My Next Car

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

12yr old Fiesta with 80,000 on the clock, cost me £600

Has been washed 6 times in two years, MOT'd twice without as much as an advisory,I'm hoping it will be 3x in January . Bulletproof!

 

[screenman]

So you drive a dirty old banger, glad you enjoy it. I certainly would not want to drive a Fiesta the 35,000 miles a year I do for work.

 

[Piemaster]

Like the 105 & 130?

Personally I'd love a good 110/130 Coupe
http://www.skodamuseum.dk/pages/id32.asp

Going OT - I rather like those. Would be nice with a modern powerplant in it, something that has been done a fair bit with the likes of mk I / II Escorts. Classic looks, modern economy, power and emissions.

 

[perplexed]

It's funny really. We had a Fiat which we ran for about 12 years, with minimal issues. Someone we know is a VW snob, and his last 3 have been new Golfs.

Every single one of them had to make repeated trips back to the dealers because things broke...

But he still called our Fiat "Italian crap..." And his next car will be? Another VW...

 

[screenman]

We had a guy in today to have his Vauxhall tinted, told us it was the 19th he had owned and most of them had been a lot of trouble, we did not bother to ask why he kept buying them.

One of my wealthy neighbours has a Rover City Car, that is really plumbing the depths. Honest story, first one I fixed a dent on I had to take off the door card, well to my suprise it had 2 wood screws holding it on, so I just thought it had been off before and a muppet had used whatever screws they had to hand, 2 weeks later on another one I had to take the same panel off, yep you guessed it wood screws again. In the dent trade we say cars like this are made of Bacofoil.

 

[gbb]

Not a huge amount wrong with Fiats imo. They always did basic cars like the 127, Uno and Punto better than anyone else. The rust issues of the past are long gone. I don't see that some of the more modern German cars are anything to write home about on the reliability front either.

TBf, rust isn't an issue for Fiats generally anymore. I worked with a girl who had a 2001 Punto which did seem prone to coolant/cooling problems, which with a bit of research seemed common. Otherwise she liked it.

Second point re German cars..guy at work has a 2006 Golf TDI 4Motion. Lovely car, but its cost him. He had clutch problems...cost him nearly £800 by the time they'd finished. Now his turbo is playing up. £400 for a recon unit, £899 for a new one, plus labour.
Reliable cars, but if they go wrong....it costs.

 

[gbb]

We had a guy in today to have his Vauxhall tinted, told us it was the 19th he had owned and most of them had been a lot of trouble, we did not bother to ask why he kept buying them.

One of my wealthy neighbours has a Rover City Car, that is really plumbing the depths. Honest story, first one I fixed a dent on I had to take off the door card, well to my suprise it had 2 wood screws holding it on, so I just thought it had been off before and a muppet had used whatever screws they had to hand, 2 weeks later on another one I had to take the same panel off, yep you guessed it wood screws again. In the dent trade we say cars like this are made of Bacofoil.

The Rover City..made in India IIRC. What would anyone expect ?

 

[screenman]

gbb, my post needed to be taken with the one above. It was mainly pointing out peoples buying habits, but I also suppose it showed how low Rover dropped.

 

[asterix]

So you drive a dirty old banger, glad you enjoy it. I certainly would not want to drive a Fiesta the 35,000 miles a year I do for work.

Have you never thought that driving 35000 miles a year is an enormous waste of time? Unless you are a lorry driver.
or summat.

I do like driving, up to a point, i.e. after about 5 miles I want to do something a lot more interesting.

 

[asterix]

TBf, rust isn't an issue for Fiats generally anymore. I worked with a girl who had a 2001 Punto which did seem prone to coolant/cooling problems, which with a bit of research seemed common. Otherwise she liked it.

Second point re German cars..guy at work has a 2006 Golf TDI 4Motion. Lovely car, but its cost him. He had clutch problems...cost him nearly £800 by the time they'd finished. Now his turbo is playing up. £400 for a recon unit, £899 for a new one, plus labour.
Reliable cars, but if they go wrong....it costs.

And you call that reliable?

 

[Drago]

gbb, my post needed to be taken with the one above. It was mainly pointing out peoples buying habits, but I also suppose it showed how low Rover dropped.

Not as low as you'd think. In their final year on sale the 75 scored higher in JD Power than every single BMW, Merc and Audi model. Even the humble and aged 45 beat the Passhat and C Class by quite a margin.

The marque undoubtedly had its problems, and dubious management didn't help, but while it was a national pastime for the press to take the pith the buying public were reporting a superior ownership experience than German car buyers were doing.

 

[tyred]

Second point re German cars..guy at work has a 2006 Golf TDI 4Motion. Lovely car, but its cost him. He had clutch problems...cost him nearly £800 by the time they'd finished. Now his turbo is playing up. £400 for a recon unit, £899 for a new one, plus labour.
Reliable cars, but if they go wrong....it costs.

I don't rate modern VWs at all tbh. Yes they are nice, but just way to expensive to maintain from what I see. The MK1, MK2 and to a lesser extent the MK3 Golfs were fine cars, well built, well engineered, nice to drive, generally bulletproof and very simple to fix if it did go wrong. Same can be said of things like the original Seat Toledo or the Audi 80. Nowadays, I honestly believe the VAG group are trading on past glories, but they have a good image and reputation so people buy them regardless. Perhaps it will catch up with them eventually.

Merc certainly lost the plot with build quality towards the end of the 1990s but I understand they are better again.

 

[Sheepy1209]

We own a Fiat Panda, used as a driving school car and apart from a noisy heater fan (replaced under warranty) it's been absolutely fine. The heater fan, by the way, is Japanese.

Most cars have their weak spots; my son's 2006 Focus needs a new power steering pump - Google, and it seems a common fault. Our Kia Rio diesel blew a hole in its intercooler at three years old; but was it a one-off? Who knows?

I don't know too much about the Fiat 1.4 engine, but the 1.2 (used in the Panda, 500 and smaller Puntos) is a good solid lump with virtually no known problems.

Electric power steering seems to go wrong on Fiats, but reconditioned units are available so it's not too serious. Certainly a lot cheaper than the steering pump on the Focus!

If the price is right I wouldn't hesitate to buy a modern FIAT; that's speaking as someone who owned Japanese for many years, apart from a Ford interlude which didn't go well.

 

[Piemaster]

Not as low as you'd think. In their final year on sale the 75 scored higher in JD Power than every single BMW, Merc and Audi model. Even the humble and aged 45 beat the Passhat and C Class by quite a margin.

The marque undoubtedly had its problems, and dubious management didn't help, but while it was a national pastime for the press to take the pith the buying public were reporting a superior ownership experience than German car buyers were doing.

I've had a couple of 600's. Both were very nice

 

[screenman]

Asterix, I offer a mobile dent repair business which I why I know a little bit about cars. Been working or selling them for 40 years 38 of them I have been the owner of said businesses.

Aah! Rovers not many left on the road so their life expectancy was not up to much, I can list the many Rover Dealers I did work for and the brand was no way a quality one.