Last year I bought my ex an UNO 1.0ie, she is a confirmed Fiat hater, indeed she referred to my Panda by all sorts of unprintable names! The Uno cost me the grand total of £50 from a bloke who deals cars, it transpires he had been using the car for "ten bin bowling" which involved wheelie bins, you can guess the rest!

Anyway the plan was to use the Uno until it blew up/fell to bits and I would use any interchangable bits for my Panda, but the UNO had other ideas, it has done 13000 miles since and apart from a new clutch getting the brakes sorted, it hasn't missed a beat, it flew it's last MOT, and although the ex is a girl racer and hammers it off the limiter, the car will not die!

So when I listen to customers in work, they slag Fiats off a lot, but the people who come in who actually drive a Fiat, love them, now the rust issue is pretty much sorted, the cars are as good, if not better than the vast majority of the competition. So is it just ill feeling towards the marque?


I'd be interested in the Views of other Fiat drivers on this!

people never forget.

what was once a rust issue has now turned into an everything issue. and the crap dealers dont help that matter neither.

think of it as chinese wispers. one bloke says "oh yeah my fiat got rusty rear arches".. the next bloke tells his mate that his mate said his whole car rusted to pieces.. and then someone adds in that the engine blew up etc. it never ends

tell me about it, i have had fiats since i passed my test 6 years ago and i always get criticised by my mates, i was standing by my tipo lastnight talking to a mate when one of my other mates pulled up in his crappy diesel 306 and had the cheek to say "why have you got that?" and "when are you gonna get something that is not a fiat?". and to be honest that is partly the reason i might get rid of the tipo because nobody appreciates it.

Thee is one important person that appreciates it Dazz and that's YOU!

I am on my 9th Fiat now and I love 'em, always have. They give you value for money fun and reasonable running costs considering they have never been built or had parts sourced in the UK.

The bad rep is from the post-war to 1980s Fiats when, frankly, the build quality wasn't up to it. FIATs rusted and that's a fact and this led to an associated issue that FIATs never really recovered from. When a car rusts it's earthing points tend to go too and that leads to fragile electrics and it is as much this legacy as the rust itslef that FIAT need to overcome. With the introduction of the Punto and Bravo/a/Marea FIAT did the hard work with fully galvanised bodyshells and waxoyled sills and arches. Hence there are so many of them still running now more than 10 years after their intoduction. I have yet to see a genuinely rusty Punto or Bravo/a/Marea which is very impressive considering FIATs history (and yes I know, I have owned several 127s, Unos, a Punto and a Bravo and my brother even more!).

I wouldn't worry about what anyone else says, FIATs are actually as or more reliable than most main line manufacturers. Their ignorance is their undoing as they pay 40% more for thier Foclits and Corsaaarrggghs for no benefit other than making themselves FEEL superior. FIAT owners don't need this comfort-blanket - WE ARE SUPERIOR!!!

The only thing that FIAT need to sort out now is thier dealers who in general are rubbish! Their product knowledge is very poor and thier customer service is worse. If they get this sorted and bring out some distinctive cars again (sorry but at the moment only the barchetta is worth driving off a forecourt imho) they will be made!

Bring on the new Punto, Trpuino and X19!

All car makers have some kind of bad stigma about them,personally I dont give a flying f**k what people think....I drive a certain car because it's cheap to buy in first place(normally with 7-15 previous owners,lol) reliable and cheap to run,gets me from A to B.Simple as that!

Whats really hard to grasp is the fact people buy Renaults that fall to bits still! Generally, Fiat make really good cars, at the moment though the Punto is outclassed by nearly everything else as well as looking pants. Sort that, sort the dealers and bingo! Whats encouraging at the moment is the Pandas prices are not dropping as quickly as many other small cars.

Oh yes, all our renaults fall to bits

I guess nuova is showing exactly why Fiat had a bad reputation, one bad experience can last forever.

i am on me first fiat and i must say the build is a bit shocking lol considering the car was only 2 year old when i got it. i have had 2 clutches new alternator, new starter. needs a new fly wheel. steering shaft replaced think it needs another. it has several rattles the paint chips if you look at it wrong way.
it has had far more problems than my previous cars rover 213s and cav sri.

but still i muist admit i quite like it for some reason lol

my dad has a uno i swear its the most neglected car ever, its used as real load carrier. hasnthad a service in 6 years god knowswhen oil was changed. the engine is the oilest worse looking lump i have ever seen........but you knwo what the dam thing starts and runs everyday and has never broken down. sometimes i just cant belive it lol

I've had a few Fiats over the years and I've always got where I'm going. I can't fault them. As stated above the bad rep stems from older Fiats, unfortunately sh*t sticks...

In the surveys, it suggests dealers don't help matters one bit.

I lifted the following that I wrote and posted in a thread in 'Classic Panda' last year cos it's easier than writing it again, but is just as relevant in this thread.

"- Have to agree with you but I've come to my own conclusions on the whole 'Italian Reputation', this is;

In the 70s, Italian cars rusted. So did everyone elses, but Italian ones rusted faster because of the crappy Russian steel in exchange for the 124/Lada Project.

In the 80s, Italian cars rusted. So did everyone elses, but everybody was busy pointing at the rusting Italian ones, so nobody commented on the rotting euroboxes from other countries.

In the 90s the Italians were pissed off. They galvanised everything. Trouble is, when something went wrong with an Italian car the owner was confronted with "Oh, you don't want to waste your money fixing that, it will only rust". So they got scrapped. A Golf in similar or worse condition got fixed because the bloke in the pub told you "it'll go on forever"

In the 00s, Italian manufacturers got rustproofing, styling and mechanicals sorted, so Bosch sold them a bunch of crap AFMs and injection systems. "

Just my thoughts anyway

Also, I believe the dealer problem started when they started rejecting all the well established family run dealerships, who actually knew and loved what they were selling and working on and also cared for customers, in favour of larger chains/car supermarkets (DC Cook, Dixon, Stoneacre etc.) whose main interest is sales. Saying this though, Fiat are not alone in this as a lot of manufacturers have taken this route. Stinks though

Vin

Vin said:

In the 00s, Italian manufacturers got rustproofing, styling and mechanicals sorted,

Click to expand...

They did that in te 90's chap. Styling has gone downhill a little bit since imho.

Bravo2! Bring it on!

What few people seem to know is that Volkswagen in the early 1970s lowered intentionally the steel quality in order to safe their future. The cars were too good and sales started going down.
Many other manufacturers turned to cheaper steels too as it was a cost saving exercise. The oilcrisis at that time did its bit too.
Funny everybody else recovered from the bad reputation apart from Fiat and possibly British Leyland.
Ford has got a lot of problems and in due course are making terrible losses. But this seems to be fine.
Mercedes had recently the biggest single cause recall of 658.000 (yes sixhundred and fifty eight thousand) cars. The Germans have given the Mercedes management a hard time leading to the resignation of the MD because the string of faults and unreliability does not end. Mercedes is losing a lot of money over this. But this seems to be alright.
Mitsubishi had a number of killer cars, where the MD was charged with manslaughter. But this seems to be alright.
The list goes on and on. Every week recalls affect all manufacturers. But this seems to be fine as long as it is not the Fiat group.
Never anyone mentioned that the Alfa 3.0l v6 was the most reliable production engine ever built. Because that would not be alright disturbing the perception of people.
For the great Vauxhall lovers there is another disturbing fact. All future Diesel engines in the GM group are Fiat designed and built.
The Astra has it already.
The Swift will be launched soon with one.
And it was planned that all engines in the GM group up to 1.4l would be replaced by FIRE engines. Whether this is going ahead after the (by Fiat wanted?) bust-up with GM is not clear.
So much for the crappy Fiat. Or is it rather crappy people who want to maintain it?

If my Doblo is anything to go by, the Fiat reputation is well deserved, but to Fiats credit my Panda multijet is fine.
Maybe my changing the dealer might help with any problems that might arise in the future.

As an insider so to speak I can tell you that alot of the problem is at the top and causes many problems as it comes down through Fiat Italy and UK to dealers etc. This is slowly but surely being sorted out. The cars I must say are bloody good, so much so I bought one (a life long opel/vauxhall junky).
I have got the whole family buying them (2 bravas, multipla, punto), and they love them too. Father in law was most concerned when all the multipla drivers were waving at him in his new multipla, now hes started waving back

The trouble is,if Fiat don't sort out their problems quickly it may end up like Rover.

Not that bad,Fiat creamed one heck of alot of cash out of GM recently & with croma,new punto & new stilo one the way...that backed up with IMI approved training (like BMW & Ford) for technicians the future is looking better for Fiat than most other makers.

p.s.If I had one sniff that Fiat were in trouble i'd be off elsewhere like a shot

I love Fiats, my cinq has had a few problems but nothing major. People laugh caus I spend so much on it but it really doesnt bother me, if people bothered to try em they would realise what there missing. Don't know why everyone slags them off, probably caus theyre not expensive poser cars. My dad had a red Uno Spark and a yellow 127 and both refused to die despite his driving! My friends Corsa (which has sold millions around the world) is useless. All the paint has faded and the black bumpers are not a sort of light grey colour and its dull and boring to drive. Maybe fiat need more flashy specs of there current models or people just need to realise that Fiats are great cars, who knows?

Oldschool said:

Never anyone mentioned that the Alfa 3.0l v6 was the most reliable production engine ever built.

Click to expand...

I thought that title went to Honda and their VTEC engines, they've never replaced a single engine or something like that.

This forum doesn't help. When I was looking to change my last Mondeo I seriously considered a Stilo Abarth, but reading this forum helped convince me I might be better looking elsewhere. However, I never found any of my Italian cars as boring as my current Mondeo, even though it's a turbo-diesel flying machine. The local Fiat dealer (they're in Broxburn, Arnold-Clark I think) seemed okay when I had my Bravo, so maybe I should just bite the bullet. Don't know if I could live with the fuel consumption though. I'm currently getting 46mpg.