Hi Ladies & Gents - would be grateful for your thoughts....

I'm ready to upgrade my 08 MJ because my driving requirements have changed. I do low miles (about 5K a year) mostly in town so I'd never go bigger than a Panda but now I'm doing two motorway round trips a month of around 300 miles each. Lack of bluetooth , unlistenable audio above the thrum and no DAB make my old Panda a bit of a pain on the motorway. So I think I'm looking for whichever version of the new Panda is the quietest inside at speed ( are they all the same in town ?) , I think I've had enough of diesel because I don't do the miles and I assume I need Blue & Me ? Can I get a factory DAB yet ? are there any seat upgrades available ? ( not that I find the basic Panda seat uncomfortable)

Twinair is uncannily quiet at motorway cruising speed.

good to know !
quiet enough to listen to music or do you still get tyre noise ?
Do you know how your Cross shapes up against the other trims for in-car refinement ?

Yes, it's quiet enough to listen to music, and seems fine with speech (BBC 4, 5Live) too.

Sorry, I'm not able to make a comparison with the other trims, but others on here will no doubt be able to. I doubt there's any difference tbh.

A lot will be down to your tyres regardless. My TA 500 is fine noise wise on motorways and I'd imagine a Panda would be even better

1.2 is refined, more than adequate performance wise and much cheaper to buy and does better mpg. Financially it's a no brainer, but the twinair is great fun.

I've been very impressed with how quiet our 1.2 Easy is at motorway speeds. We can have a conversation and listen to music or speech radio quite comfortably. It's easily as good as our Astra, which is itself quite refined. I think you should test drive both though and see if you can fit in a bit of dual carriageway driving.

The road surface makes a big difference to the noise levels, my 1.2 easy can go from very quiet to very noisy.

We have two TwinAir Fiats, a 4x4 Panda and a 500 Lounge.

They're not my usual transport (belong to wife and to daughter) but I'd prefer the 500 on a longer trip.

Maybe it's the mud and snow tyres of the Panda, or the fact that the Panda is slower than the 500, but of the two that would be my choice for performance and for noise levels.

I can't comment on a regular TA Panda.

With such low mileage and a wish for more peace & quiet, you're probably right to ignore the diesel this time. DPF might be a problem, owing to your town journeys, but it's the most intrusive engine in terms of noise & vibration in the Panda (probably not a huge surprise).

Both petrol engines have their plus points, but I'd go for a TwinAir. Around town the 1.2 will be fine, and it copes perfectly adequately on the Motorway. However, the 1.2 engine noise increases once up to Motorway speed, whereas the TwinAir actually gets quieter! Having used my Parents 500 TwinAir at times for the last 3 years, it's also got much more power in reserve on the Motorway than it has any right to, and you won't have to plan overtaking manoeuvres at all - you will in the 1.2.

If you were only driving 5000 miles a year round town, I'd say the 1.2 is perfectly adequate. It's perfectly adequate for the odd Motorway stint too, but given you know you'll be on the Motorway for a long journey twice a month, the TwinAir will be worth the extra just for not having to think about pulling out to get past lorries etc.

As for trim, to get Bluetooth as standard you'll need Trekking, 4x4 or Cross trim - none of the standard (Pop, Easy, Lounge) get Blue&Me as standard. DAB isn't available on any Panda from the factory yet - sadly only available on models with the newer UConnect system (500L & 500X) so far. The Pop trim gets the most basic stereo, all others get a better one with extra speakers, but there are no factory HiFi upgrades on Panda like there are on some other Fiats (500 gets Interscope HiFi, 500L gets Beats Audio, for example).

My personal thoughts are TwinAir Trekking - looks like a 4x4 and has the kit of the 4x4, along with (probably) holding its value slightly more than the 'regular' models, without costing much more than a TwinAir Lounge with Blue&Me added as an option.

TwinAir Lounge with Blue&Me option = £12,265
TwinAir Trekking (Blue&Me standard) = £13,075

Obviously you could go up to a 4x4 or Cross and get even more kit, but that'll cost more (dunno if you had a budget in mind) or could go to the lowest model with TwinAir engine (Easy spec) and add Blue&Me, which comes to £11,765. However, you'll do without things like full body-colour coding, alloy wheels etc. Just depends how fussed you are with equipment I guess

Forgot to add, as has been hinted in a previous post, the Mud & Snow tyres fitted to the 4x4 and Cross will more than likely kick up a little more road noise than the regular tyres fitted to Pop, Easy, Lounge and (I assume) Trekking - anyone with a Trekking know if they have regular tyres?

Obviously you could fit regular tyres to a 4x4, but seems a little silly paying extra for a 4x4 if you don't need the four wheel drive and would prefer less tyre noise!

My Twinair Trekking is fitted with Continental Cross Contact Mud & Snow tyres and I can't say that I have noticed tyre noise on the motorway.

busman683 said:

My Twinair Trekking is fitted with Continental Cross Contact Mud & Snow tyres and I can't say that I have noticed tyre noise on the motorway.

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Likewise on the Cross, although it's early days, and I may still have my rose-tinted ears on!

I see JTD_Liam's point about putting regular tyres on a 4x4, but the wider M&S tyres on the Cross (they are 185/65's) will inevitably hit the fuel consumption, so I'm mulling over buying some cheap 16" rims and putting slightly narrower, lower profile tyres on them for the summer, when the 4x4 capability isn't such an issue for me. I plan on keeping the little beastie for at least 5 years, so the only additional net cost would be the rims, which are widely available second-hand.

We went from an 09 Panda to a new 1.2 Panda Easy last year. The new car was on larger wheels, had improved handling, several added features, the radio was good - I liked the feature which adjusts the volume to compensate for road noise. I didn't even know this feature was there until the kids had gone through the menu.

Unfortunately my new Fiat proved to be one of those with the throttle response issues. Even if they manage to fix these problems eventually the 1.2 engine will still be pretty gutless, the overall gearing on this car is much lower so you feel that driving it is hard work. The diesel multijet really wants to live on the motorway on a regular basis to keep things cleared out and running efficiently. A friend of mine has a multijet that is now coming up to 200 000 miles, this car has been free of any issues apart from the front suspension needing to be replaced. In the latest models there seem to be wiring harness issues, where the wires bend for the back hatch and doors they can crack and cause all sorts of odd warning messages (Peugeot cars seem to have the same sort of problems at the moment). Some suspension rubbers have shown bad deterioration after about 30000 miles, so I would definitely thoroughly test drive (over a full weekend if possible) before considering one of these.

I've hacked my 4x4 TA up and down the motorways, along with the Mrs 1.2 Lounge and before that our old 57 plate 1.1 Active.

The TA 4x4 has a little more wind noise on the motorway, it seems to come from the mirrors, but the overall engine noise is good on cruise due to the 4x4 TA having a sixth gear and I've heard this is noticably missed on the 4x4 MJ.

Both have certainly got enough shove for the motorway, my TA 4x4 exceeded the claimed top speed by quite away. ( I had a good reason officer!).

The TA 4x4 gets a bit tiresome around town, first gear is very, very low (and second not low enough to pull away in) and you do tend to be up and down the gearbox a bit more until you trust the engine's torque to chug your around in higher gears, then it's quite a lot of fun.

It's easy to hit the rev limiter in the TA and it can sound kind of harsh when the revs climb on spirited driving.

The 1.2 Lounge isn't bad, but is doesn't drive like the old Panda 1.2's, there's the noted issue with it being a bit flat pulling away, but it cruises ok and will probably return better mpg than the TA in the long run, plus it's considerably cheaper to buy.

What I do find is the seats in both the newer cars aren't as comfortable as the older cars, they're ok for a hour or two, but I find the support behind the knees missing due to the short squab and I find myself swifting postion too often as there's not much give in the seats to be fully comfortable.
The Active seats were far more comfortable.

Fiat seem to have altered the lower, centre consul too and it limits the rest for the left foot, you need to slide it sideways (if you have normal sized feet) on the rest as part of the consul sticks out above.

What I haven't done is try the normal 2 wheel drive Panda with a TA, which I did plan on until I spotted the 4x4 in the showroom (along with a Mito TA).
I'm certain it'll be geared similarly to the normal 1.2 rather than the 4x4, but with the TA's viby thrum and torque, perhaps you might benefit from it more that you would in a 4x4 or Cross.

I agree with Goudrons on the seats and the driving position - both are nowhere near as good as my previous ride, unfortunately - and the footrest arrangement is just weird. I'm still struggling to find a comfortable driving position, and I've got the kind of body shape that usually fits Fiats well (long arms/trunk, short legs). The lack of any adjustment on the reach of the steering wheel is shocking tbh, but at least Pandas now come with driver's seat height adjustment as standard.

Goudrons said:

...but the overall engine noise is good on cruise due to the 4x4 TA having a sixth gear and I've heard this is noticeably missed on the 4x4 MJ.

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You see, that old 'no sixth gear' comment again. The MJ 4x4 may not have six gears, but it cruises at 70mph at lower rpm in its top, fifth gear than the TwinAir 4x4 can manage in sixth (MJ 2800 rpm at 70, where the TwinAir is doing over 3300rpm – see the figures in this post here: https://www.fiatforum.com/panda-iii/423573-panda-4x4-mtj-ta.html?p=4060806 )

I swapped from a 1.2 petrol 4x4 (2005 model) to a MultiJet 4x4 (2013 model) and it is noticeably quieter at all speeds. I can happily listen to the radio at 70 without altering the volume from what it was at around town (although of course the standard fit radio automatically raises its volume as you go faster - so did the one in my old Panda too). In the old car, conversation was not easy at 70: in the new it is fine. OK. its not silent. But its certainly bearable. I've not driven a TA to compare with though...

The weird thing is that although the TwinAir Trekking (along with the regular models, TwinAir Lounge & Easy) get a 5 speed gearbox versus the 6 speed in the TwinAir 4x4 & Cross, 5th gear in the 5 speeders is actually as high or higher than 6th in the 6 speed versions.

Therefore I'd say to help with motorway cruising and to avoid the extremely short 1st gear around town on the 6 speed versions, go with a Trekking, Easy or Lounge. The 6 speed has its uses, but for the driving the OP has described himself as doing more often, I think the 5 speed would be better.

It's true diesels produce their power lower in the rev range than a petrol but they certainly will not rev as highly or as smoothly as a petrol.

It's a fact of life compression ignition is noisier and lower reving simply due to the way they burn the fuel and produce their power.

So what needs to be considered is how close to "comfortable" either will cruise, the MJ may well cruise at a lower rpm, but it does not rev as high in the first place.

Cruising rpm worked out on a total percentage of available rpm, the TA tips it,
MJ: 2800rpm of 4500rpm is over 62%
TA: 3300rpm of 6500rpm is just over 50%

So the MJ's revs are nearer to it's redline, but to state either is better this way is total nonsense.

Diesel will produced slightly more torque, 10nm more, but at higher rpm (2000 to 1900 rpm), but in a smaller window of revs than a petrol.
So less torque is available outside it's "sweet spot" than is so with a petrol, also the further away from the "sweet spot", the greater the drop off tends to be.

So the diesel will cruise nearer to when it produces it's max torque, but it's not cruising at this point and the power drop off per rpm is greater.

What is true is that a petrol will rev higher with less Noise Vibration and Harshness than a diesel.
So a MJ may well cruise at a lower rpm but is actually closer to it's maximum, with more NVH.

It is commonly accepted that the Multijet scorces fairly well in NVH tests against other diesels, but no diesel will produce it's power as smoothly, as evenly or with less NVH than a petrol even though manufacturers spend millions every year trying to make them better.

The other point to bear in mind - and it's difficult to describe unless you've driven one - is that the TA has a very low/deep/gruff engine note when cruising. The pitch of the engine is lower at, say, 3k rpm than it would be in a conventional 4 cylinder - to the extent that it sounds like the engine is labouring - but the pay-off is that the lower frequencies of the sounds it produces are less intrusive in the cabin when cruising (or seem to be). It's a very different story going up through the gears, when the engine noise can be very intrusive. It's a real Jekyll & Hyde thing. But the puppy-like eagerness of the TA is addictive.

Oh, and the lightness of the TA engine compared to the MJ seems to make the steering response a bit sprightlier, and it doesn't seem to roll as much in the twisties