pray do tell, how do I buy a brand new car elsewhere ?

Not everyone's stupid enough to get taken in by the sales waffle either.

Strider590

Kilty wrote: »

Pray do tell, how do I buy a brand new car elsewhere ?

Not everyone's stupid enough to get taken in by the sales waffle either.

Don't buy brand new, simples
I could win the lotto and I still wouldn't buy a brand new car. Be it cars ot anything else, once you start down that road of consumerism, it's very hard to stop.

But.... There wouldn't be any second hand bargains if people didn't buy brand new, so please go ahead

Tigerspain

Not everyone has problems with Fiat obviously, Some cars are ok some are not but on the whole It is known world wide that the italians and french make poor quality cars (Yes even ferrari's are known for poor reliabilty, Look it up if you dont believe me), Here are a few exerts from cnet reviews (One of if not the biggest review sites online) 'Chrysler is betting its future on Fiat's vehicle expertise, but there's a problem: Fiat's quality is below average in Europe, according to a series of studies'

'Fiat posted low scores on J.D. Power and Associates' 2008 Customer Satisfaction Index studies for France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The respondents had owned their cars for about two years.'

'Fiat scored in the bottom quarter of more than 20 brands in the three countries in vehicle quality and reliability'

'Fiat has a reputation of having had quality issues over many years'

This is on Cnet (Wont let me post the link because im new grrr)


This is just the first site I found of thousands, I know people with french cars or Fiats will fight to the core that there is nothing wrong with the brands and obviously no-one wants to admit they are driving one of the poorest made cars around, I accept that but the facts are there.

On 'whatcar' guide fiat came 23rd out of 30 for reliability, Not good really in my opinion, Obviously Honda came first (Again)
More speciafically in the top 10 most reliable models NOT ONE french or italian car came in, They were all German or Japanese furthering my point

This data can be found by searching in google: what car reliability survey

Should anyone else wish to disagree with my years of experience please give some sources :-D

Kilty_2

Strider590 wrote: »

Don't buy brand new, simples
I could win the lotto and I still wouldn't buy a brand new car. Be it cars ot anything else, once you start down that road of consumerism, it's very hard to stop.

But.... There wouldn't be any second hand bargains if people didn't buy brand new, so please go ahead

Right, so do I buy 2 years old then? http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201116385039162

cardinalbiggles

Tigerspain wrote: »

You could try manheim auctions, They deal with new cars, Or the alternative is to get one maybe a year old, That way someone else has taken part of the inevitable depreciation and it will still be under warranty And will be much cheaper!!!, Also finally as a mechanic I would advise against Fiat, French or KA'S as the build quality is poor and the mechanical quality is poor so unless you intend to get rid of it just 2-3 years down the line then I would advise against it especially if your buying the car on looks alone!, In my advise (Which of course you can leave) you would be far wiser to go for a smaller Japanese car or even German, They are usually more expensive but for very good reason, A 2 year old german/Jap would cost you the same as a 1 year old french/fiat/ka but will outlive them ten fold, I guess it really depends on if you have money to waste and how long you want to keep the car, Whatever you decide good luck and I hope it works out :-D

What a complete load of rubbish, you really are talking from your rear end with this.

I must be another happy Fiat owner having had more than a couple in my time, over 500k miles and only 2 breakdowns. One was core plugs going in an old Panda (132k miles at the time) and the second was because my new Bravo blew a tyre hitting a pothole and I never wanted to try and change the tyre myself while it sat on a soft grass verge at the side of a busy road.

Really, call yourself a mechanic! The funny thing is the VW reliability that people harp on about, well just remember TDi was sold to Bosch by Fiat.

The other thing that gets my goat is sure your going to get complaints about Fiats and French cars (which are worse ;-)) but thats only because a shed load of them are bought and sold every year. The surveys that people like JD Power do when you look at the stats actually show that really there are no terrible cars as there is only a few percentage points between the "winners" and "loosers".