2004 Fiat Panda - How bad are they? Any other Suggestions?

[gtd2000]

A friend of mine is looking to replace her Peugeot 106 on a 51 plate which has now accumulated some 118,000 miles and still drives well.

 

She's thinking about getting another car as a replacement and basically it needs to be something with a reasonable amount of space and fairly fuel efficient.

 

Cars that come to mind are the Honda Jazz (2002 onwards), KIA Picanto, Hyundai Getz, Toyota Yaris but I spotted a low mileage Fiat Panda with only 20,000 miles on it.

 

This type here:

 

 

I'd normally run a mile from a Fiat any day of the week but how bad are they really? The Peugeot has also been pretty reliable on the whole and only required a few odds and ends during its 4 year ownership including; Cat, brake cylinders and rear exhaust section and a few tyres.

 

Any other suggestions for a cheap to run tardis?

[rml2345]

I think that shape Panda would be an ace wee runaround but have no experience of them really...

James May to the front desk?

[gtd2000]

I'm sure I read something about the Panda sweating coolant out of the engine blocks a few years ago.

 

There appears to be two camps with regards to Fiat ownership around these parts:

 

A. Great car and nothing ever went wrong with it.

B. Awful car that forever had problems and I'm glad to see the back of it and had to sell it for buttons.

 

Choice A would be good at the right price of course

[Cavcraft]

My dad had one for a couple of years and loved it. Can't recall him having a minutes bother with it either. I think FIAT got their act together in recent times and I'd roll in one no danger.

 

I expect if you Google any new/ish cars you could find faults so I wouldn't worry too much.

[Rocket88]

My mum's got one, she loves it, and it's not a bad car at all, seems well screwed together, and they are cheap new, so s/h prices are sensible. She had a Yaris before she got the Panda, I hated it, especially the "looking down a coal hole" instrument set-up. Funnily enough, the Panda actually seems to be better built.

[fiatdaft]

Great wee things,but obv a 8 year old used car can have some character!

[eddyramrod]

Andreas had a couple of these on his rental fleet. One's still available, on its last season I think, his wife is driving the other as her daily. He's never mentioned any problems to me, in fact he seems very pleased with them. And that's in holiday-rental use, so they are going to get fairly abused on a regular basis. We were considering one a few years ago when we bought the Suzuki Ignis; dealer proximity was an issue for us. Suzuki dealer was around the corner, Fiat dealer was in Wigan. But the Panda was a very strong contender otherwise. I've had a few older Fiats, and we've had three Puntos (00-06 models) as rentals and been happy with them. Journos seem to favour the diesel, but I would advise petrol; it's relatively straightforward I think, nothing to cause much worry.

 

I'd call a small Fiat a default choice in this sector. Good luck.

[Father Ted]

obv a 8 year old used car can have some character!

Spoken like a true car salesman

I woulnt do your job for a gold clock - twunts wanting a "brand new" car for 12' & 6d

[cort16]

I like them and haven't really heard anything bad about them. It's seemingly the car that pulled Fiat right out the shit.

The 100hp is supposed to be a right larf.

[Spiny Norman]

I think a lot of the problems that type of car (mingebag Fiats, Kias, Hyundais, even Corsas etc) have is that they tend to be bought on finance by people who really can't afford a new car, and they never get serviced and consequently go pop after a few years of neglect.

I've known a couple of folk whose attitude to looking after a car before the MOT is 'it's a new car, it doesn't need a service yet' and after it's 3 years old, 'it gets MOT'd every year, that's a service isn't it?'

 

I've had a couple of new-ish Puntos, looked after them and never had a bit of bother with either of them, and I can't imagine a Panda would be any different. I'd have one at the right (IE cheap) price.

[fiatdaft]

Funnily enough ,i have never sold a new panda on finance,its been all the auld yins with out of date notes that have been stuffed under there mattress!

 

The last of the old shape we have at £6k the oldies love em!

[clarkey]

they are generally ok ish.. that particular age can have lots of trouble with a few things though.. depending on whats fitted to whichever one you are looking at......panda/puntos suffer from steering column faults if it has the electric "city" mode button and the repair when it goes wrong ie:stops working , can be anything from 500 to best part of a grand to fix and needs coding to the car using fiat tech equipment... its an mot fail item to if it doesnt work and has the fault light on... they suffer from electronic clutch issues to.. if it has only 2 pedals but a standard gearshift the system is known for many faults, and very expensive to fix.. most people have it converted back to a standard clutch pedal but is still expensive.. also they can suffer with injection faults which can be expensive as most of the injection system comes complete meaning if only a small item fails you have to purchace the whole manifold assy with it in..

[ProgRocker]

The last of the old shape we have at £6k the oldies love em!

 

An excellent buy, sir. Cheap compared to the Nissan Pixo/Suzuki Alto and Hyundai i10.

[Father Ted]

Personally (if there is nowt wrong with the 106) I would stick with that til it breaks.

That said Im saving my pennies to replace my K11 with an Alto 4Grip

[Lankytim]

Ive delivered loads of these pandas and can confirm they are great to drive, comfortable and frugal. They seem very reliable, too. I'm looking into one when the disastra explodes.

[Morgan84]

Only one thing to watch out for - electric power steering faults. Other than that,they don't rust like Fiats of past years did,and are well put together - perfect little town car

[oman5]

If its any kind of recommendation, Clarkson absolutely loves them. They do a pretty nifty 4x4 version too

[Vin]

I don't have any experience of these myself, only the first lot...

 

Originally, Fiat were going to call this car the 'Fiat Gingo', but Renault objected so Fiat named it after the car it was replacing...quite rightly too IMHO.

 

It was always recognised that from the start they would have to do a 4x4 version. I always thought it was a shame we never got the 1.3 diesel version of the 4x4 in the UK.

[KruJoe]

We did get the diesel 4x4, when they face-lifted it to look like a plastic French microcar.

 

 

The earlier ones are well fit though. I would.

[Vin]

Ah. That's a Panda 'Cross' - I didn't realise they came in diesel flavour in RHD. Originally, Fiat only offered the RHD 4x4 in 1.2 petrol saying they couldn't engineer the diesel to RHD...

 

I quite liked the 'Alessi' , I've seen only 1 in the flesh - the modern day 'Sergio Tacchini'...

 

 

[gtd2000]

Well despite the feedback on the Panda It's looking like the Honda Jazz has moved into first place on the wanted list.

 

The Jazz certainly has the punters looking, even with mileages well into the 6 digits!

 

Problems that are known include gearbox input shaft bearings and dodgy rear wheel bearings...

 

Appear to sell for strong money as well.....

[Volksy]

My Fossils have a Jazz, and it's been GR9, I had one as a company pool car a couple of years back, and it was entirly 'adequate' although they have a tiny fuel tank, which meant I was constantly filling it up on a cross europe journey I took it on. They drive brilliantly, in an efficient way, and are ultra reliable. I just find them a tad soulless.

[KruJoe]

An early 'modern' Jazz is a super little tool, especially in CVT flavour. Any normal automatic will feel flawed and compromised after driving one.

The fuel tank is under the front seats enabling the back seats to do clever things.

Prices remain strong, but they've more or less stopped depreciating.

[gtd2000]

I've found a couple of candidates for the Honda Jazz option.

 

A 1.4 DSI SE with 87,000 miles on the clock, FDSH, just had both wheel bearings done (which would have been done under warranty supposedly with less than 100k and FSH) for £1600 - I orginally thought this was overpriced but it looks cheap compared to most adverts!!! (the book suggests around £1300~1400).

 

A 1.4 DSI S with 67,000 miles FDSH, just had the input shaft bearing replaced, advertised for around the £2k mark. The bummer here is that this very car sold for a maximum of £650 (the asking price subject to offers) with a whining input shaft bearing...and I was going to buy it to repair but was gone within hours of listing!

[gtd2000]

Perusing Gumtree tonight brought up a Suzuki Ignis in five door format.

 

Any opinions on those?

[hhhugues]

Its only small, what harm can it do ?

I really like these things, if i was in the market for a modern small car, i'd go straight for one of them.

Also, this might be controversial, but my parents have been running a 2001 brava diesel for a few years now and apart from the comedy cosmetics its been completely reliable. Apart from the periodical warning light / power restraint thing coming on (yeah, i know - dad can't be arsed having it looked at), it's all right to drive. It's never broken down and they have stacked up MILES on the thing.

I myself had a marea for a while (as mentionned on another thread), proper banger state, drove it to france twice, to spain once, with no issues whatsoever. Eventually the clutch went and with the million other niggles there had been since i'd bought it (for £400, and thats about 5/6 years ago), it just wasn't worth fixing. Had it been a tempra, different story obviously, but hey...

What i'm trying to say is, Fiats get a bad rap, but they're ok things really...

[Justin Case]

Tell her not to buy anything without first looking at the Yaris. It has a sliding rear seat so you can have either small passengers/large luggage or largepassengers/small luggage. They are also reliable and cheap to run; our friends have a nine-year old 90,000 mile example they bought new and it does 50+ mpg and has only needed the normal replacements (tyres, brakes, etc) in that time.

 

Most cars in that bracket should be OK, it really comes down to a matter of personal preference. I think the key things to look for are a low number (no more than two) mature but not ancient owners (bye bye Jazz ), a complete service history from day 1, and obvious signs of being well-cared for. There are plenty of cars like this about but be prepared to travel; it is amazing how many people turn their nose up about a really good buy because it is 40 or 50 miles away.

[eddyramrod]

Perusing Gumtree tonight brought up a Suzuki Ignis in five door format.

 

Any opinions on those?

 

 

Yes, definitely. We bought this one new in 2006 and kept it until we moved in 2009. It's a base-model 1.3, the only extra specified being a towbar. Totally recommended. Totally. The only slight grumble I had was the folding of the rear seat. You can drop the backrest onto the base, but then the base is fixed, doesn't fold anywhere. That seems a bit dumb to me. CD player, power steering, leccy windows in the front, central locking; overall, perfectly adequate, and with a hint of the peculiar Suzuki exhaust note that sounds so much bigger and more powerful than it really is. Parking is easy as the rear of the car is almost as flat as a Volvo estate, just a whole lot closer to you, so you can keep backing up with confidence. We did long trips in it, the pic above was taken in Inverness and it had been down to Portsmouth too. Comfy, perfectly powerful enough, and capable of a frankly astonishing amount of stowage if you want to do boot-sales for example. Buy now.

[Morgan84]

My friends son bought a 2003 Honda Jazz 1.4 DSi SE to replace his 97 Escort,and although he's by no means a fast driver,found it to be hopeless when it came to performance;acceleration is a joke,and it isn't a free revving engine like Honda's usually are.Another friend who is approaching 70 bought a new one,but soon got fed up with its gutless performance,and replaced it with a Polo 1.4 TDi. The build quality is good,and they look very nice,but the engine lets it down;a 1.4 engined car of that size should be quite nippy,but sadly these are efficient,and not exciting. For those who love sadistic torture,they did a 1.2 version !

[rml2345]

Tell her not to buy anything without first looking at the Yaris. It has a sliding rear seat so you can have either small passengers/large luggage or largepassengers/small luggage. They are also reliable and cheap to run; our friends have a nine-year old 90,000 mile example they bought new and it does 50+ mpg and has only needed the normal replacements (tyres, brakes, etc) in that time.

 

I'd agree with that! Mine has done 164,000ish miles in 9 years and apart from general wear and tear (and the EML thing, but we'll get to that) I can't fault it.

Worth finding the 1.3 petrol though as I'd imagine the 1 litre to be quite miserable.