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Grande Punto My 2008 Eleganza :D

Introduction

I just thought I'd share a picture of my pride and joy. I've had it just over a month, and it's absolutely superb!! :D
My grandad has just traded in his boring, soulless 2011 BMW 520d for a 2012 Volvo V70 D5, and he took me out for a drive in it yesterday: got to say, it's seriously nice! Bearing in mind how much the motoring press loves anything with a BMW roundel on the bonnet, the interior of the Volvo is absolutely miles better than the 5-Series, and better looking on the outside too.

My Grandad let me have a go in the V70 yesterday: my god, it felt weird, lol! After being used to 77bhp with a manual 'box, driving a 215bhp diesel 5 pot with an automatic was quite an experience, lol! The Volvo was surprisingly nice to drive, but it was nice to get back into my Fiat again. :)
 
My grandad has just traded in his boring, soulless 2011 BMW 520d for a 2012 Volvo V70 D5, and he took me out for a drive in it yesterday: got to say, it's seriously nice! Bearing in mind how much the motoring press loves anything with a BMW roundel on the bonnet, the interior of the Volvo is absolutely miles better than the 5-Series, and better looking on the outside too.

My Grandad let me have a go in the V70 yesterday: my god, it felt weird, lol! After being used to 77bhp with a manual 'box, driving a 215bhp diesel 5 pot with an automatic was quite an experience, lol! The Volvo was surprisingly nice to drive, but it was nice to get back into my Fiat again. :)



Swedish design, I suppose it’s what the Germans aspire to [emoji6] but of course the Swedish have soul!
 
I quite like SAABs. From what I understand, despite what GM kept telling them, they tweaked all components they were given to use, lol!

With regards to the Volvo, I don't know what the difference in price was when they were new, but the V70 felt like a much plusher, far higher quality car than the 520d did!
 
I drive one everyday :D. A 9000 at that so pre-GM stepping in. 240hp is quite entertaining but hurts the wallet a bit and clutch is knackered but its still a Saab so worth it :p

I had a 900, my father had a 900 and a 900 classic. The 9000 was a shared platform with fiat (croma) and Lancia (therma) great looking car and I’ve driven a couple but not the 240hp version.

I loved Saab, if they’d not gone bust I’d have bought a Saab cabriolet instead of my golf.

My father still drives a swede in the form of a Volvo C70 D5. It’s a lovely car and looks great.
 
We were passengers in my nans' facelift model Mk2 Focus today: I was actually shocked by just how cheap and nasty the interior was!

I agree ford interiors are cheap, not what I’d call nasty (not pretty mind) And although you’ll never see it through your rose coloured spectacles, the interiors of fiats are much cheaper.
 
Admittedly, I would say my Grande feels plusher inside than that focus did, but taking any possible biase out of the equation, the focus should still be better inside: whilst hardly as expensive to buy as a 1-Series, it still wasn't a cheap car brand new.
 
Admittedly, I would say my Grande feels plusher inside than that focus did, but taking any possible biase out of the equation, the focus should still be better inside: whilst hardly as expensive to buy as a 1-Series, it still wasn't a cheap car brand new.

Having driven both a Grande and Mk2 Focus..

The rose tint is strong..not to say either is particularly good or bad but ford started taking perceived quality at lot more seriously at the mk2 focus and it's pretty decent for the era in which it was built if dull in the pre facelift (with amazing plastic wood in my dad's Ghia) and covered in silver plastic in the later ones. Both were far better in my opinion than the weird Nokia 3310 inspired centre dash in the mk3.

The GP interior..well at least you like it.
 
I looked it up, that focus cost my late Grandad around £17.5k brand new: even my parents mk2 Corsa is far nicer inside!!

As stated the rose coloured spectacles are strong with this one.

The corsa was always a cheap car.

Now on talking about the cost of the grande, yours would been around £10,700-£11,000 back in 2007, taking inflation into account it would be a £14k car in today’s money, and the current equivalent punto is about £14k

Even a basic Ford Focus would have quite a lot more gadgets and gizmos than the punto, even the newest puntos are fairly poorly specc’d by other manufacturers standards and even by new fiat standards. So the price difference is easily explained
 
Not being funny here, but you're talking absolute nonsense.

How so?

Things turn in to arguemeents because you make absolute statements and then get upset when someone contradicts you.

Go tap some numbers into an inflation calculator and look at the price of the new punto in equivalent spec, both come out at about £14k
 
It's nonsense because I was talking about a 58-plate Focus, and you've started talking about the prices of 2018 Puntos...

I'd imagine that back in late 2008, a £17,500 Astra, Megane or C4 would've had a far nicer interior than that Focus.

End of discussion.
 
It's nonsense because I was talking about a 58-plate Focus, and you've started talking about the prices of 2018 Puntos...

I'd imagine that back in late 2008, a £17,500 Astra, Megane or C4 would've had a far nicer interior than that Focus.

End of discussion.

It seems your opinion of the ‘niceness’ is the issue here rather than quality, something can be bloody hideous and still be of quality. Equally something can be the best looking thing in the whole world and be shoddy and badly made.

So Ok in the interests of not turning this in to a 15 page argument where you take any comment as persecution, I’ll let it go, it really isn’t worth the hassle.

But I have to ask, if you’re so bloody happy with what you’ve got, why are you constantly trying to compare your car with every other car out there? It doesn’t seem like you can say something about your own car without having to draw a comparison with something else.

You can be happy with what you have and still be able to appreciate other things for what they are. Happiness is not spending your whole life trying to put everything else down, to elevate your own beliefs(y)
 
Remove yourself from the exhaust of your OLD punto and remove those rose tints...

Having owned a fair few fiats around 9-10 years back and having driven several Grande Punto's, I can tell you the interiors are badly made and pretty rank to be honest.

The Focus mk2 has one of the best and solidly built interiors of its time and class. In 2008 a mk5/H Vauxhall Astra had a terrible quality interior.

I can also guarantee you the interior of my 2010 Fiesta is superior to yours in every single way.
 
I'm just going to throw this out there but I quite like the Grande's interior... Despite it being my least favourite of the 5 cars I've owned to date. Its not brilliantly put together but I found it at least visually appealing, it was nicer than my sisters 2008 Corsa at the time however not as nice as my Dads 2005 Vectra (not saying I like Vectra's here, quite frankly think they are :yuck: )
 
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