(T) a few bravo questions...

Hey guys,

Over the past month I’ve been considering returning to fiat and getting myself a bravo. Having previously owned a 3dr Stilo which unfortunately ended badly as the car was giving me all sorts of trouble I decided to be sensible and was happy to get rid of the troubled Stilo which was costing me a fortune in repairs. i replaced the stilo with a golf that has so far proved trouble free, so im i do have a few doubts about going back to fiat.

So, I just have a few questions about the bravo that hopefully you guys can answer……

How are you finding your bravos? Any issues with overall reliability?

Do any of you get random annoying error/fault messages when you start the car? (a common feature of my old stilo) have fiat finally cut out the electrical niggles?

How about interior quality, any rattles or creaks? My golf’s as tight as a drum. My stilo was full of rattles.

The suspension on my stilo creaked over bumps, do you experience this in the bravo? They share the same platform don’t they?

And finally…

Which engine is the best balance between power and economy? Im swaying towards the 120-tjet as I fear the 150 may like a drink but if you can confirm the 150 returns decent economy I may go for that (my 1.4fsi golf gets around 470miles out of a full tank of town and motorway driving )

If you could give me your honest views on all or just a few of my questions that would be very helpful, I understand the bravo will no doubt have some small issues (like any car) but I don’t want to be bogged down with similar/same old problems that ruined my stilo ownership.

Cheers.

I've got a 120 mjet, only done 1700 miles so far......

Its on 16" alloys with 205/55 Michelins on. No creaks or rattles, doors close with a real feel of quality. No problems yet

Fuel economy for the diesel started out at 46.6mpg, but its now up to about 48.5mpg ( and getting better ? ) If you really want economy, go for a diesel.

A major change from the Stilo is that the Bravo won't bug you with error messages unless the error is actually there!

The Stilo if triggered will repeat the message a certain number of times (20 or something) after being started. The Bravo will record the error, display a warning then if the error is not there next time it won't show it again.

Build quality seems to be very good.

As for fuel ecconomy, the 1.6 will be the best balance between ecconomy and power. The 1.9 150 is a reasonably warm family hatch, with 200bhp achievable with remap, and still returning high 40s, low 50s.

hi, yes random error messages plagued my stilo - people would borrow my car and have the hell scared out of them when they started it to be told 'ABS FAILURE, EBD FAILURE' ect however the car was actually fine. strange and annoying.

im glad to hear this has been cleared up on the bravo.

As for economy, i dont really cover enough miles to justify a diesel however aslong as the 150 petrol achieves at least 35mpg under normal driving condiitons thats perfectly fine for me (my golf 1.4 golf does about 40mpg) as i would like the extra power you get from the 150 t-jet

Everyone drives enough miles to make the diesel worthwhile. It'll always hold it's permium over the petrol - and you save constantly in fuel and tax.

No reliability issues (so far), my 150 M-Jet gets me 43-47 MPG and i dont drive slowly.

Ours is 11 months and 27 k miles now. Only 2 issues so far, a noisy window seal from new (passenger side), replaced. And recently a drop link started to get a bit loose, so that was replaced. It is a 150MJet Sport, no rattles or creaks, excellent build quality. No electronic problems, and the kit is quite extensive. The Blue&Me system is a must, voice activated phone and ipod/mp3, with song names and albums etc.. all fully displayed

good to hear you are all *touchwood* having a good it good wth your bravo's. my main fear was that i would buy a bravo only to find fiat has not learnt their lessons from the frankly miserable stilo. Im already sold on the looks of the bravo (as i was with my 3dr stilo) however i just need to be sure its not all style and no substance.

im going to be enquiring about some crossover black active sports this weekend!

You cannot compare (non-turbo) FSI engine with turbo T-jet. The performance is outstanding with T-jet, but your average mpg may go bellow 35, if you have heavy foot. On the other hand, buy multijet to save fuel. They say true bravo experience comes with multijet. But I have experienced it already with T-jet