puntofan01 said:

We will have to agree to disagree on that 1. Personally, I say if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I also say simple pleasures, life's treasures. Perhaps if more people learnt to be content, there'd be a lot less debt, and people would be far happier in life!!!

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It depends on your definition of broke. A car might run and drive and get you from a-b but if the heating doesn’t work, it’s still able to get you from a-b and serve it’s primary purpose. The heating is just a frivolous addition to keep you more comfortable. Then take the seats, modern seats are so much more comfortable then they used to be, better made, safer, but there purpose hasn’t changed from old seats, you still sit on them. Old seats where not uncomfortable, it’s just new seats are more comfortable, and heated seats more comfortable still and warm you up and keep you cosy too.

I don’t need heated seats, I don’t NEED really comfortably seats. For the majority of the year heating isn’t needed in a car in the uk, we still have these things. And “better” cars have more of these frivolities.

You don’t need a 77hp punto, old cars had horse power in the single figures, but you WANT to keep up with traffic, and your WANT something that in your opinion looks good.

When you see a car that in you opinion looks better than your current car you want that too.

If you burry your head in the sand and don’t try anything new and don’t go anywhere new, meet new people and do new things then how will you ever know if you like them?
I really don’t like parties, but I’ve been to enough of them to form an opinion based on my own experience. I don’t like the BMW 1 series, I have driven a couple, I tried the cabriolet before buying my golf, nothing wrong with it, it still works as a car. It has as many luxuries as you want depending on your budget, but as a car I didn’t like it, it’s just not for me, but at least I’m willing to try things out and see what I think and not just look at something and decide I won’t like it with no other information.

Hell, everyone at some point I’m there life has watched a bad movie knowing how bad it was before they started but they wanted to see for themself just how bad it is, I do that with cars too, it might be crap but you’ve gotta give it a drive even if it’s just for the laughs..... lol

When I was still a top gear reader, I'm sure they said that the supermini was still the best selling class of car, so it would've been worth Fiat making an effort. Personally, I think they should've steered clear of chrysler. That area of the business may be booming now, but it's come at the expense of Fiat, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo.

puntofan01 said:

When I was still a top gear reader, I'm sure they said that the supermini was still the best selling class of car, so it would've been worth Fiat making an effort. Personally, I think they should've steered clear of chrysler. That area of the business may be booming now, but it's come at the expense of Fiat, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo.

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Fiesta still best seller but Suv's in total probably close to market share.

and strictly speaking the Punto isn't totally dead, the linea(ge) lives On!

I'm not scared of having aspirations; hell, if that was the case, then I would've just rented somewhere to live a few years ago, rather than save up and wait until I was finally able to get a place of my own.


I guess my definition of 'broke' would be a car from the mid 90s. From the early 00s, cars were able to offer a good chance of survival in a crash, good real world economy, and a few decent mod cons. From roughly 2010, the car stopped evolving usefully, and it's just been change for the sake of it, which I just see as pointless.

in 2015 fiat sold 79,202 Puntos in the whole of Europe if Wikipedia is to be believed.

This was the year that the 500X was properly launched and they sold 74,262 of them in the same year, the year of its launch.

2016 and the punto sales had dropped to 62,654 while the 500x had jumped to 104,931 last year the punto sales dropped to less than 50k and more then 20% slump in sales, the 500x basically put the final nails in its coffin as small families and mums with 2.4 kids, snapped up the funky little SUV in favor of the dated and bland late model puntos.

lsgraham_uk said:

Fiesta still best seller but Suv's in total probably close to market share.

and strictly speaking the Punto isn't totally dead, the linea(ge) lives On!

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The fiesta will always be the best seller, nothing will ever topple that, but the mk1, the mk2 and the Grande were big sellers, and with a bit of investment, that would've continued. I understand them wanting an suv, but it shouldn't have come at the expense of the core products. Look at the current Alfa range for example: the motoring press rave on about them, but due to the lapse between the last 159 and the 1st Giulias, the less devoted of Alfas customer base started buying the blandmobile german boxes instead.

puntofan01 said:

I'm not scared of having aspirations; hell, if that was the case, then I would've just rented somewhere to live a few years ago, rather than save up and wait until I was finally able to get a place of my own.


I guess my definition of 'broke' would be a car from the mid 90s. From the early 00s, cars were able to offer a good chance of survival in a crash, good real world economy, and a few decent mod cons. From roughly 2010, the car stopped evolving usefully, and it's just been change for the sake of it, which I just see as pointless.

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And you’re absolutely wrong.

If you’d driven a car with a modern infotainment system you wouldn’t say that.

Diesel and tbh petrol engines are more and more refined as time goes by.

The 8hp ZF gearbox is amazing and from someone who always said he’d never have anything but a manual gearbox, it’s simply better in almost every way.

LED and/or adaptive headlights are mega.

I could go on...

Try some modern cars, theymifht change your mind.

I bet I would: I don't use music streaming services etc, so the latest infotainment systems are an unnecessary distraction. Call me old fashioned, but whilst my phone is paired to my car, I barely use it.

And whilst it's not from the latest crop, I have driven what you'd call a fairly decent automatic, and I was glad to get back into a car with a proper gearbox!

306maxi said:

Try some modern cars, they might change your mind.

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you would need to be open to having your mind changed.

LED headlight are amazing, have them on our countryman

The difference in refinement between my 1.6 fiat diesel (euro 5) and my 2.0-litre golf (euro6) is a world apart and they are cars made 4 years apart. thats not sat in the car behind a wall of soundproofing, that's with the bonnet up

AndyRKett said:

in 2015 fiat sold 79,202 Puntos in the whole of Europe if Wikipedia is to be believed.

This was the year that the 500X was properly launched and they sold 74,262 of them in the same year, the year of its launch.

2016 and the punto sales had dropped to 62,654 while the 500x had jumped to 104,931 last year the punto sales dropped to less than 50k and more then 20% slump in sales, the 500x basically put the final nails in its coffin as small families and mums with 2.4 kids, snapped up the funky little SUV in favor of the dated and bland late model puntos.

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Which is sad because when it launches it was really stylish. But the facelift was a disaster and the emergency facelift not much better.

This was at work recently, I actually really like the idea of not taking my own car to work.

puntofan01 said:

I bet I would: I don't use music streaming services etc, so the latest infotainment systems are an unnecessary distraction. Call me old fashioned, but whilst my phone is paired to my car, I barely use it.

And whilst it's not from the latest crop, I have driven what you'd call a fairly decent automatic, and I was glad to get back into a car with a proper gearbox!

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What automatic was it?

You don’t need to use streaming services to get use out of a good infotainment system.

306maxi said:

I actually really like the idea of not taking my own car to work.

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I'd like a car that drives me to work so I can get an extra 2 hours sleep every day, although I do like that car with its own indoor garden !! you don't get that in a Bentley!

306maxi said:

Which is sad because when it launches it was really stylish. But the facelift was a disaster and the emergency facelift not much better.

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Agreed. The 2012-2018 model was still a pretty car, but there's just something about the original model that makes it stand out, even today.

306maxi said:

What automatic was it?

You don’t need to use streaming services to get use out of a good infotainment system.

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It was a Volvo V70 2.4 D5.

And how would I benefit? From what I understand, the latest trend is to move all the dashboard buttons onto a huge touchscreen, sometimes naffly placed on the dash.

AndyRKett said:

I'd like a car that drives me to work so I can get an extra 2 hours sleep every day, although I do like that car with its own indoor garden !! you don't get that in a Bentley!

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Yeah, had strawberries and blueberries growing in it lol. Doesn’t have 3 tonnes of extra soundproofing, wood and leather of a Bentley which is no bad thing.

puntofan01 said:

but there's just something about the original model that makes it stand out, even today.

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because they borrowed the headlights and grill and thereby the look of a 1998 Maserati. the later evo and punto ditched that look, although in supercar terms it was well dated by the time it found its way onto the punto, however, the Maserati is so rare and did stand out so the punto continued to stand out

The EVO they tried to add a fiat 500 look to the front which didn't work, but the piano black bumper inserts looked very smart.
then they ditched all the nice looking parts for the 2012 punto, and then started adding back the old bits from the original grande, making it look old.

puntofan01 said:

It was a Volvo V70 2.4 D5.

And how would I benefit? From what I understand, the latest trend is to move all the dashboard buttons onto a huge touchscreen, sometimes naffly placed on the dash.

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Jesus H Christ, that’s a Mondeo in a square frock. I drove a Mondeo last year on holiday and the auto box was chuffing woeful, properly awful.

Do yourself a favour, go to a BMW dealership, tell them you’ve just got a new job and are going to be doing a 100 miles a day and need a mile muncher and want either a 1 series or 3 series auto.

They are genuinely lightyears in front of the Mondeo/V70.

puntofan01 said:

It was a Volvo V70 2.4 D5.

And how would I benefit? From what I understand, the latest trend is to move all the dashboard buttons onto a huge touchscreen, sometimes naffly placed on the dash.

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The latest V70 is a car dating back to 2007 so not exactly new and now discontinued.

Yes plenty of car companies are moving all the buttons to big touchscreens, however and rather ironically the likes of BMW and VW, the new Fiesta, and other fords, all companies you hate, are still keeping traditional heating controls and steering wheel controls etc.

Most new infotainment systems use things like carplay and android auto, meaning you dont need to touch the screen while driving as you just tell siri or google what you want it todo.

Cars are now coming with Amazon's alexa built in and able to control features of the car all without taking your hands off the wheel or your eyes off the road.

AndyRKett said:

because they borrowed the headlights and grill and thereby the look of a 1998 Maserati. the later evo and punto ditched that look, although in supercar terms it was well dated by the time it found its way onto the punto, however, the Maserati is so rare and did stand out so the punto continued to stand out

The EVO they tried to add a fiat 500 look to the front which didn't work, but the piano black bumper inserts looked very smart.
then they ditched all the nice looking parts for the 2012 punto, and then started adding back the old bits from the original grande, making it look old.

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I don't have a problem with slightly older designs: even Aston Martin, a company that I love, struggle these days.

Modern car design is like modern mainstream music: chuffing awful, lol!

306maxi said:

Jesus H Christ, that’s a Mondeo in a square frock. I drove a Mondeo last year on holiday and the auto box was chuffing woeful, properly awful.

Do yourself a favour, go to a BMW dealership, tell them you’ve just got a new job and are going to be doing a 100 miles a day and need a mile muncher and want either a 1 series or 3 series auto.

They are genuinely lightyears in front of the Mondeo/V70.

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This was a 2012 V70, and I thought the gearbox was a Volvo design? At risk of sounding old fashioned again, operating the clutch and gearlever is part of the enjoyment, and any automatic takes that away.