Posting his here because it relates to our 169 type Pandas as well as the current 2012+ model, though only owners of both can really be of knowledge to answer!

See the likes of the issues on our Pandas, such as the axel rust issues, rusty sumps, weak/sticking door handles, well, have Fiat 'fixed' all of this in the new Panda?

Id like to think so, but at the same time, like any large company there might be a tendency to ignore these complaints seeing as there's not much the average person can do about it and most buyers are / never will be aware of these things!

Any are there any more of these 'niggles' about the Panda? I've saw the sticky thread but seems like it's been a while since that was made

(a) Do these issues cause warranty claims?

(b) Does a rusty sump or back axle cause an otherwise good car to be scrapped?

Fist doesn't care about (a) and (b) sell more new cars. Win Win.

On the other hand anyone with a bit of spannering nouse can pick up a good car, fix the faults and have cheap motoring for years.

Edit: The killer will be availability of back axles that are worth cleaning up. Mine for example is not worth the effort so Im looking to replace it.

SB1500 said:

See the likes of the issues on our Pandas, such as the axel rust issues, rusty sumps, weak/sticking door handles, well, have Fiat 'fixed' all of this in the new Panda?

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There's nothing to suggest that anything has changed.

Galvanizing the bodyshell is not in itself sufficient to prevent the risk of cars being effectively rendered scrap due to corrosion at any time after about 8 years use in the UK climate.

If you want the cars to last beyond that, additional corrosion proofing to the areas known to be vulnerable should be applied at the earliest possible opportunity, and preferably when the vehicle is new. Since most new car buyers will trade in their vehicles before corrosion becomes a serious risk, there's little incentive for either manufacturers or first purchasers to do anything about this.

DaveMcT said:

Do these issues cause warranty claims?

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Highly unlikely, as the anti perforation warranty excludes those items which are likely to suffer a corrosion related failure within the warranty period.

DaveMcT said:

Does a rusty sump or back axle cause an otherwise good car to be scrapped?

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Sump probably not, rear beam quite likely - the cost of paying a third party to replace the beam is about the same as the book value of an 8yr old 1.2 Panda. Reputable traders will likely not want to repair them, or fit secondhand parts, due to liability issues.

Enthusiatic DIY types will be able to keep these cars on the road for much longer than those who are reliant on the trade.

Once word gets round, expect to see more MOT failures due to excessive rear beam corrosion.

IMO the dilemma may be greater for 500 & 100HP owners, since the residual values are higher. I can see some poor folks paying £2k for a 10yr old 500, then paying another £1k for a rear beam replacement at its next MOT.

jrkitching said:

Once word gets round, expect to see more MOT failures due to excessive rear beam corrosion.

IMO the dilemma may be greater for 500 & 100HP owners, since the residual values are higher. I can see some poor folks paying £2k for a 10yr old 500, then paying another £1k for a rear beam replacement at its next MOT.

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Sadly I think this really is the top and bottom of it. Otherwise good cars will be scrapped due to built in obsolescence.

Fiat have the perfect way to shift more metal with the problems far enough removed from new cars to have no effect on new car sales.

BTW my 57 Panda which TBH looks stunning has so much corrosion around the rear damper brackets that the metal has flaked and delaminated. But it's mechanically solid so passed the MOT, but likely to have the spring plate fall off before the next MOT.

I've just checked all 5 family-owned Pandas (including the spares car) for problems with the spring pans, and they all seem fine.
The oldest 2 (04 plate) have a little surface rust, but certainly not structural.
The Sporting (55 plate) is a bit more crusty, but not de-laminating or cracking.
The Eco (10 plate) is almost like new, with just a couple of rust scabs.
Obviously I will be giving them some attention in order to avoid future problems, but that all made me wonder...
Are the ones that are failing on cars with uprated suspension, or are they standard?
All of ours are standard spec, (2 x 1.1, 2 x 1.2 and multijet) have never been undersealed or painted (yet) but most have lived the major of their lives in places with plenty of potholes, and salty winter roads (and the Sporting lived in the Highlands until I rescued it, so it had at least 8 doses of rough winter weather)
Can't believe that I've randomly ended up with only good ones, so just wondering if there is a common denominator for ones that fail.

Given I remember having the sump changed due to corrosion on my 95 1108 punto (a car notorious for rear suspension issues of its own..though I haven't seen mention of a failed radius arm in many moons) I'd suggest there hasn't been a huge amount of learning...

But at the same time they are cheap cars if they get to 10 years then over that is a bonus, annoying if your the guy who owns it when it does finally drop to bits but there's a certain amount of "you get what you pay for" especially when what you've paid for is over 7 and Italian..

StevenRB45 said:

But at the same time they are cheap cars if they get to 10 years then over that is a bonus, annoying if your the guy who owns it when it does finally drop to bits but there's a certain amount of "you get what you pay for" especially when what you've paid for is over 7 and Italian..

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That's perhaps understandable if you've paid £6500 for a new 1.2 Panda, but the upmarket 500 variants are most definitely not cheap cars by any stretch of the imagination. Some of the special editions are close to £40k and I'd be well miffed if that started dropping to bits after 7 years.

jrkitching said:

That's perhaps understandable if you've paid £6500 for a new Panda, but the upmarket 500 variants are most definitely not cheap cars by any stretch of the imagination. Some of the special editions are close to £40k and I'd be well miffed if that started dropping to bits after 7 years.

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The original post referred to pandas...

But again you pay your money you take your choice...spoke to guy yesterday whose 09 BMW was effectively written off by the notorious timing chain. Awful lot of 20-40k cars running running round with that time bomb..

StevenRB45 said:

The original post referred to pandas...

But again you pay your money you take your choice...spoke to guy yesterday whose 09 BMW was effectively written off by the notorious timing chain. Awful lot of 20-40k cars running running round with that time bomb..

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Yes, I've drifted a little, but you can spend £20k on a Panda these days...

There's no shortage of ways to spend £20-£40k on a moneypit, and most of them don't involve buying a Fiat.

At least with the purchase price of a basic Panda, there's a built in damage limitation factor.

My 1.2 cost £6600 new & is now at 6yrs/70k. It's cost me four tyres, one set of front pads & discs, & a pair of windscreen wipers. £30 RFL & 10p/mile for fuel. That's cheap motoring in anyone's book .

Buy a decent one for a keen price, give a little extra protection to the known vulnerabilities, and you've probably got as good a chance as it gets to run a car on a shoestring budget.

But if you pay top money for an 8yr old car expecting Fiat to have protected it adequately against all that the British winter can throw at it, you might be disappointed - and the same applies to many other marques, too..

Cars generally aren't built to last, but with some extra care and attention, there's no reason why they can't. The secret is to get them young and protect them early.

They could if they wanted build just about any car to last for many many years without any problems. It's all a matter of engineering versus costs.

If there is a problem on an older model, the 500 door handles for example, and they do a face lift then they tend to try and fix problems that are letting the car down and the 2015 500 facelift got new door handles. When a car is built from scratch though each component will go through a huge amount of engineering, when they make many different models and prototypes. Once it's put into productions they then might find a fault but it may be too late to correct it.

I guess what I'm saying is they try to get things right but they have a limited budget and have to keep the total costs of the car down. This means with a new car parts that previously weren't a problem, become a problem, and bad parts get fixed

jrkitching said:

That's perhaps understandable if you've paid £6500 for a new 1.2 Panda, but the upmarket 500 variants are most definitely not cheap cars by any stretch of the imagination. Some of the special editions are close to £40k and I'd be well miffed if that started dropping to bits after 7 years.

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In the future I'd like to buy a new Panda POP / EASY / LOUNGE even as they come with no extra options, if they suffered from particular rust issues then I'd pass and unfortunately have to settle for a non-Fiat or Dacia (my two favourite realistic brands), but I'm reassured that all cars in the UK are the same, so Fiat still have a future sale on the way haha

So is the ideal action to drive it out of the show room and to a bodyshop that can professionally seal it? Or is this some sort of routine process you should keep up?

I conclude that my 05 Panda is a victim of never being washed often, and perhaps never underneath for many years too! I'm too scared to take it for this in case something breaks / falls off!

jrkitching said:

There's no shortage of ways to spend £20-£40k on a moneypit, and most of them don't involve buying a Fiat.

At least with the purchase price of a basic Panda, there's a built in damage limitation factor.

My 1.2 cost £6600 new & is now at 6yrs/70k. It's cost me four tyres, one set of front pads & discs, & a pair of windscreen wipers. £30 RFL & 10p/mile for fuel. That's cheap motoring in anyone's book .

Buy a decent one for a keen price, give a little extra protection to the known vulnerabilities, and you've probably got as good a chance as it gets to run a car on a shoestring budget.

But if you pay top money for an 8yr old car expecting Fiat to have protected it adequately against all that the British winter can throw at it, you might be disappointed.

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Don't get me wrong I like Pandas, I was only suggesting that the vulnerabilities come with the territory to a point, you buy any 8 year old car, it's a gamble especially at the lower end of the market (although at least cheap cars tend to be cheaper to fix). You could get a good one and it'll serve you well or it might not.

You buy a new one or a younger one chances are it'll serve you well for as long you could reasonably expect for initial outlay and longer than that If you look after it. It's probably not going to be going in 30 years with 350k on the clock but that doesn't make it a bad car per se.

Also cheap has moved a loooong way we live in a world where a diesel golf is apparently worth 30k..and mid range fiestas are 15k.

It's all about making profits for the shareholders.

gr J

A3jeroen said:

It's all about making profits for the shareholders.

gr J

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Companies that can't make a profit go bust. Profits are invested in the business. What's left over goes to shareholders. Most of those are pension funds and life assurance companies.

Presumably we still remember the delights of the nationalised Austin/Rover and its infamous government funded scams especially at Longbridge.
I mean the place that built the horrible Austin Marina and Allegro. Not to mention the Metro which generally came out of the plant pre rusted. It existed to pay the staff and their unions and we the public picked up the tab either by getting conned into buying the rubbish or simply paying our taxes.

Those buying a not too old car (of any flavour) should be getting the undersides rust protected. Those buying an older car should look elsewhere or expect a bill to sort it out.

On one hand, £1000 to sort out a £2000 car sounds silly. But compare the cost of that to the total costs of a new car with deposits, loan payments, VAT, etc. In a few months the £1000 is paid off and you still have a car worth £2000.

Without reading the text I am sure the answer is NO! Its much more fun to charge the customer to repair these things when they break. Dont worry though as the depreciation on a new Fiat will pale these costs into insignificance. What REALLY p****s me off though is the BF from Fiat, who rings up and asks me if I want to buy another new one.... The answer is NO. While I love the cars and the character I don't love £5000 a year depreciation on a car that still looks and drives as good as new.

Now I do feel better for getting that said!

With the advent of cheap finance they all depreciate like lead balloons. The best Fiats are new (ish) used where someone else got hit for initial depreciation and VAT.

The top spec recent 500 Abarth with all the bells and whistles can be got for around 50% of it's list price. Go back three years and they list at well under £10K but could be thrashed.