Technical FIRE to Hybrid, anybody..?

[JTD_Liam]

Ahh, so the 1.2 Fire has more go than the 1.0 Firefly, not a good sign for the Firefly.

Cant say i'd want to be up at 6,000 revs for long, my 1.2 and 1.4 Fire engines live at 3,000 to 3,500 revs and thats noise enough.

There is some scientific reason why 3 piston engines like the firefly 1.0L under perform, same goes for 1 piston motorbikes.

The increased smoothness of the FireFly is more pronounced than any power deficit over the 1.2. Neither are quick by any means, but while the older FIREs were nippy & fun they became increasingly compromised throughout the 500 production run. I'd take the smoothness of the FireFly over one of the later 1.2 FIREs if budget allows.

Some of the courtesy car 500 1.2s I've driven from 2013 to 2020 were impossible to drive smoothly because of the dreadful clutch/revs issue that effected them & they felt strained a lot of the time, probably due to the work needed to get them through increasingly stringent emissions regulations. Ignore the 'Hybrid' element (it's as mild as they come) & the FireFly is perfectly acceptable as a replacement for the 1.2.

 

[AnthonyH]

The increased smoothness of the FireFly is more pronounced than any power deficit over the 1.2. Neither are quick by any means, but while the older FIREs were nippy & fun they became increasingly compromised throughout the 500 production run. I'd take the smoothness of the FireFly over one of the later 1.2 FIREs if budget allows.

Some of the courtesy car 500 1.2s I've driven from 2013 to 2020 were impossible to drive smoothly because of the dreadful clutch/revs issue that effected them & they felt strained a lot of the time, probably due to the work needed to get them through increasingly stringent emissions regulations. Ignore the 'Hybrid' element (it's as mild as they come) & the FireFly is perfectly acceptable as a replacement for the 1.2.

My Fire engines are old and i have no experience to compare them to a 2013 - 2020 Fire. But smooth isn't something I'd say my engines are, lumpy more like! But i've gotten used to it, i can't remember the last time i drove an automatic but think they'd be smooth like you're describing.

 

[JTD_Liam]

My Fire engines are old and i have no experience to compare them to a 2013 - 2020 Fire. But smooth isn't something I'd say my engines are, lumpy more like! But i've gotten used to it, i can't remember the last time i drove an automatic but think they'd be smooth like you're describing.

I guess it's all relative to what we're used to, but I owned a 1996 Mk1 Punto 1.2 75 FIRE years ago & that felt much smoother than the FIREs fitted to the 500 - somehow the previous Panda kept the nicer 60bhp versions till 2010/2011, whereas the 500 went over to the rougher 69bhp from its launch in 2008. The worst ones seemed to be around 2014 (when they appeared on Watchdog with the issue) but they never seemed to get back to the standard seen in the 2003-2010 Panda. I imagine if you find your FIREs quite lumpy you'd be shocked at the 500s - there's plenty of happy owners & compared to many modern engines I think the FIRE was still decent, but by the end they'd pushed it as far as they could & it absolutely needed replacing.

 

[AnthonyH]

I had a look to see how the Fire engines changed over the years but couldn't find anything obvious.

I did find an episode of Watchdog where people where complaining about the power steering failing. Made me laugh when they got Britains strongest man in a Punto to steer it.

 

[JTD_Liam]

I had a look to see how the Fire engines changed over the years but couldn't find anything obvious.

I did find an episode of Watchdog where people where complaining about the power steering failing. Made me laugh when they got Britains strongest man in a Punto to steer it.

I remember the power steering issue when it was *the* main fault on Fiat's including the Punto & Panda. Thankfully they seemed to get a grip on it from around the time the 500 was launched in 2008 & you don't hear about it nearly as much now.

In terms of the FIRE, the biggest change was the addition of Variable Valve Timing (VVT), which coincided with the 500 launch. This seemed to affect some driveability aspects of the engine & removed the 'safe' aspect of the engine - previously it was a non-interference engine which could survive cambelt failure unscathed. When VVT was introduced the engine would likely be damaged if the cambelt failed.

Start-Stop became available on some models from late 2010/early 2011 and a further change in 2014 introduced a switch on the clutch which controlled engine RPM - not sure exactly how it all worked but this was reported as the source of the issues that made it to Watchdog. I don't think Fiat removed this switch to improve the issue on later versions, but i remember some frustrated owners disconnected the switch to alleviate the issue on their cars! Beyond these changes, I'm not sure what else Fiat did to the FIRE, but it seemed to be at its best pre-VVT, such as in the 'eco' variants of the Panda around 2008-2010.