Hiii, I'm Denise. I'm 19 & I'm from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. I'm currently a slave to J.D. Wetherspoon and I massively dislike it, although I do pull a great pint. 
This it quite long, but I thought I'd share my Bravo story so far.
On Tuesday I bought a black Fiat Bravo 80sx 1.2l 16v 2000 for £375 I had engaged in a bidding war on eBay, and after five days of watching and bidding in the last ten seconds of the auction, I lost. I thought all hope was gone, and continued searching for another Bravo, despite having my heart set on that one. A day later, I got an email off the guy saying that because there was a scratch (a scratch!) down the near side of the car, the lad who had won the auction refused to pay the £410 he had offered. The seller then asked me if I'd like it for £375. It'd be stupid of me not to accept!
Having owned a 2000 1.3 Ford Ka prior to this, I can safely say that the Bravo is substantially better, aesthetically and for driving. It's so big, though! I'm used to my dinky little Ka but I'm sure I'll get used to how roomy it is!
In comparison, the Ka was awful compared to the Bravo. Do not get me started on the numerous patches of rust it had. There are a few minor scratches on the Bravo, but you cant expect there not to be on an eleven year old car.
Got the weekend off work, so I'm using the time to start "modifying" it, albeit in really little ways:
- debadged the rear today. Didn't like the colour of the blue Fiat/Bravo logos against the black paint. Used boiling water as the hairdryer method seemed like a nightmare from what I've read in some of the threads on the forum. Didn't have many problems getting the adhesive off, got some ghostly outlining left though, so gonna have to T-Cut it tomorrow. Also need to see if the front badge can be taken off using the same method.
- filled in the rear scratches. Bought a touch-up pen from Halfords for £5.49 and it worked really well. Still got to do the rest of the body, although (unsurprisingly) a lot of the scratches are from where keys have rattled off the doors. Also coloured the rear keyhole black.
Tomorrow I'm going to spray the inner wheel arches,. I realized that the entire car must have once been a horrid purple colour and that a whole body respray had been done. They obviously missed some bits! Bought some spray paint from Halfords which'll hopefully match (providing whoever sprayed it in the past used Fiat black paint).
I'm then going to spray (or paint, depending on my patience) the grill black. I'm not a fan of black and silver on cars y'see.
I'm also going to paint my tyres black (again, purple paint is showing through) and paint my wheel trims with luminous paint so that they glow in the dark but show up white during the day. Not quite sure how this'll turn out, but I can't afford alloys *sigh* and if it does go wrong or I get stopped by a bored police officer one night, these can always be replaced!
Anyway! Just thought I'd write a nice little introductory thread here to talk about the beginning of what will hopefully be a rather enjoyable Fiat adventure as a newbie to the model!
I look forward to speaking to you all in the near future.
Denise
x
This it quite long, but I thought I'd share my Bravo story so far.On Tuesday I bought a black Fiat Bravo 80sx 1.2l 16v 2000 for £375
I had engaged in a bidding war on eBay, and after five days of watching and bidding in the last ten seconds of the auction, I lost. I thought all hope was gone, and continued searching for another Bravo, despite having my heart set on that one. A day later, I got an email off the guy saying that because there was a scratch (a scratch!) down the near side of the car, the lad who had won the auction refused to pay the £410 he had offered. The seller then asked me if I'd like it for £375. It'd be stupid of me not to accept!Having owned a 2000 1.3 Ford Ka prior to this, I can safely say that the Bravo is substantially better, aesthetically and for driving. It's so big, though! I'm used to my dinky little Ka but I'm sure I'll get used to how roomy it is!
In comparison, the Ka was awful compared to the Bravo. Do not get me started on the numerous patches of rust it had. There are a few minor scratches on the Bravo, but you cant expect there not to be on an eleven year old car.
Got the weekend off work, so I'm using the time to start "modifying" it, albeit in really little ways:
- debadged the rear today. Didn't like the colour of the blue Fiat/Bravo logos against the black paint. Used boiling water as the hairdryer method seemed like a nightmare from what I've read in some of the threads on the forum. Didn't have many problems getting the adhesive off, got some ghostly outlining left though, so gonna have to T-Cut it tomorrow. Also need to see if the front badge can be taken off using the same method.
- filled in the rear scratches. Bought a touch-up pen from Halfords for £5.49 and it worked really well. Still got to do the rest of the body, although (unsurprisingly) a lot of the scratches are from where keys have rattled off the doors. Also coloured the rear keyhole black.
Tomorrow I'm going to spray the inner wheel arches,. I realized that the entire car must have once been a horrid purple colour and that a whole body respray had been done. They obviously missed some bits! Bought some spray paint from Halfords which'll hopefully match (providing whoever sprayed it in the past used Fiat black paint).
I'm then going to spray (or paint, depending on my patience) the grill black. I'm not a fan of black and silver on cars y'see.
I'm also going to paint my tyres black (again, purple paint is showing through
) and paint my wheel trims with luminous paint so that they glow in the dark but show up white during the day. Not quite sure how this'll turn out, but I can't afford alloys *sigh* and if it does go wrong or I get stopped by a bored police officer one night, these can always be replaced!Anyway! Just thought I'd write a nice little introductory thread here to talk about the beginning of what will hopefully be a rather enjoyable Fiat adventure as a newbie to the model!
I look forward to speaking to you all in the near future.
Denise
x
