Introduction
So I've returned to the Fiat fold again after some brief encounters with French, Swedish and German cars.
I picked up a Punto Twinair just shy of 2 weeks ago mostly based on the colour alone.
Personally I absolutely love the colour and was the only reason I went to look at the car as I'd virtually chosen to disregard a Twinair car. After test driving though I really enjoyed the TA and so here we are.
I've covered just over 500 miles so far, the first tank about 60% motorway, 20% mixture of dual and single carriage way A roads and another 20% of town work. The onboard computer spat out 47mpg, after brimming the car again fuelly calculated 44mpg so not miles out.
Good bits;
The Bad;
TL;DR - I like it despite its foibles, which it certainly has plenty. The TA engine is fun but I understand people who dislike it.
I picked up a Punto Twinair just shy of 2 weeks ago mostly based on the colour alone.
Personally I absolutely love the colour and was the only reason I went to look at the car as I'd virtually chosen to disregard a Twinair car. After test driving though I really enjoyed the TA and so here we are.
I've covered just over 500 miles so far, the first tank about 60% motorway, 20% mixture of dual and single carriage way A roads and another 20% of town work. The onboard computer spat out 47mpg, after brimming the car again fuelly calculated 44mpg so not miles out.
Good bits;
- Its similar to the Grande Punto, my first car, so things are quite familiar just with a refreshed look. Makes it easy to drive if un-envolving.
- Noise. The thing most ordinary 4 banger superminis don't have is much of an exhaust note. The TA sounds great IMO.
- Comfortable, did a 6 hour journey at the weekend, no numb bum at the end of it so a big plus.
- Nobody seemed to buy the last gen of Punto so its suitably rare especially in this colour.
The Bad;
- Twinair is weird to drive, I totally understand the people who don't like the engine. It can be too noisy especially in 1st and 2nd gears when road noise is low. You cant really drive it below 1500rpm and I like to keep it above 2000 to avoid labouring it.
- This might be Punto specific rather than all TA's but the 6 speed box has very short gears, not the sort of thing you expect from an engine that creates its grunt in the middle of the rev range. You have to go up and down those gears a lot to maintain good progress.
- Gearbox, following on from above its not got a positive engagment, I quite often find myself glancing down at the gearstick to check what gear I've selected. Reverse doesn't ever feel like its 'gone in'.
- Bodyroll, I don't remember my Grande rolling this much but maybe its because I've had much stiffer cars since then. It leans and wobbles if you take a roundabout quickly. It doesn't feel like it'd understeer unless prodded harder but the bodyroll is comical.
- It feels quite quick at lower speeds (sub 50mph) that its easy to forget on the motorway its not a fast car and in the outside lane it can get a bit out of breath.
- Somehow Fiat have managed to design alloy wheels which look like hubcaps. At some point if a nicer set come up for a reasonable price I may look to change these.
TL;DR - I like it despite its foibles, which it certainly has plenty. The TA engine is fun but I understand people who dislike it.
