These articles have made quite a fuss here in Greece so I will try to share them with you.
The Greek Auto Moto und Sport magazine blames FIAT for not being interested that the new Bravo 1.4 totally lost its brakes after the 3rd brake test out of the ten scheduled.
Hope this google translation works well enough for you non-greeks to understand the content.

If the Bravo section moderator reads this, it would be good if he moves/copies it to the Bravo section.




http://www.google.com/translate?u=h...WS_DATA_ID=65479&langpair=el|en&hl=en&ie=UTF8

http://www.google.com/translate?u=h...WS_DATA_ID=65643&langpair=el|en&hl=en&ie=UTF8

http://www.google.com/translate?u=h...WS_DATA_ID=65763&langpair=el|en&hl=en&ie=UTF8

Re: Fiat Bravo Brakes Test Failure!!

How many cars were they running the test on? If only one it may have just been a fail. Different if it was a group of cars all failing in a similar way.

Re: Fiat Bravo Brakes Test Failure!!

They don't mention anything about the number of cars put to the test but since the incident happened, they discovered that the Bravo's imported to Greece were fitted with smaller brakes than the cars available for the rest of Europe.
Let me remind you that only one merc A-Class rolled over, but Mercedes took action!

Re: Fiat Bravo Brakes Test Failure!!

The test sample is always important, and Merc probably knew all about the instability issue of the A Class before the Moose test failure. I agree tho that if the smaller brakes for Greece thing is a problem it should be sorted out, why the hell would FIAT go to that length for part of a European market?

Re: Fiat Bravo Brakes Test Failure!!

Actually, now that I read it again, they blame FIAT for using smaller brakes on the 1.4 compared to the diesel model (which is not available in Greece). Could be that the diesel is heavier, but the 1.4 is faster! The test was for the T-Jet model. In any case though, when the KIAs pass this test:bang: , its a bit of a shame the beautiful Bravo cannot, whatever the reason is..
Even in the case if a failure though, that could have been your or my car!
I m curious to see how FIAT responds now that Greek Court is asking for explanations...

Re: Fiat Bravo Brakes Test Failure!!

Me too... and probably all the UK buyers of the 1.4 T-jet. I can understand the rationale for smaller brakes as the 1.4 petrol is probably around 150kgs lighter than an equivalent 1.9 diesel (it is so with the Grande Punto anyway) but I am not sure the motors are exactly the same.

Good spot though, thanks for posting.

Re: Fiat Bravo Brakes Test Failure!!

There's a very good discussion going on at italiaspeed: http://www.italiaspeed.info/index.php?showtopic=5&st=1600 (starts a few pages earlier) regarding this news.

Re: Fiat Bravo Brakes Test Failure!!

Yes any new news on this would be of help.

Re: Fiat Bravo Brakes Test Failure!!

Well.... starts to look like a lack of a backhander to the car mag resulted in a possibly made up brake scare.... Hmmmm ....

Re: Fiat Bravo Brakes Test Failure!!

I read the translated pages but I did not see where they say the tested car was a 150 T-jet. I understand they blame the smaller break discs - 257 mm on the model they tested, but the sites in my post below say that the break discs for 1.4 T-jet 150 are 281 mm. (I apologize, I could not post the URLs in the same post because I must have at least 5 posts on the forum to be allowed to post URLs)

I didn't find any break specs on official Fiat sites so I can't be sure these are accurate, but I doubt that T-jet has the same breaks as 1.4 90 bhp.

Re: Fiat Bravo Brakes Test Failure!!

The sites that say 1.4 T-jet 150 has 281 mm break discs:

http://www.um.co.za/specifications/fiat_bravo_1_4_t-jet_sport_(2007).aspx
http://www.autocar.co.uk/CarReviews/RoadTestsData/Fiat-Bravo-1.4-T-Jet-150-Sport/226578/

Re: Fiat Bravo Brakes Test Failure!!

Ffoxy said:

Well.... starts to look like a lack of a backhander to the car mag resulted in a possibly made up brake scare.... Hmmmm ....

Click to expand...

...and their 'evidence' of failed brakes were actually from a Toyota Corolla... barstewards.

Re: Fiat Bravo Brakes Test Failure!!

I think this is a big hoax.The same brakes had Stilo ,so why the stilo hadn´t any problem??I have 1,6 l Stilo and i haven´t any problem with brakes.The foto from the page isn´t the foto of fiat 257mm brakes.Somebody wants to do bad advertisement for Bravo.Why?Beacasue Bravo is succesfull

Re: Fiat Bravo Brakes Test Failure!!

well guys I just signed up in this forum to inform you about the brake failure case in Greece.....This how the story IS:
The Auto motor und Sport magazine starded a few months ago to write stupidities about the new bravo...even before they tested it... First they tried out the 150hp T-Jet version wich they compared with the Leon 1.8 Tsi and (as usual) the said that the car just isn't good enough.
than a few weeks ago they tested the 1.4 aspirated version with the 90hp engine and they claimed tha on a brake efficiacy test the car failed to repeat the test 20 times as demanded becouse on the third brake attempt the car just lost it and the test driver almost ended up dead (it would have been just a fool less......). On the website they IMMEDIATELY started announcing about the dangerous italian car and so.
After a few weeks they even pubblished pictures of a front brake that was supposed to be the bravo's, the disc appeared very small indeed and it was also rusted and very dirty..a bit strange for a brand new car...

The truth is that here in Greece VW and friends such as the Auto motor und golf magazine declared war to Fiat becouse the bravo is such a good car.
1-They really want us to believe that high velocity brake tests are conducted on small country roads
2-they published photos of a 30 year old corolla
3-They keep saying that only for Greece Fiat fitted smaller brakes when the 257mm brakes of this version of the bravo are the same all over the world
4-They posted a photo of the italian magazine 'quattroruote' where a 150hp bravo was tested and didn't manage a good score at the brake test but they 'forgot' to mention that it was a test with a full loaded car with 4 passengers and luggage and that at the end the bravo was declared as one of the 5 safest cars to buy
5-they 'forgot' that the astra and the focus still have in 2007 drumm brakes on the rear wheels
6-They won't publish on their website opinions that are not alligned with theirs

So dear friends don't worry there is nothing wrong with the bravo but there is a lot wrong in the minds of the AMS owners (VW maybe?)

Re: Fiat Bravo Brakes Test Failure!!

Amazing what comes to light once you dig a little deeper.


So, Bravo's don't have problems with their brakes - Just problems with corrupt magazines printing lies because they weren't paid to write nice things. Shame on them.

For the record my Bravo brakes are excellent. Fully reccomend a Bravo to anyone still.