Like I suspect most people, I was quite taken by the Stilo adds of a few years back and decided this could well be my next car. The combination of performance and economy have always appealed to me and so I started looking for a fairly well specified 2nd user JTD and after about 5 months found the model I wanted 
What I was searching for was a 5 door Dynamic in metallic silver with a factory fitted skyport (you can see why it took five months!).
I had of course read various reviews of this model and whilst it received good reviews for interior space & design, it never seemed to get very good reviews for performance and handling So naturally enough, having found the car I wanted, the next step was a test drive. The first thing I noticed was that there was a noticeable amount of pitching & rolling at low speeds which made me wonder if some of the reviewers hadn’t been so far off the mark I thought, “if it’s like this around town then it’s not likely to be much fun if I start pushing it.”.
However, since I liked the car in every other respect, after a bit of haggling, I took the plunge and bought it on the spot. That was a month ago and what I’ve discovered since has stunned me.
I don’t know what magic Fiat engineers weaved into this car but when pushed it’s like a different machine. Gently feed the power and it just rockets out of corners. Drop a little speed and into the next, feed the power again and out it comes like a sling-shot. I swear if my sat-nav had an option for “choose very bendy route with few speed restrictions” then I’d choose it every time. Considering the style of the 5 door is notably more top heavy than the 3 door then if anyone wants to argue this motor handles poorly then all I can say is they must seriously be in need of some driving instruction!
Being the first diesel I’ve owned I wasn’t sure how I’d adopt to the change from petrol. I received some advice long the lines of “You’ll hardly ever need to change gear and you’ll need to allow time for the power to build when you want it”. Well! I suppose this might apply to some diesels out there but as far the JTD goes it’s about as wrong as it ever could be. It took a while for me to realise that you actually have to work the box more than an equivalent petrol engine motor in order to get it to fly. Drop into 4th and it’s exhilarating; Drop into 3rd and it feels like a Saturn 5 rocket has just wedged into your rear hatch! I’ve driven high performance cars before and there’s always that very slight delay on dropping down before the power really bites but on the JTD is feels instant. Overtaking in this way and you get the slightly unnerving feeling you’ve just been blasted out of a cannon! This could actually be potentially dangerous as, if you’re not careful, it’s possible to adopt the belief that you can overtake in crazily short lengths of tarmac. The car feels a lot faster than the on-paper figures would suggest and it has occurred to me that there’s a possibility that the previous owner has already had the engine remapped (which would explain a lot).
I’d originally considered having it remapped anyway but that’s now gone out the window. It’s amazingly economical as it is and even if more power could be gleaned from it then I honestly don’t think I could handle it!
Anyone else had a similar experience?
What I was searching for was a 5 door Dynamic in metallic silver with a factory fitted skyport (you can see why it took five months!).I had of course read various reviews of this model and whilst it received good reviews for interior space & design, it never seemed to get very good reviews for performance and handling
So naturally enough, having found the car I wanted, the next step was a test drive. The first thing I noticed was that there was a noticeable amount of pitching & rolling at low speeds which made me wonder if some of the reviewers hadn’t been so far off the mark I thought, “if it’s like this around town then it’s not likely to be much fun if I start pushing it.”.However, since I liked the car in every other respect, after a bit of haggling, I took the plunge and bought it on the spot. That was a month ago and what I’ve discovered since has stunned me.
I don’t know what magic Fiat engineers weaved into this car but when pushed it’s like a different machine. Gently feed the power and it just rockets out of corners. Drop a little speed and into the next, feed the power again and out it comes like a sling-shot. I swear if my sat-nav had an option for “choose very bendy route with few speed restrictions” then I’d choose it every time. Considering the style of the 5 door is notably more top heavy than the 3 door then if anyone wants to argue this motor handles poorly then all I can say is they must seriously be in need of some driving instruction!
Being the first diesel I’ve owned I wasn’t sure how I’d adopt to the change from petrol. I received some advice long the lines of “You’ll hardly ever need to change gear and you’ll need to allow time for the power to build when you want it”.
Well! I suppose this might apply to some diesels out there but as far the JTD goes it’s about as wrong as it ever could be. It took a while for me to realise that you actually have to work the box more than an equivalent petrol engine motor in order to get it to fly. Drop into 4th and it’s exhilarating; Drop into 3rd and it feels like a Saturn 5 rocket has just wedged into your rear hatch! I’ve driven high performance cars before and there’s always that very slight delay on dropping down before the power really bites but on the JTD is feels instant. Overtaking in this way and you get the slightly unnerving feeling you’ve just been blasted out of a cannon! This could actually be potentially dangerous as, if you’re not careful, it’s possible to adopt the belief that you can overtake in crazily short lengths of tarmac. The car feels a lot faster than the on-paper figures would suggest and it has occurred to me that there’s a possibility that the previous owner has already had the engine remapped (which would explain a lot).I’d originally considered having it remapped anyway but that’s now gone out the window. It’s amazingly economical as it is and even if more power could be gleaned from it then I honestly don’t think I could handle it!
Anyone else had a similar experience?
