Off Topic Another interim option

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Off Topic Another interim option

Are you buying this with your head, or your heart? If you see a good A500 at the right price in 3 months time, what do you think you'll be feeling?

I'm buying this Mito with my head a bit like an accountant but it's the T-jet engine that I'm after. I 'drove' that Mito last Friday and on the Saturday in a nearby 'empty' industrial estate looking for some life in the chassis setup. I've come to the conclusion that inadequacies in a car's setup is what gives it the fun factor. Some of the best cars that I have bought turned out to be dissappointing whilst some of the 'worse bought cars' (Citreon GS Club) proved to be very interesting. If I have to shift this on for a nice looking A500 in 3 months the Mito will be put up for sale. This time I'd probably just buy it. Normally I sell before buying.
 
Just a thought Michael, but have you considered an older and cheaper car until you get your Abarth? It would make sense...

Had a look around and did consider other options. Please take these 'with a pince of salt' and my apologies to anyone if they own any of these cars...

207GTI. 1.6 Turbo. Not exactly sought after. Boy racer territory.
205GTI No airbags – not going back there
106 Rallye 1.3. Can’t get them and whatever you do don’t crash in one.
106GTI. You might as well go for the 207GTI.
MX5. Prefer the 2.0 1.8 No real go. Thirsty. Not practical. I’ve all ready been there
Renault Clio 197 - €700 p.a. road tax. Difficult re-sale. Chassis pedigree. No shape. Renaults never did it for me.
Golf GTI. Couldn’t sit in another Golf again.
Polo. Crap drive.
Panda 100HP. OH wouldn’t sit in one.
Fiat 500 1.2 I’d sell it after a month or 2.
Fiat 500 TA. There’s ‘none’ in Ireland.
Fiat 500 1.4 I’ve bought 2 of them !
Bravo T-jet. Only one for sale at the moment and it’s too pricey for what it is.
Alfa 147. Had one for 8 years. Thirsty bugger. You’d do well to get 25mpg. Old hat now.
Basic Mito. No point. The boys on the AF reckon you’re better off jumping into the 155TB or get the 1.3MJ with the 6 speed which doesn’t have a DPF.
BMW 316i. Sensible choice if you can get a 1.6 litre engine. Quiet following on this sweet engine with RWD. Don’t want another Beamer.
Alfa Brera. GT better car because 2 might fit in the back. Style over substance. Thirsty petrol engines smallest engine being a 2.2 Have got cheap.
New Ka. Awful looking.
New Fiesta. Good car.
Focus. Common as mud. Good car.
Boxster. Must not go there. And don’t start the engine. Possibility of ending up on a bicycle after 2-3 years.

Or continue to drive the ‘trusty’ Marea weekend which I reversed into a tree the day before Christmas Eve :eek:. I was heading off with the brother on a Karting double session ‘City deal’ out in a new place in Navan. I was in a bit of a tissy having to leave a little earlier than I had planned to go. This was a cheap bump. TG I wasn’t in the FW 500 when it happened or in the ‘new motor’ (this is the first time that I did something that was my own fault ;)).

Worked out that it will be cheaper to drive a low mileage ‘good car’ and take the hit on the depreciation than to replace a timing belt and fix mechanical problems on an older car.

Bravo HGT?
Suppose to have an amazing 5 pot engine.
Good choice and should be better cared for than in a Fiat coupe.
Not too bad on fuel.
Trying to restrict the engine size to 1.6
1.6 in the Marea is surprisingly good for the size of the car and revs nicely (which I must not do).
Road tax in Ireland is a killer on the bigger engines.
The only way to go now is a smaller engine with a turbo so that the 'emissions' can be doctored.
 

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Road tax in Ireland is a killer on the bigger engines.
The only way to go now is a smaller engine with a turbo so that the 'emissions' can be doctored.

Funnily enough we've been considering the opposite!

Does the road tax work like in the UK where before a certain date big engines aren't penalised too much?

I've been looking at 3 litre legacies and as long as you buy one that was registered before 23/3/2006 then it's only £260 a year to tax. Sure they're 8 and a bit times what the 500 is to tax, they're only £45 more than the old Legacy to tax and they're a shedload of car for the money :)
 
Funnily enough we've been considering the opposite!

Does the road tax work like in the UK where before a certain date big engines aren't penalised too much?

I've been looking at 3 litre legacies and as long as you buy one that was registered before 23/3/2006 then it's only £260 a year to tax. Sure they're 8 and a bit times what the 500 is to tax, they're only £45 more than the old Legacy to tax and they're a shedload of car for the money :)

I'd be careful doing that - tax rules can change!
 
Suppose to have an amazing 5 pot engine.
Good choice and should be better cared for than in a Fiat coupe.
Not too bad on fuel.
Trying to restrict the engine size to 1.6
1.6 in the Marea is surprisingly good for the size of the car and revs nicely (which I must not do).
Road tax in Ireland is a killer on the bigger engines.
The only way to go now is a smaller engine with a turbo so that the 'emissions' can be doctored.

The engines are belters. But if it was just a sporty wee runabout till you find the right car then one with tax already on it?
 
Funnily enough we've been considering the opposite!

Does the road tax work like in the UK where before a certain date big engines aren't penalised too much?

I've been looking at 3 litre legacies and as long as you buy one that was registered before 23/3/2006 then it's only £260 a year to tax. Sure they're 8 and a bit times what the 500 is to tax, they're only £45 more than the old Legacy to tax and they're a shedload of car for the money :)

Yeah i think an old school turbo engined car would be a steal to buy as they are so cheap and obviosuly you know the basics of maintenance so you can look after it pretty well. I think that would be a good decision.
It is a shame the Japanese stopped making good cars, i dont know what has happened in the past few years but the only current Japanese car that i like is the GTR.
In the past (gran turismo 1 days!!!), you had the GTO, NSX, Skyline, RX7, FTO, Civic Type R, Integra Type R, Supra, Celica and many more!
 
Just a thought Michael, but have you considered an older and cheaper car until you get your Abarth? It would make sense...

Most sensible suggestion. Really dude get a trash car for about 300 bucks to get you by and then the Abarth, and don’t tell me you can’t do maintenance.

Not related to you in any way but a real life story... I had a young contractor working for me who wanted to buy a decent car for about £5k, as he was new to driving I said get a Micra for £500 as spares will be cheap and almost plug an play, and if someone scratches your car, you can go and add more scratches to it... and best of all you can use your mileage expenses from the client to pay for the car, he got upset but a week later he had a Micra with a smile on his face.

I would get the euro300 back and wait for a nice A500 for driving in the spring.

edit : just realised you have a 2nd car already... wait for teh A500.
 
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Funnily enough we've been considering the opposite!

Does the road tax work like in the UK where before a certain date big engines aren't penalised too much?

I've been looking at 3 litre legacies and as long as you buy one that was registered before 23/3/2006 then it's only £260 a year to tax. Sure they're 8 and a bit times what the 500 is to tax, they're only £45 more than the old Legacy to tax and they're a shedload of car for the money :)

All cars before 01.01.2008 work on cc whilst after that date it is emission based. A cross over was faciliated for the first 6 months of 2008 where you could opt for the lesser of the 2 rates.
For some cars it 'worked' better with the new rates e.g. 323i dropped from c.€1000 to c.€600
Your 2.9L would cost €1390 here :eek: whilst if it was 3.0L+ it would be €1,683 p.a.
If you were looking to beat the system :) the Maxda RX7 is the one. On the new emissions system it is €2258 :eek: whilst on the cc rates it is €592:D (being classified as a 1.8 even though it's only a 1.3L engine since it's a rotary). This has really helped the re-sale of this 21mpg 4 seater coupe.
You can see from the table below on the old rates that once you go past 2L it starts to get a little hairy. On the emission tables anything over 226grs/km is crucified. Isn't any wonder the manufactures and in particular Porsche have their 911 under that figure for 2011.

The engines are belters. But if it was just a sporty wee runabout till you find the right car then one with tax already on it?

In the UK you can recover your car tax IIRC. Here once you buy car tax you can't get it back. It's rare for cars being sold to have tax on them since it's only bought 'piecemeal'. If a car is hard to sell some put 3 months on it. You can clear back tax owing on a car on a change of ownership.

http://www.irishlinks.co.uk/car-tax-ireland.htm
 

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All cars before 01.01.2008 work on cc whilst after that date it is emission based. A cross over was faciliated for the first 6 months of 2008 where you could opt for the lesser of the 2 rates.
For some cars it 'worked' better with the new rates e.g. 323i dropped from c.€1000 to c.€600
Your 2.9L would cost €1390 here :eek: whilst if it was 3.0L+ it would be €1,683 p.a.
If you were looking to beat the system :) the Maxda RX7 is the one. On the new emissions system it is €2258 :eek: whilst on the cc rates it is €592:D (being classified as a 1.8 even though it's only a 1.3L engine since it's a rotary). This has really helped the re-sale of this 21mpg 4 seater coupe.
You can see from the table below on the old rates that once you go past 2L it starts to get a little hairy. On the emission tables anything over 226grs/km is crucified. Isn't any wonder the manufactures and in particular Porsche have their 911 under that figure for 2011.



In the UK you can recover your car tax IIRC. Here once you buy car tax you can't get it back. It's rare for cars being sold to have tax on them since it's only bought 'piecemeal'. If a car is hard to sell some put 3 months on it. You can clear back tax owing on a car on a change of ownership.

Jaysus! That's expensive! A 3 litre legacy is £260 a year providing it's registered before the date I mentioned. After it's quite a bit more, but still less than in Ireland!
 
Yeah i think an old school turbo engined car would be a steal to buy as they are so cheap and obviosuly you know the basics of maintenance so you can look after it pretty well. I think that would be a good decision.
It is a shame the Japanese stopped making good cars, i dont know what has happened in the past few years but the only current Japanese car that i like is the GTR.
In the past (gran turismo 1 days!!!), you had the GTO, NSX, Skyline, RX7, FTO, Civic Type R, Integra Type R, Supra, Celica and many more!
It's not turbocharged. It's a 3 litre n/a flat 6.
 
Most sensible suggestion. Really dude get a trash car for about 300 bucks to get you by and then the Abarth, and don’t tell me you can’t do maintenance.

Not related to you in any way but a real life story... I had a young contractor working for me who wanted to buy a decent car for about £5k, as he was new to driving I said get a Micra for £500 as spares will be cheap and almost plug an play, and if someone scratches your car, you can go and add more scratches to it... and best of all you can use your mileage expenses from the client to pay for the car, he got upset but a week later he had a Micra with a smile on his face.

I would get the euro300 back and wait for a nice A500 for driving in the spring.

edit : just realised you have a 2nd car already... wait for teh A500.

Once the deposit is put on the table it's 'gone'. TBH if I backed out of the 'deal' (since I signed an vehicle order form) they could 'force' me to honour the contract unless there where conditions on the agreement that were not met.;)
The list I did above of the 'choices' that I looked at wasn't an exhaustive one but I did miss the Honda Civic s-type which is a safer bet that the mental R-type. A '07 S-type goes for around €7K but I couldn't deal with the fact that the Honda bean counters dropped the multi-link suspension to a ARB. Funnily enough the Mito has NO ARB but it has 2 sets of springs on the rear.:confused:
I've has a chance to deliberate on the interim choice of the Mito 155TB. If it was the multi-air 135 like in the Punto Evo Sporting then it would tick the eco box. The price that I'm paying for this car is good given that it will be coming with a FULL service and year's warranty (don't know how good this is). Also it's likely that the Marea will get dumped since this car will be able to take a proper roof rack if I'm stuck.
Remember this Mito is an ALFA - it's supposed to be in a premium bracket compared with Fiat :). If you saw what the Alfa forum said about the Grand Punto Abarth or the Abarth 500 it would make you cringe a bit.:):eek:
My insurance is up on the 26th of Jan and in checking on the costs for swopping over to the Mito 155TB the insurance is the exact same. :) The anolomies of the irish insurance are still rating cars primarily on engine size. So it will only cost max. €370 or €340 if I switch to a different broker. Road tax will be €330 so that's 'resonable' given the 155bhp.
The biggest drawback of the Mito is the steering even in dynamic mode. The 500 is 'streets ahead' of it in this department.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/picturegalleries/8956247/10-cars-that-hold-their-value.html?image=2
Depreciation wise Mito is 9th on the above 'list' and the 500 beats it into 6th position.
If I had to buy another interim car I would go for a 1.4 Lounge '09 with low mileage with a slightly wrong spec for around €7.5K - there's one up on carzone.ie in red for any one whose interested.;)
If I proceed with the purchase time will tell if it has been the 'right' choice. I will get the A500 just for the exhaust sound alone but I'll have to wait.
 
Most sensible suggestion. Really dude get a trash car for about 300 bucks to get you by and then the Abarth, and don’t tell me you can’t do maintenance.

Not related to you in any way but a real life story... I had a young contractor working for me who wanted to buy a decent car for about £5k, as he was new to driving I said get a Micra for £500 as spares will be cheap and almost plug an play, and if someone scratches your car, you can go and add more scratches to it... and best of all you can use your mileage expenses from the client to pay for the car, he got upset but a week later he had a Micra with a smile on his face.

I would get the euro300 back and wait for a nice A500 for driving in the spring.

edit : just realised you have a 2nd car already... wait for teh A500.

Tbh I disagree about buying an A500. I think the MiTo is probably the better car to drive. It's got better brakes, a more sophisticated chassis and enough go.

I can't help but feel that a lot of people allow the fact that they've owned a 500 to cloud their judgement a little when it comes to the A500. Don't get me wrong, it's not a terrible car or anything, but whilst the 500 comes in for a lot of praise from the media, the A500 is outclassed by a good deal of the cars in its class.

A standard 500 does a great job of being a cheapish little car which is fairly cheap to run and which is nice to look at and nice to be inside. For me personally the A500 doesn't carry this off nearly as well as the 500.

I think the MiTo 155 strikes the perfect balance between performance and looking nice. To me it's the logical move from a 1.2 500 to a nice looking car with performance and a nice interior.
 
Tbh I disagree about buying an A500. I think the MiTo is probably the better car to drive. It's got better brakes, a more sophisticated chassis and enough go.

I can't help but feel that a lot of people allow the fact that they've owned a 500 to cloud their judgement a little when it comes to the A500. Don't get me wrong, it's not a terrible car or anything, but whilst the 500 comes in for a lot of praise from the media, the A500 is outclassed by a good deal of the cars in its class.

A standard 500 does a great job of being a cheapish little car which is fairly cheap to run and which is nice to look at and nice to be inside. For me personally the A500 doesn't carry this off nearly as well as the 500.

I think the MiTo 155 strikes the perfect balance between performance and looking nice. To me it's the logical move from a 1.2 500 to a nice looking car with performance and a nice interior.

On the AF they have evaluated the A500 as a hooligan's choice. But then I'm comfortable in a hoodie so I qualify.:)
Suspension wise is starts to get good on the Multi-airs with the Konis and the QV (170bhp) with the adaptive suspension.
But they have the same woes as we have on the 500 with it being a bit thrashy on the potholes.
Also it has no ARB unlike the post 2010 500 models.
The biggest drawback is the steering and on the test drive I had to really concentrate on the twisties to keep it on track. Not something that I've had to do in a 500.
Quality wise it had a rattle in the glovebox and so has the OH's mito so the gremlins are still in there despite being an Alfa.
It's a Fiat dressed up and in the eye's of some it's nice 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'. For me I like the front despite the skewed number plate.
And I like the idea of a black roof on the white which is a dealer option at £750 !
 
On the AF they have evaluated the A500 as a hooligan's choice. But then I'm comfortable in a hoodie so I qualify.:)
Suspension wise is starts to get good on the Multi-airs with the Konis and the QV (170bhp) with the adaptive suspension.
But they have the same woes as we have on the 500 with it being a bit thrashy on the potholes.
Also it has no ARB unlike the post 2010 500 models.
The biggest drawback is the steering and on the test drive I had to really concentrate on the twisties to keep it on track. Not something that I've had to do in a 500.
Quality wise it had a rattle in the glovebox and so has the OH's mito so the gremlins are still in there despite being an Alfa.
It's a Fiat dressed up and in the eye's of some it's nice 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'. For me I like the front despite the skewed number plate.
And I like the idea of a black roof on the white which is a dealer option at £750 !

just get the roof vinyl wrapped for £150 (y)
 
The list I did above of the 'choices' that I looked at wasn't an exhaustive one but I did miss the Honda Civic s-type which is a safer bet that the mental R-type. A '07 S-type goes for around €7K but I couldn't deal with the fact that the Honda bean counters dropped the multi-link suspension to a ARB. Funnily enough the Mito has NO ARB but it has 2 sets of springs on the rear.:confused:

A little bit of confusion going on there Michael :)

The new Civic has a beam axle, as does the 500. The term ARB is misleading when it comes to beam axles because the whole axle is an anti roll bar. All the newer axle on the 500 does is stiffen it up so it resists roll more than it did in the past.

The correct description for the rear suspension on a new Civic, a 2008 500, a Mito and a 2011 500 is a torsion beam. They're all identical in terms of the configuration and the whole ARB thing is a red herring.

Forget the whole ARB thing completely when it comes to torsion beam axles, the axle is the thing that resists roll, whether they stick a reinforcement bar through the axle or just make the axle stiffer it does :)

Think about it like this, if you took a 500 and just cut the rear beam on it in half then the beam wouldn't transfer the load from the outside rear tyre to the inside rear tyre and the car would roll a lot. As soon as the two sides are joined, whether it be by a torsion beam, a torsion beam with a bar through the middle or a torsion beam made out of thicker steel then this will help resist roll.

Just focus on how the car actually feels to drive for you :)
 
A little bit of confusion going on there Michael :)

The new Civic has a beam axle, as does the 500. The term ARB is misleading when it comes to beam axles because the whole axle is an anti roll bar. All the newer axle on the 500 does is stiffen it up so it resists roll more than it did in the past.

The correct description for the rear suspension on a new Civic, a 2008 500, a Mito and a 2011 500 is a torsion beam. They're all identical in terms of the configuration and the whole ARB thing is a red herring.

Forget the whole ARB thing completely when it comes to torsion beam axles, the axle is the thing that resists roll, whether they stick a reinforcement bar through the axle or just make the axle stiffer it does :)

Think about it like this, if you took a 500 and just cut the rear beam on it in half then the beam wouldn't transfer the load from the outside rear tyre to the inside rear tyre and the car would roll a lot. As soon as the two sides are joined, whether it be by a torsion beam, a torsion beam with a bar through the middle or a torsion beam made out of thicker steel then this will help resist roll.

Just focus on how the car actually feels to drive for you :)

Thank you for the explanation Maxi. We are on a car forum so the techie bits are important.(y)
I did post the youtube below before but I couldn't find the original posting deep in the FF so apologies for re-posting it. Skip to 3:40 and a suggestion from Melanabb about buying an older model is certainly true in the case of the Civic Type-R which are commanding as much money as the new one because the petrol heads know how good the independant rear suspension is. The 'simpler' torsion bar is cheaper and worse causing a lot of understeer.
In some of the reviews of the North Amercian Abarth 500 they spoke about 4 wheel drifts and the only way that would be possible is if the ESP was switched off. The recent youtube ad on the A500 with that amazing 'italian' model demonstrated what they were going on about. So in the setup of the 500 with it's short wheelbase it can be 'provocated' to get around a corner.
In the Mito test drive it was doing a lot of tyre squeeling going around corners and it reminded me a bit of the youtube. Maybe as you rightly pointed out I should leave the lights off and not look under the sheets. This car will just be an executive express - I don't expect it to be a driver's car.
 
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