Educate me! Fiat Panda info required.

[Crusty Sills]

My mate is looking at Fiat Pandas for his daughters first car. 

Said I would help but know nothing about it them.

So what to look out for? Are higher mileage cars an issue? Any help appreciated. 

 

[Ian_Fearn]

Which version? 141, 169 or 319

[Crusty Sills]

Newer shape 03-12 169 I think with a insurance friendly engine. 

[crapcarcollector]

Brilliant cars. Rot rear axles out so check where the spring sits. Can shit head gaskets.

Otherwise pretty hardy.


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[Ian_Fearn]

You really can’t go wrong with a good 1.2 petrol 169.

I have a 169, it’s fun to drive, dirt cheap to run and solidly built.

The rear axles do rot out but they are about £150 plus labour to change. Non interference engine so cam belt changes are less of an issue, saying that cam belt changes really are as easy as they come.

Engines will do 100k plus. If it sounds healthy, it probably will continue to be so.

Batteries need to be good otherwise powersteering faults abound. Other niggling faults do exist but these are solid cars.

I prefer the pre Euro 5 cars, more to tax but just seen a bit more willing.

[Cavboy80]

A mates other half has a 57 plater and other than servicing it's been a decent little shoe in the 6 years of ownership.

Mechanically they're pretty basic and uncomplicated, as stated by crapcarcollector they can rot their spring pans on the back other than that just check the usual stuff.  

[Mrcento]

It's a mega easy job to do timing belts and HG's on 8v Fiat engines.

When i used to work on them a lot, i got a belt change down to around 15 minutes.

Head gasket (if you ignore time taking the head away to be skimmed), probably only 2-3 hours. And that's including all the extras like draining, filling and bleeding the cooling system.

[Shite Ron]

I agree with the comments above, we got my mother one around 8 years ago and was so impressed that my girlfriend got one soon after we still have both with no intention of getting rid of them.They are great cars, so good I would not consider another modern small car, great on fuel and surprisingly competent on longer runs. During the lockdown all our newer car batteries went flat except the Panda, this started first time, I even jump started my works new Fiat Fullback with it!

We have 2008 and 2004 models, both 1.2 petrol.

[Crusty Sills]

Thank you all. Found these locally. 

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/748639405874696/

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/382538996040250/

Thinking the black has a better MOT History despite being 4 years older. 

Will ask for more pics though. 

[Bitzer]

The only special tool you need to fix OMGHGF is a torque wrench able to be set to 35 Nm, i.e. your generic €15 Lidl torque wrench starting at 42 Nm is useless. Anyway, my impression is that unless you seriously overheat the engine, HGF happens more or less depending on age (circa 15+ yrs), not mileage.

All my 8v FIRE engines survived the cars and all of them had more than 250 kkm (cannot be bothered to express this in Brexit units). I remember a member of local Fiat-dedicated forum reporting 480 kkm and still going strong.

Fiat clutches tend to fail between 200-220 kkm.

 

[Sir Chocolate Teapot]

As has been said already, the 1.2 is the engine to go for, here in italy i am surrounded by them and in 14 years here i have never seen 1 broken down or anyone have a bad word to say about them .

The same can not be said for the twin air jobbie.

[busmansholiday]

Bought an 04 plate one earlier this year pretty cheaply because the dealer CBA to sort it. Needed a bit if welding on sills and a decent service including belts which are really easy to change on the FIRE engines. Otherwise it's great, Mrs BMH loves it. Don't be put off if the EML is on. Clearing the faults doesn't turn it off, you really do need an Italian tune up to clear it.

[AnthonyG]

I presume the 1.2 being talked about here is the same as the one that went in 500s?

All the above about them being simple, reliable and easy to repair is music to my ears as my mum has just bought a 14 plate example.

Amusingly the ‘S’ trim one with alloys etc so definitely all mouth and no trousers with 69bhp - not that my mum will care!

[strangeangel]

I don't know what the model designations are, sorry... Our Lass ran an '06 1.2 petrol one for 11 years, getting it up to 160000+ miles in the process without major drama. It's still alive on this forum somewhere. She replaced it with a '16 plate Panda with the same 1.2 motor which is currently providing as little drama as its predecessor. They're uncomfortable, cramped and utterly miserable things to drive IMO (Our Lass would disagree, natch, but what does she know? She hates the BX) but if you want something as tough as old boots and cheap to run look no further.

[BeEP]

9 hours ago, strangeangel said:

I don't know what the model designations are, sorry...

Active (1.1), Dynamic (1.2) & Eleganza (1.2).  Plus specials like the Mamy & Alessi.  I'd avoid the Eleganza purely due to the heater/climate control set-up.  The spindle from the motor through the side of the heater box WILL break.  It's part of the heater assembly (not available separately), which is over £1000 and involves taking the dash out, which in turn means taking the doors off.  There is a company which says it has a workaround, or you can do what most do and bodge it to permanent max or min heat!

9 hours ago, strangeangel said:

They're uncomfortable, cramped and utterly miserable things to drive IMO.

There are worse cars, but I pretty much agree with that.  No feel from the steering (no worse than most of its contemparies though), clunky dash mounted gearchange etc.....

[motorpunk]

Daughter has one. She loves it. And I love it because it never goes wrong which means I don’t have to fix it. Economical, practical and, bouncy handling aside, isn’t bad to drive either.