General Fiat 500/Ford Ka comparison

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General Fiat 500/Ford Ka comparison

Funny you should mention this as I had a phone call from Fiat in relation to an enquiry I made about the "By Diesel" 500. After asking if I had had a test drive yet I said that as my wife didn't like the colours we would now wait until 2010 and go for the 500 two cylinder turbo Multi Air in BNW if it hadn't been discontinued, LOL.

He replied that this engine would not be released in the 500 because he hadn't been informed and he would know before anyone else.

I also mentioned the 95bhp diesel that someone had posted info about which I said I had heard was being released in the 500C and he said that there wasn't such an animal and the most powerful engine you would be able to get in the 500C would be the Abarth esseesse.

That's from the horses mouth (or another orifice), .......you decide.

What a tool...... not you of course, but the Fiat person.
 
Going back a couple of posts, the Puntos a strange car... when it came out in 1994 it was styled like no other car, it had tons of interior space and was quite a revolution in small cars. OK, the interiors on some look a bit cheap but it had a great range of engines and colours. Then they restyled it into the Mk2 which for me wasnt so distinctive as lots of new cars by then had edgy styling, and they ruined the ride and the interior was still cheap but now totally naff looking. Then for some unfathomable reason they took the cars best feature, its frontal styling and gave it the blandest look ever and still kept the crap interior.
Now we have the Grande, a very attractive car but... an awful interior and such dull driving manners... I hope one day Fiat make a decent Punto again but for now a Panda, 500 or Bravo are all far better machines. IMHO of course:)

Thing is the GP is such an attractive car, when you get inside its a massive dissapointment. I really hate the body coloured dash, it just looks awful unlike the 500s which is classy. Ive driven a 1.4 16v which was gutless, a 1.3 90hp which had awful lag and a 130 sporting which was alright but had a terrible ride... I just hated all of them:(

Like you say the original is good, especially the GT:) in broom yellow. I remember when I had my Cinq Sporting, the first Punto I drove, I couldnt even believe it was from the same manufacturer as it felt so boring compared to the Cinq... mind you it was a Team with the 1.2 60hp lump, urgh!

Im with you on all points except the Mk2 Punto not being so distinctive, Nuova - i loved it from the minute i saw it & think they still look good today. Unlike the facelifted version i might add! I thought the interior was a step forward from Mk1 too, although i think Fiat couldve used less different types of plastic, which did make it look/feel abit like it was cobbled together using leftovers, and the seat fabrics on the base trim are a very acquired taste. I had a HLX though, which was a really nice place to spend time.

After this the Grande Punto interior is just poor. It doesn't match the imaginative design of the exterior, it doesn't have any storage, it's not well built, just looks like it was thought of at the 11th hour & was (along with general parts quality on the rest of the GP) pretty much the reason why i didn't get one.

So they're doing an Abarth version of the 500c? Well thatll pull the top of your head off :ROFLMAO:

Opinion is a funny old thing... regarding the mk1 and mk2 punto... I liked the mk1, but never bought one, but when the mk2 came out it really caught my attention because of its sharp styling, and I actually remember thinking that most other superminis looked bland by comparison at the time the mk2 actually came out. We also test drove both back to back, and owning a tipo at the time, I felt that the mk1 punto felt no different to that, but then going into the mk2 it felt a much better drive and a nicer more quality feeling cabin. We bought one eventually and really enjoyed owning it. I think the styling of it lasted well and didnt look as tired as quickly as some superminis did.

I do agree tho, that the restyle that Fiat undertook really did it no favours. It felt to me that after the mk2 punto/ multipla, fiat lost its design confidence and lost a bit of the "this is what we want it to look like, we think its cool and ya boo sucks to you if you don't agree" mentality, which resulted in the facelift of the mk2 punto, the nose job on the multipla and the production of the stilo and croma, where they tried to make the stilo look germanic and the Croma was just forgettable. Only the production of the recent models such as the Panda and 500 does fiat seem to have regained a bit of its design confidence.

Please leave asking questions until the end of the lecture. Thanks.

Yeah i think the Mk1 & Mk2 are worlds apart in terms of overall packages, the interior & exterior design moved on, the refinement improved, safety & equipment got better, the diesel engines improved, tho the petrol choice didn't move on as much as it could. The main backwards step for me, having owned both, was the ride. Both could knock ur fillings out, but on the Mk1 you could partly accept it, on the Mk2 time had moved on and so shouldve the suspension, instead it seemed to have got worse considering the car was now generally more well insulated & built.

Both cars seem to really stick two fingers up to people who say Fiats don't last aswell. There are tonnes on Ebay that still have really shiny looking paint, seats that havnt split or began to collapse & both seem to defy rust, with only a handful of Mk1s seeming to suffer corrosion around seat belt mounts & boot locks. While we're on the subject of Fords, many of them from the Mk1 Punto era have long gone because of rot. I know nothing is built like it was, but to me the Grande Punto just doesn't seem like it'll age as gracefully as its predecessors, especially where the interior is concerned. Can't help but think they look stunning from outside tho!
 
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True the Mk1 Puntos has lasted well, Ive seen loads of really tired ones with no rust at all, just knackered mechanical bits which is unusual in a Fiat as the bodies used to go first. A short while back before we got the 107, I spent ages looking at used cars for my wife... the only one not to be rusty was a Punto (except the sump which had a hole in it!). All the Fords etc were really bad, a couple of Fiestas had underside rot that I expected on a 30 year old car and as for the KA, boy they rust well:(
 
Well, obviously the Germans loved the Stilo as the new Golf is a carbon copy:) The Stilo was possibly Fiats biggest balls up ever. The Croma was unfortunately the result of the ill thought out alliance with GM, however they drive well enough and the interior on the Prestgio is gorgeous, I sat in one at the GP launch and didnt want to get out. I bet if the Croma hadnt been a Fiat or at least got a better name it would have sold loads. The Stilo looked good in Abarth trim and a remapped 1.9 turbo diesel would really fly as I tried one, but the interior was dreadful and the five door sucked styling wise.

Notts, so you had a Tipo eh, weve had a 1.6SXie and a Tempra 1.6S... good cars back then... I still rate them now but time has caught up with the electrics and bodies:(

We had a 5 door stilo, tho we never really liked the design of it, we liked the space and the fact that you could move the rear seats forward so we could give the dogs more room in the back! i always thought the 3 door was the better looking thing, but the mrs wanted the practicality of the 5 door. It had air con (first car we had that did) and it would work for about a month before it stopped blowing cold... garage tried to sort it several times under warranty but it never worked properly the whole time we had it. We never really felt the same about it after the mrs left it on our drive and went in the house, then there was a knock on the door and it was our neighbour opposite, coming to tell her that the Stilo had rolled off our drive and into her bay window. Handbrake cable had just gone, apparently, allowing it to roll away. Of course I always leave it in gear too... and so does she now lol. The stereo in it also gave up, and the dealership convinced the mrs into replacing it with a god awful looking boy racer flashy Kenwood abomination... for about double what I could have bought and fitted it for... thinking back, it was potentially the best but actually the worst Fiat we have had.

We never looked at the Stilo Multiwagon, because it was the ugliest thing ever to drink petrol!

We actually had 2 Tipos, both the base model 1.4 formula, a red one from brand new and a second hand one in white. We loved the red one, we bought it new and as we were moving up from a Metro 1.3, the Tipo seemed enormous, well specced and powerful! We ended up trading that in on a cinquecento sx, for monetary reasons, but we loved that little car and felt like we owned the world because it had central locking and electric windows! The white tipo, which we called casper (as in friendly ghost) wasn't quite as successful, it had an odd fault which meant if even one drop of moisture got anywhere near it, the engine would splutter and die. Never got to the bottom of it, no matter what the garage tried. We eventually traded it in on the mk2 punto.
 
True the Mk1 Puntos has lasted well, Ive seen loads of really tired ones with no rust at all, just knackered mechanical bits which is unusual in a Fiat as the bodies used to go first. A short while back before we got the 107, I spent ages looking at used cars for my wife... the only one not to be rusty was a Punto (except the sump which had a hole in it!). All the Fords etc were really bad, a couple of Fiestas had underside rot that I expected on a 30 year old car and as for the KA, boy they rust well:(

My Mk1 sump was starting to go when i sold it, but it was 8 years old & had 70k on it at the time. My mates Mk1 Ford Focus sump actually rusted to the point that it emptied all it's oil over a period of about ten minutes, and that was 8 months out of the 3 year warranty & had 22k on the clock, which makes the Puntos look bullet proof. Amazingly, Ford refused to contribute to the repair as it was 'due to road salt, which they can't help'. Needless to say, he doesn't drive a Ford anymore!

Fords must be the least rustproof cars in the country. Ive seen KAs going rusty by the 4 year point, my mates Focus sump was 3 years 8 months and some of the Fiestas built from N reg to 2002 look scabby aswell, along with the Mk2 Mondeo wheel arches. When anyone says to me about Fiats & rust i just laugh now.
 
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My Mk1 sump was starting to go when i sold it, but it was 8 years old & had 70k on it at the time. My mates Mk1 Ford Focus sump actually rusted to the point that it emptied all it's oil over a period of about ten minutes, and that was 8 months out of the 3 year warranty & had 22k on the clock, which makes the Puntos look bullet proof. Amazingly, Ford refused to contribute to the repair as it was down to road salt, which they can't help! Needless to say, he doesn't drive a Ford anymore!

Fords must be the least rustproof cars in the country. Ive seen KAs going rusty by the 4 year point, my mates Focus sump was 3 years 8 months and some of the Fiestas built from N reg to 2002 look scabby aswell, along with the Mk2 Mondeo wheel arches. When anyone says to me about Fiats & rust i just laugh now.
So true. Never quite understand why they rust so bad. Our L reg Subaru is only just starting to get little bits of rust and my R reg 406 is 100% rust free whereas some much never Fords have rusted to hell in much shorter periods. Weird......
 
So true. Never quite understand why they rust so bad. Our L reg Subaru is only just starting to get little bits of rust and my R reg 406 is 100% rust free whereas some much never Fords have rusted to hell in much shorter periods. Weird......

Peugeots REALLY kick arse when it comes to rust proofing. It's just such a shame that after the 106,206,306,406 models, their general build seemed to take a tumble. If theyd remained consistent with build, id consider one of them along with Fiats models, but for now Fiat provide a better balance between rust proof & general mechanical build.
 
Peugeots REALLY kick arse when it comes to rust proofing. It's just such a shame that after the 106,206,306,406 models, their general build seemed to take a tumble. If theyd remained consistent with build, id consider one of them along with Fiats models, but for now Fiat provide a better balance between rust proof & general mechanical build.
Yeah I liked pretty much everything they did before the '07 range. That was when their cars weren't ugly and could handle well too. Now they're just very awkward looking, chintzy inside and IMHO just not very nice cars :) Nowadays Pugs are just nasty.
 
Ill say the 306 and 406 were pretty good cars, but the 106 was a bit naff and the 206 was just god awful. They were plagued with unreliability and the build was shocking. Dont have any real experiance of the 07 models apart from the 107 we have which is fantastic, but thats a Toyota so doesnt count. A friend has had a 307 SW for some time now and it seems a well made car and hes very pleased.
One thing, Pug do seem to look after their customers and have a very loyal customer base too.
 
funnily enough, I have a pug 307 SW 54 plate, and after a couple of critical posts about them... I really don't care! If something similar had been said about a Fiat I had had (especially the 500) I would have been ready to come round and burn down your houses my now.

I have to say we have had the Pug for 3 years, and it had never broken down, needed anything doing outside of normal service, nothing inside has broken and its been a pleasure to drive, bearing in mind its a work horse for getting us and our dogs about. Also the missus loves the cruise control and she demands we have this on any subsequent family car! If I was to have another SW tho from the current range I would look more at the 208 SW rather than the 308 as think it looks the best of the two, but neither are aspirational as far as I am concerned. In fact I've been looking at the Kia C'eed SW, for 15k it has all the gizmos we want and a 7 year warranty.
 
The Kia is a good car, but they will all be nuked soon and the factory bombed so you wont be able to get any parts for that long warranty:) Id steer clear of anything from South Korea for the moment:):):)
So, thats two happy 307 SW owners then.
 
The Kia is a good car, but they will all be nuked soon and the factory bombed so you wont be able to get any parts for that long warranty:) Id steer clear of anything from South Korea for the moment:):):)
So, thats two happy 307 SW owners then.

I considered getting a Pro-C'eed (or whatever they're called), the 2 door version of the C'eed, before I plumped for the 500
The Kia was a really nice car - well priced, excellent warranty, good spec and seem to get a good press too. But in the end it was the residuals that put me off.
I considered a low-spec 307 too, having driven a rental for a while, but the smaller capacity versions seem really tardy. Very good with a nice big engine though.
 
So the residuals arent good on the ceed? That surprises me as the little Picanto holds up fairly well.

I was looking at a 1.4 Proceed - list price £11.195, but worth only £4500 ish after 3 years, according to parkers. Similarly priced 500 Multijet lounge should be worth about £1000 more after 3 years, they reckon.

Perhaps I'm being too fussy - I gave £1150 for my omega 5 years ago at auction, but I'll be getting £2000 for it in scrappage allowance tomorrow! So much for Gordon Brown's "prudence"!
 
Our 307 SW is the 2l 138bhp version, so its not underpowered! If we did get the C'eed it would be the 1.6l diesel, prob the higher output version. Residuals wouldn't be much a of a concern as if I did get one, I'd be keeping it til it dropped apart, which is what I intend to do with the 307. Its costing us nothing apart from running costs, so until something major drops out of it, its staying.
 
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