Love my 4x4 twin air panda. Mrs Faz has just written off the lovely 500 dulogic twin air on black ice. Think she needs a trekking, and whilst I love the twin air I'm not sure it's the best engine for the bigger L. Any thoughts or experiences to guide me?

I think the 1.6 Diesel is the best to go for.

But, Suzuki is using the same engine in its new S-Cross, with a variable turbo and tuned to give just under 120 bhp - unlike the 103 bhp in the 500L - and apparently, according to all the reviews I have read, it gets a genuine 60+ mpg! And it can easily get nearly 70mph on a motorway run...."it has averaged more than 65mpg (67.5) over a lengthy motorway jaunt" Autocar.

I am hoping Fiat uses this engine on the 500L and Doblo soon, because at the moment we get less power and worse fuel consumption than we need to....

In fact I am refusing to buy another Fiat unless they get the fuel consumption and performance up to where the competition (in this case Suzuki using Fiat engines ) has.

jasonFazack said:

Love my 4x4 twin air panda. Mrs Faz has just written off the lovely 500 dulogic twin air on black ice. Think she needs a trekking, and whilst I love the twin air I'm not sure it's the best engine for the bigger L. Any thoughts or experiences to guide me?

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I have never been a big fan of the TA, but I know there are people who swear by them.

I may be getting old but to me it defy's logic that such a small engine can produce so much power without causing something to go 'pop' sooner rather than later, the lack of potential durability would concern me, though I stress (no pun intended) I have no evidence that this is the case.

We have a 1.4 Petrol 500L and it suits us, I have also had a 1.3 Multijet Diesel as a loan car and found this surprisingly sprightly I haven't driven a 1.6 Multijet though this seems to be the one that comes out best in the reviews.

When we had the 1.3 Diesel my neighbour commented on how noisy it was when compared to his KIA Soul diesel and he was right comparing them side by side the 500L was quite 'clattery' compared to his. That said I found inside the car itself it was much less noticeable. I don't know if the 1.6 is the same though.

On balance and overall (and if purchase price is not the prime concern) then one of the Diesels would be my choice if buying again, though as I say we are perfectly happy with ours currently. The reduced running costs would probably offset the increased purchase costs in our case as we do upwards of 12K miles per year including an annual or twice annual jaunt to France, if you only do a small number of miles the extra cost of the diesel may not be worth it.

Whatever you do get a test drive of the exact model you are thinking of before you purchase, you do hear of folk not doing this and then been disappointed with their final choice.

Hi Faz!

I've got a twin-air. Power - no problem . Have been thumping down the big roads at very illegal speeds when i choose, three up, easy peasy.

However, not so impressed with the economy. Virtually constant motorway work at national speed limit returned 49mpg. Not wonderful, but not dreadful. I am now doing mixed 'A', 'B' and town roads, driving like a pansy and the Average MPG figure on screen is 47 mpg and I'm two thirds through the tank.

I was kind of hoping for a bit more than this and to be fair, the car has only covered 2800 miles, but all the same, the printed figures were a fair bit better than what I'm getting. But then again I was warned that the economy figures on the twin-air are a bit optimistic.

I just hope I don't end up feeling like I should have gone for the diesel instaed.....

Thanks Martin

Thanks Panda. I love the twinair - have done since I first read about it. We too never acheived the claimed mpg, and I really never expected to. Two reasons, one is all cars I have ever owned apart from, surprisingly, the Defender 110, have not achieved quoted figures. But what makes the TA so off the mark is you just want to thrash it. I'd rather be smiling and skint than miserable and wealthy. But, perhaps I will look at the 1.6 multijet Diesel. Cheers