General GP to Stilo ?

[fenton_jd]

I need a new car for motorway travel.

I currently have a 1.2 Grande Punto and as I love fiats, the 1.9 JTD 3door stilo is a potential option.

I've never driven or been inside a Stilo, but the impression I get is that it's a very competitive car for it's sector e.g softtouch dashboard, ridiculous amount of options and plenty of standard kit to begin with.

I'd considered going for a new bravo, but I dont want the financial commitment in these troubled times.

In a nutshell, is an 04 or newer plate JTD likely to have the 'stilo' issues or had fiat clocked on to the problems by then?

 

[Argonought]

JTDs certainly eat up the miles and they love to be driven fast

The rules for buying one are the same for pretty much any car and have been well covered in the Forum i.e. good service history and few owners.

 

[JTD_Liam]

There's a fair few very decent looking JTD Dynamic & Sporting models on Autotrader at the minute, going for £4500 or less.

Ive had my 54 plate Dynamic 3 door since September (had 50k on the clock & was £3950 from a Volvo Main Dealer), i thought that was a good buy but theyre even cheaper in places now.

Ive not driven a GP for any length of time but ive been very pleasantly surprised with how well the Stilo hangs on. Lovely to drive. Took my mate who's Audi mad for a drive in it & he couldn't believe how cheap they are with the amount of kit you get & the dash quality etc.

The only thing that i think lets it down is the door cards, which seem fragile compared to the rest of the interior.

The later facelifted models with the round Fiat badge on the back are apparantly better, but a couple of mates have had an 02 reg 1.6 Dynamic & 52 reg 1.2 Active & their problems extended to a petrol flap falling off & the mileagr readout deducting miles every so often, neither of which is exactly disasterous.

My one has creaky springs (probably need changing) & the metallic rattle from the passenger side when cold, but it seems this affects plenty of cars without any major problem. The only other thing to note is that most Stilos seem to take a major dislike to low battery voltage, but buying a new battery every few years isnt gonna break the bank either.

Id go for it!