as my wonderful Japanese 2 seater hardtop died yesterday (RIP!) I thought I should now go the sensible, 4 seater route.
the panda takes my fancy as something that doesn't look too bad, is affordable and seems to get good reviews.
I've found 2 nearby cars on autotrader, both have similar mileage, same fuel economy but one is £4000, the other £5000.
can anyone take pity on this newbie and tell me what the difference between the above models is?
is it just extra features? - I plan to rip out the stereo and fit a proper one so that's not an issue, air con would be nice.
anything else I need to know?
thanks in advance!

dsbdsb said:

as my wonderful Japanese 2 seater hardtop died yesterday (RIP!) I thought I should now go the sensible, 4 seater route.
the panda takes my fancy as something that doesn't look too bad, is affordable and seems to get good reviews.
I've found 2 nearby cars on autotrader, both have similar mileage, same fuel economy but one is £4000, the other £5000.
can anyone take pity on this newbie and tell me what the difference between the above models is?
is it just extra features? - I plan to rip out the stereo and fit a proper one so that's not an issue, air con would be nice.
anything else I need to know?
thanks in advance!

Click to expand...

The MyLife is like an 'Active' but with the alloy wheels and (probably) aircon from the Dynamic. The older Active models had the 1.1 engine.


The Dynamic is nicer in having roof bars, tachometer and electric mirrors plus the darker seats and the body-colour grille.

The Panda generally came here in three trim flavours.
The Active, with 1.1 engine
The Dynamic with 1.2 or 1.3D (air con an option??)
The Eleganza with 1.2 with air con (and higher tax band than the other 1.2's)

Later models (2009-10ish?) had a few revisions, mainly they dropped the 1.1 engine and used a revised 1.2 in all models, though there are a few later 1.1 Eco's around.
These models are usually denoted by a "Eco" tag and attracted the £30 tax band where the older models were a lot higher.
I think the Eco Dynamic came with or without air con.

The Mylife was a push by Fiat to start moving the Eco Actives probably because the new Panda model was due out in 2012.
As written already, it's an Eco Active with a few add ons like alloys, nicer seat covers and I think air con, though colour was white only.

Overall, they are a pretty good choice, parts aren't too expensive, servicing cheap and easy, nothing unusual to worry most back street garages, engines are fairly hardy, manuals a better choice than the semi auto -dualogic 'box.

They tend not to be owned by the abusers, so good low mileage cars are a plenty.
Fiat piled 'em high, sold 'em cheap, you can afford to walk away from anything with knocks, dents, rattles, missing service history, dirty, low on fuel, miles away, wrong colour, wrong trim, smelly etc.

Again, there are plenty, so it's not worth considering anything too expensive, if it's from a dealer, haggle, haggle, haggle.

Check Fiat's dealer shock as well, they will usually ship the car in to your nearest dealer and will want to move used stock quickly.
http://usedcars.fiat.co.uk/

£5000 sound like a lot of money when a newer model 13 plate can be picked up for £300/400 more, so don't go mad on a older model.

The pick for me at this sort of price would be a ECO Dynamic with air.

I have had 1.1 active and 1.2 dynamic for the last 6 years. When it was launched, i don't think there was anything close to the panda in its sector.

Time moves on though and I wouldn't be spending 4-5000 on an active or mylife now id be looking to see if I could get a citigo or vw/seat version. In my opinion it would have to be a whole lot of panda to tempt 4 or 5 k when there's some newer options out now, and a whole range of high spec low miles pandas for cheap.

That of course doesn't take away the reasons ive had pandas for ages, theyre well built, strong, cheap to run & well designed.

Good luck with your search.

thanks for the advice.

With £4-5k you can get an earlier mk4 Panda which would probably be the route I'd be going down personally

£4-5k...sounds like good 100HP money haha .