Went to see a 'P' reg 16v turbo at a local dealer who are asking £3995 for a mettalic blue 50,000 mile full service History car which looks in reasonable nick for its age. Obliged if you could answer a couple of questions.
What should I be looking for that might cause problems later on?
Is this a good buy?
What insurance group is this car in?

thanks in advance for any answers

cheers Phil

IG 18!!! lol and that price is ok too. Average is 3990quid with 80000 miles

Hi philmgro, to answer your questions:

The price is fair for the mileage/age, The 16vt was discontinued after N reg tho. Are you sure its a 16vt? could be a very late one i suppose.

You need to ensure that the cambelt has been done, they say 72k is the usual mileage, but as the car is over 7 years old I would be looking for this to be done. The cambelt change costs £800 from Fiat you can get them done at coupe specialists such as powerfiat for around the £399 mark, which is an excellent price, I would trust a specialist over the fiat monkeys any day

Also you need to ask if it comes with all the keys:

The red key: this is most important, this contains all the codes for the electrical system, to replace this would cost a minimum of three hundred squids
The silver key: this is the nicey looking alloy key
Also a spare key: I never got this with mine, costs about 60 to replace.

You also want to be looking for smoke coming from the exhaust after the car has been idling a few minutes, a sure sign of a turbo on its way out!

If the cambelt hasnt been done, barter with the dealer to take this into account, if he doesnt want to play, walk away!

Hope this answers your questions

if you are handy with a set of spanners and have access to an airtool to get the crank pulley bolt undone you can do a 16v belt change yourself it's not rocket science, it's still a very good negotiating tool though. if the belt needs to be done make sure that the tensioner bearings for BOTH belts (cam and balancer) are changed as these are a major cause of belt failure or slipped timing.

..........and while I think on make sure the very short oil return pipe from the turbo is in good order it's the orange-ish coloured elbow shaped pipe off the bottom of the turbo you can see it quite easily from underneath not expensive (about £15) but if it fails you'll lose a sump full of oil double quick!

Steady on rosso, the guy's only looking at buying a coop!
You'll scare him off the idea with all this talk about spanners!!!

..........maybe you're right! however it's definitely worth checking the oil pipe particularly if it comes from a non-expert source. I agree that the real answer is if its condition stacks up ok buy it

Thanks guys, took your advice and asked the relevant questions, appears the 'history' is not quite up to scratch, no red key either so i didnt go through with it. Still keeping my eyes open for 1 as they are lovely looking cars. Like the look of the 'sprint blue' one which i still think is fiats best colour.


cheers Phil

Got to say, Totally agree with you there.
Maybe a little biased though!!
My advice is, Go and look at a good one, maybe one just out of your price range? My first coupe was a dog, as I had never gone to see an excellent example. Didn't make the same mistake this time.... Lol