General My Grande Punto impressions!

[AppleSei]

Well i went for a butchers at the grande punto today as fiat were offering free food at my local dealers

There was 2 in the showroom, a 3 door sporting in new orleans blue and a 5 door dynamic in the white/ambeint colour.

The 3 door sporting looks pretty sweet, the front is absolutely gorgeous. Its not as ''sporting'' as i would have hoped, none of the silver dials etc, well not on this one, i agree about the plastics loads better but not as good as others. Boot space is good and the rear legroom is good. The interior is well laid out and all dials are easy to reach. Overall it is a

The 5 door, although not as nice as the 3 door, looks loads better than 5 door stilo. The dynamic they had in was with the sky blue type interior which IMO isnt the best colour choice.

Whilst i was in there i had a chat with the sales person, they have already had 14 pre orders on the grande punto since its launch and were pretty happy with it. He said the 3 door diesels will be the top sellers.

He said avoid the orange one with the orange interior as it will be a **** to keep clean and this will be the one that fiat will produce less numbers of.

He also said that stilo JTD sportings will be reduced to 10,000 in some dealerships to try and keep up with demand for the punto.

He also said it will be a minimum of 6 months before the 1.6 twin turbo grande punto will be released :yum:

Although i never got to drive one as the test vehicle was already being tested i fell in love with it and am considering the 1.3 multijet for the summer.

There was no brochures unfortuneatly for me to have, and they offered a very poor p/x against mine, the only negative side really

 

[MattCupra]

The 3 door sporting looks pretty sweet, the front is absolutely gorgeous. Its not as ''sporting'' as i would have hoped, none of the silver dials etc,

The sporting has White dials with red numbers & Needles, the rest have white on black.

 

[AppleSei]

The sporting has White dials with red numbers & Needles, the rest have white on black.

This one didnt, he said it was a sporting, but TBH i didnt think it was, but never questioned it as they are the experts apparently

 

[Bob in disguise]

was gonna say the sporting has the white dials, you sure it wasnt an active sport?

did it have the bolstered seats with the large cricles on?

 

[AppleSei]

Yes it did, he said it was a sporting useless ****

 

[Bob in disguise]

still dont answer my seats question

The dealer i was speaking to yesterday said he went on a training course on thursday and he took an orange sporting out, he said its an awesome car and it got loads of attention but he wouldnt have it in orange

 

[wotnowarninglight]

1.6 twin turbo Think I need one of those

 

[AppleSei]

still dont answer my seats question

I did i put 'yes it did' see above

 

[Bob in disguise]

Yes it did, he said it was a sporting useless ****

Ok was only asking

Strange that it had sporting seats but no white dials

If mine turns up now with no white dials i will not be happy lol

 

[AppleSei]

Ok was only asking

Strange that it had sporting seats but no white dials

If mine turns up now with no white dials i will not be happy lol

Whatever it was, it was stunning

 

[dan-the-man]

The 1.6 twin turbo sounds good to me

I'll have to start saving now

 

[H2DaE]

AppleSei, I don't think theres really a market for people doing impressions of cars. I mean, you look nothing like the Grande Punto!

 

[faster4_tec]

Dealers are more confused than any of us, whilst I was at sunderland fiat they said the petrol sporting was available right away and the diesel wasn't availble till summer. Although I could have an elaganza with the 120 diesel straight away.

Then another salespeep said that the diesel sportings would be enteringthe counrty early march, and the petrol sporting may not be out till august.

Then another salespeep never knew anything of the petrol turbo sporting and reckoned it would be like the panda with only a JTD engine for the sporting.

I think the latter two comments were more truth.

There won't be any sporting's ATALL in ANY showrooms, what you saw was probably an elaganza (ELX) which has all the kit, but only availble in the 120 JTD, and doesn't have the sporting suspension or dash board colouring (it wil have a seat coloured recycled plastic effect dash board insert), however it will have sporting bodykit and be availble in 3&5 door and have the seats from a diesel sporting (appartently the turbo will have a cool recaro seat affair, al la ford cosworth recaro's)

 

[Bob in disguise]

The dealer i spoke to had all of them in except the 120 and 130bhp ones and he wasnt getting those for another month yet, so i gotta go take a look at the sporting when it gets here

 

[serin]

im really disappointed by this thread..

i was expecting some impressions of Grande Puntos

 

[Gav]

I went to my local dealer (who I rate as poor), as I didn't want to drive to the betetr dealers in other counties! Didn't spend much time in there as I was a bit bored by it. I know most people here want 3 door, but I favour practicality, and so like the extra 2. The dealer had 2 of the 3 doors outside and 1 inside, no 5 door at all (unless it was out on a test drive). Sat in and what strikes me is the lack of storage places. The Mk2 was fantatsic for little spaces that I would use for specific things. But all I could see was think door pockets that wouldn't hold a bottle of water or more than a few CDs, let alone gloves, scraper and umbrella. And nowhere on the dash to put my shades.

I was always going to wait until the summer before evaluating the Grande, simply beacuse that's when all the extra bits arrive (dualogic gearbox, M$ comms and ents system etc). Also, I'd like the sub and tyre pressure monitoring on the 90bhp multijet, but it looks like that's not possible. I like the car, but it might be the details that stop me from buying...

 

[smurfhead]

I'm not surprised the dealership staff are confused. The manufacturers are good at it.

For example, with the Focus ST we were told on seperate occasions that we were not able to register them until January 06, then December 06, then January again and we were told that ST-3s would not arrive until March, they are here now to order.

 

[DanGil]

I hope they do the twin turbo punto, i've got to be honest i won't beleive it till i see it.

 

[Suasexed]

My local dealer said they'd be getting the Sporting in 2 weeks or so. They'd driven the Sporting in the orange and the chap said it looked suprisingly good...Still i'll be going for a red one. Can't wait to give it a blast as i was impressed with the 1.3 90bhp MultiJet and can only wonder what the 1.9 will be like!

 

[sassyboy]

AppleSei

I recommend you to arrange for a test drive eventhough you are thinking about summer purchase. I agree it looks good. The cornering is marvellous which I can only appreciate when I took it for a drive. I thought about many other supermini before I saw this car, now I just want this car only. So, I did, mine arrives next month - 5dr 1.4 Dynamic - jungle grey. I have to compromise speed with cost, otherwise I would have gone for the diesel.

By the way, I was told the skydome option isn't available at the moment. If you decide to buy in Summer, I really hope the option is there for you, it would be awesome!