Fiat 500 has anyone bought recetly and managed a discount?

johnfarquhar74

bigjl wrote: »

The Marea was actually a decent enough car, especially in diesel, as they didn't fit it with a stupid DPF back then.

That takes me back to around 2000/01, my work hired me a Fiat Marea 'Weekend', 2.0L petrol, five cylinder, 150BHP. Lovely sounding engine with the 5 pots, and pulled pretty well for a 'work vehicle'. Was lucky enough to drive all around the North of Scotland that summer, fantastic.
My only issues were the plastiky interior that had more rattles than a newborn and the knee-capping tailgate! Basically the estate rear opened like a traditional estate but there was a large lip with an even larger red button on top. You pressed that and the lip dropped like a guillotine to give you a flat load space but invariably took off your knee caps as you had to stand so close to activate the switch.

cardinalbiggles

The new Bravo is very good as well and not at all like any of the Fiats I have previously owned, it actually looks and feels far more expensive that it was and is arguably the best looking small hatchback.

Tigerspain

cardinalbiggles wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgpaZgt1Rao&feature=related

I thought you were defending Fiat?????

Tilt

gmt0587 wrote: »

You really want to know which ones are crap? Name the last reliable car that Fiat have built before the current Panda?

Take a look at my post #10 and take your pick!

Tilt

bigjl wrote: »

I think most of the issues with Puntos can be levelled at the owners, they get into banger range when they are still fairly new.

The Bravo/Brava had problems with build quality, remember the dashtop mounted stereo? But mechanically they weren't that bad, again they also attracted a certain kind of owner which probably contributed to their reputation.

The Marea was actually a decent enough car, especially in diesel, as they didn't fit it with a stupid DPF back then.

The Stilo was a nice car, the estate looked nice for an estate, but the debacle of the red keys getting lost and new ECU's being needed did for most of the recent Fiat range, now apparently sorted out so you don't need to worry about the missing master key.

Though Fiat have really lifted their game with the New Panda and the Fiat 500, the Grande Punto is a nice looker, the wife looked at a 1.2 petrol one when we got her Clio, but none had A/C so they were ruled out for that reason, still an attractive car, haven't driven one so know little about then other than they look nice.

The red key issues were indeed a problem. When I worked at a Fiat dearlership during that period, we were inundated with customers who had bought 'nearly new' cars from the large Car Supermarkets who hadn't supplied them with red keys so sent them to us stating it was a warranty issue! When I say 'problem' I mean that it wasn't so much the idea of the red key, it was the way the cars were passed from one owner to another. Only one red key existed for each car and contained a unique code for the ECU which could not be by-passed which made it a pretty effective anti-theft system. The system was inroduced across the range as an anti theft device and at each new car 'hand over', the customer is advised that the red key must NEVER be used except in re-coding replacement keys. It should be kept in a safe place at home and if/when the car was sold, it should be pssed on to the new owner. Used correctly, it was a good system. The problem was with fleet sales ect. Obviously some fleet managers (hire car firms ect) wern't so good in caring for such matters involving docs ect as private owners were and as such red keys were getting sperated from theire respective cars. Without the red key meant having to re-place the ECU and all the locks at a cost of around £1k!

Fiat obviously recognised that the system was flawed simply because of the of human attitude towards it so have now replaced it with the current system.

gmt0587

Hold the back page, my partners front grill has no fallen off so i see Fiats legendry build quality is still the same

mikey72

Be fair though, the tailgate, wings and lights fell off the ford she ran into.

gmt0587

I must admit i did check for crash damage first, although she woulp prob kill me for saying that:D

tillycat123

Went into a Fiat flagship in London this week, I've never met such a snooty jumped up sales person! She more or less accused me of fibbing when I said another Fiat dealer had lowered the price by £300 on a new car and she was not willing to accept another dealer would do that.

alanrowell

In the City Car section of the latest JD Power survey the 500 comes 2nd & the Panda 4th. The big loser was the Ford Ka which finished bottom overall - which is odd given it's the same basis as the 500.

Admittedly overall they came 53rd, 78th & 108th respectively but even the class winner - the Aygo - only finished 43rd overall.