General What is the difrance between a Fiat Palio and Fiat Punto?

[e_cag]

Hi all,

Palio is a car strongly based on Uno. I have my second Palio, so i think i have an experience based opinion on Palio and Punto. First, there are two (With Grande Punto, three) generations of Punto developed after Uno. Thus, one can expect much higher quality from Punto. However, Palio is a structurally strenghened Uno. So it has a tough and rigid body which improves ride quality. About the plastics, yeah palio has lots of cheap plastics which has vulnerable to scratch and looks and feels cheap. Also the carpets of early ones from 1998 to aprox. 2001 in Turkey were not of good quality. But mechanically Palios are very reliable cars, you can trust me on that.

Personal opinion:
İ wish i had the first generation of Puntos which were never imported here and whose design is up to my taste of clean lines. The second generation Punto is not my favorite due to its design and feel of quality inside the car.
Palio is incredibly cheap to maintain (actually it was not a bargain to buy here compared to the Punto - i can roughly tell when Puntos prices was 24-25000 money units, Palios price with similar accesories was 22-23000). So i had 160.000 kms on my first Palio and bought a new one. I sold the first one to a friend of mine who is also my mechanic and he is still pleased with the car.

Advice: I put the 35 mm-springs from Eibach to stop the tendency to roll and gained great road-holding ability.

Regards,


Emin

 

[(CZ)enda]

Emin, what engine was in your Palio?
Where was the car manufactured?

 

[cryptonx]

well I agree with EMIN on the reliability thing , and the cheap plastic stuff as well

however its not easy to mantain here , a front headlamp costing arround $200 , thats even more than a Mitsubishi Lancer / Toyota Corrolla headlamp !!

anyways the ride is extremely comfortable and on long ways its very cool , the palio is very well designed ( at least my Palio "2" is ) and has very good build quality on the outside , however its the interior and the inside of the car that suffered the loss of quality , its not that bad , but it could've been alot better .

My Palio is Palio 2 HLX - 1242 CC - 83 HP / 5500 RPM , comes with 14" alloys / hydraulic steering / 2 front electric windows / computer trip / code 1 keys and some other nifty features .

it is designed by Guigaro , built in Brazil ( even the Engine ) .
I am supposed to recieve it , this day or the day after ( after getting it repaired for over 2 months now thanks to the missing spare parts )

attached are 2 pics of it before the crash , and after the crash

 

[e_cag]

Hi!

I am glad your car has been repaired, Cryptonx. It seems like the body shop has done a very good job. I think we benefit from that Palios are produced in Turkey. A pair of headlamps of the last generation of Palios cost about130 US$. My car has the phase 1 body and if i have to, ı will pay about 60 US$s for a pair. Edit: (You can view the recent one here: https://www.fiatforum.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=12874)

(CZ)enda, my first Palio had the 1.4 lt 70 HP engine from Uno 1.4 SX, but with a different ignition system IIRC. That engine's been out of production since 2002 in favour of the 1242 cc 80 hp unit. My second Palio, which i really anjoy a lot, has the 1.6 lt 103 HP that's been also used on Marea's and Bravo's. 1.6 unit is really powerful for usual driver and also powerful enough for fast sprints.

By the way, i must admit that with the third make-up Palio is really developed in terms of quality inside. Altough full textile doorcards are not my favorite since they look harder to keep clean, upholstery, carpet and plastics are of much better quality now.

 

[michale]

Hi, do you know of a dealer here in the U.S.Thanks, Mick.

 

[cryptonx]

Sorry Michale , I don't think there's any FIATs in the US . Even if you visit thier website www.fiat.com , you won't find a website for the united states

The only place you're going to see a PUNTO ( The new Grand Punto ) in the USA , is by purchasing NEED FOR SPEED : Most Wanted its very low rated there but its a nice looking car .

 

[Steven]

Hi, do you know of a dealer here in the U.S.Thanks, Mick.

There are none, Fiat don't sell cars in the USA.

 

[FIATBrazil]

I have a Palio too, is a 1.4 fire "FlexFuel" here in Brazil Palio have 3 diferent engine: 1.0 Fire, 1.4 Fire or 1.8 PowerTrain (made by GM), we can use 100% gasoline, 100% ethanol or any combination of this fuels.
Brazil was the firts country have this kind of engine in the world, nowadays more than 75% of the cars sold here are "Flex Fuel", Fiat, GM, Volks, Ford, Pegeout, Citröen, Renault and Honda have the "flex cars fuel"
Only Toyota with corolla don´t start your "flex" cars, only in 2008.

The Palio project was purposed for "third world", and Punto for the "first World", they are "cousings" one poor (palio) and the other rich (punto).

Here in Brazil the cheapst Palio don´t have: ABS, EBD, Air Bags, Stereo, hidraulic steering wheel, power windows and other confort itens. Palio FIRE 1.0 8v engine came just with the essencial to drive.

 

[dilbert]

why didnt fiat just release half price puntos instead of the palio?

It's very simple: a "top version" of Palio coast around 10k dolars in Brazil to be made. Then, cames the problem: Brazil have some of the biggests taxes in the world. The final price of the car raises to something around 20k dolars (thing about a lot of taxes over taxes, it's terrible). Well, the industries don't have where to cut more coasts. The only solution is to made simple cars, using a lot of bad plastics, for example. It's sad, but if theres one to blame, it's not Fiat, but brazillian government.

 

[FIATBrazil]

dilbert: You are right about the taxes here in Brazil more than 45% of the price are texes, but not for the cars that Brazil export to othres contries.
To buy a brazillian car in your country is more cheap than here, for exemple: in Argentina to buy a Palio EX 1.0 FIRE (Made in Brazil) you pay US$ 7.500 but to buy the same car here i will pay US$ 9.000.
Our governament to FIATand others industries export cars to many contries he levy much less taxes of this cars go abroad to Asia, Egypt, Africa and South America.

Another thing is, FIAT produce safety cars, and the countries of the "third world" don't have money to pay for the tecnology like the cars have in the "first world".
This happens with cars made in Mexico, Argentina, Contries of East Europe (good exemple is Dacia Logan made in Romenia or Palio made in China), have the same or worts quality than the cars MADE IN BRAZIL.

I'm not defending the Brasillian industry, but reviewing all the "third World" context.

I'm fighting here for better cars, i hope the others do the same.

 

[Ahmeed]

Omatra Sucks, they dont have spare parts, dont have good technicians
the overall service is bad, even the selling price is very high according to other cars in the Egyptian Market
they recently launched the new grand punto with 1.4L engine and around 70bhp
for 99000LE very high price for poor old engine.
i would go for the Citroen C3 1.6 for the same price and hell lots of options

 

[Umut]

Hi everybody! I owned my second hand palio 1,3 multijet engines 4 months ago. First I was planning to buy a punto. But it was hard to find a punto here and palio is more common. I drove both of the cars. Punto looks more quality than palio but mk3 looks better than punto now. The performance of Punto was better but the engine and tyre noise is much more than palio. Palios handling is now better than punto. But I have to say that it needs suspansion equipment.