Viewing 28 posts - 1 through 28 (of 28 total)
  • Living with a fiat panda.?
  • neilsonwheels
    Free Member

    Anyone had one as a daily driver.?

    bikebouy
    Free Member

    I read that as Flat Panda.

    I was going to say pump it up 😜

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    The wife had one for 4 years and only swapped it last year for a Fabia as she is doing more miles now, and my boss has had one for 6 years*. Perfectly fine cars and cheap to run. No problems with ours.

    *He bought his to save petrol on local journeys – his other cars are a Porsche 911, BMW 3 series and big Merc S Class. The Panda is the car he uses most!

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    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    I’m sure Hora bought one. Is that something you want to think about every time you get in it? 🙂

    tdog
    Free Member

    Be ready for a black eye 😝

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    A colleague has one.

    It’s been a reliable, simple car for doing 15k+ a year in. It’s got character. Very functional.

    We fill our cars with lots of wet kit for outdoor learning, officials en back seat down and to the roof. He has small dog too. It’s not had an easy life.

    It feels like being in a Tupperware, with tinny stereo and 1990’s seats. It’s also prone to side winds and wandering on motorway as trucks pass etc.

    He swapped with his dad’s Suzuki SX4, which he finds a much nicer place to sit. But he still would have the Panda if it wasn’t for the longer journeys he does for work…

    breninbeener
    Full Member

    Is there a prefered engine option?

    Anything to obviously look out for?

    My daughter will be looking for a car soon….

    petec
    Free Member

    i have a 59 plate, so not the most recent style.

    it’s only the second car, and generally used to get me to work and back (20 miles each way).

    There are two routes; one in the valley, and one in the hills. It can struggle a bit in the hills (especially with more than one person in). The valley route i can cruise at 60mph with no issues.

    And I get c55mpg, it’s small, feels nippy (probably as it’s small and close to the action), has aircon, radio etc. It does the job. Can be nerve wracking on the motorway (shudders a bit at 70mph). It’s only got four seat belts. It’s great for nipping around towns, or a quick 5 mile trip to the shops. Had it 5 years, nothing really gone wrong. It’s also cheap, and basic, so I don’t really care about damage

    Put it this way, when I actually have the choice of which car to drive to work, I will use the panda.

    Most importantly though I can get a roadbike in by only taking the front wheel off.

    db
    Full Member

    Daughter had one for years and father has one currently. Fantastic cars. Wheel at each corner means parking is a breeze. 1.2 engine just seems to run and run on basic maintenance. Easy to work on, only issue we had was with wipers – dry ball joint had caused wear and kept popping off in heavy rain! In the end bodged it with a small bolt.

    Del
    Full Member

    rented one for a few days when my van was broke. ‘uncomfortable biscuit tin’ is my lasting impression. there are far better cars out there.

    rhid
    Full Member

    I had one for a fair few years. I put a roofrack on it and it was great for getting about in. You can fit quite a lot in it. Bikes in the back are a bit of a pain hence the roofrack. I took mine all over the UK to races with bikes, camping equipment and other people etc and never had any issues at all. I quite liked it! I had an 06 1.2l petrol one. It was never going to win and drag races but it did for me round the hills and lanes of north wales!

    Nico
    Free Member

    there are far better cars out there

    RS6?

    hot_fiat
    Full Member

    What age are you looking at?

    My mum has had a 56 plate 1.2 since new. Its only just starting to go wrong with occasional electrical gremlins. Otherwise it’s been fun, economical and practical motoring for her.

    FIL has had several. The last two being mk3 0.9 twinairs. Theses are great if you drive them economically, but will happily guzzle fuel at low 30s mpg if you press on. The later of the two has the duallogic auto box. This is beyond crap. Avoid.

    Other FIL had a 100hp for a while. That was great fun, though the ride is hard. Even coming from my Abarth I thought it had a hard ride. Properly good to drive though.

    You can easily get a bike in either a mk2 or a mk3. Heck, I’ve regularly had two bikes in the abarth & the panda’s load space is cavernous in comparison.

    oldbloke
    Free Member

    In our drive there is an 09 plate Panda with 32k miles on it waiting to go to the scrappy.  Snapped axle which is apparently a fault so common I can’t get a replacement from a scrappy.  More to fix with new bits than the car’s worth.

    Malvern Rider
    Free Member

    Have a dualogic semi auto Dynamic on an 08 plate.

    The good: Roomy inside and surprisingly comfortable for what it is.  Cheap motoring on the whole. As others say, my medium mtb goes flat in the back with front wheel off.

    The bad: Hairy at times on twisty roads if forget what it is yr driving.  Damp weather seemed to make electrics do odd things ie shifting to neutral (old-school local mechanic sprayed the neutral switch with water-displacer and it was ok again) power-steering warnings come and go.

    Ours seemed to suffer wishbone and subframe problems so the weatherproofing is not the best. As permoldbloke’s experience, the rear axle failed most recent (May) MOT so now selling it on as a project.  Apparently this is common.

    hot_fiat
    Full Member

    Yep, rear beam corrosion protection is awful. Even the abarth’s is pockmarked with surface rust & it’s only 18 months old!

    GavinB
    Full Member

    MrsB has had a 4×4 Mk3 for about 5 years now, doing about 12,000miles/year.  I test drove the diesel and the 0.9l petrol, and settled on the petrol as it was much more lively.  Economy isn’t amazing, although emissions are low, so £30/year VED.  It gets used daily as a commuter car and everything else you need a family runabout to do.  The 4×4 capability is really very good – I’ve driven a lot of Land Rovers, Nissan Patrols, Toyota Landcruisers etc and although there is no low-ratio option, the Panda is so light, with narrow all-season tyres, it just scoots around quite happily in the snow, mud and ice (in rural Aberdeenshire).

    Would we buy another?  Probably not.  Downsides are that it has a tiny boot and driving comfort is pretty bad.  The air conditioning doesn’t work anymore, as it was almost causing the engine to stall when it cut in.  A tiny fuel tank also means that you’ll be filling it up (with about 30-40l of fuel) quite regularly.  No electric windows in the back.  Oh, and when you stick full beam on, you’ll need to avert your eyes from the dashboard as the blue headlamp light is incredibly bright!

    hot_fiat
    Full Member

    oldbloke Beams occasionally pop up on fleabay:

    I tend to go looking on ebay.it for fiat part numbers as availability is much better over there. This you can find from eper the digital parts catalogue. Fiatforum have a version ported to a web server. I used to have a copy myself, but it’s now hideously out of date. 51856917 is the current part number. About half a day DIY would see it sorted. The most miserable bit would be the brakes which are like a badly executed Turkish Rolex copy to work on. Everything will have corroded in place – particularly the ABS sensors and wheel slave cylinders. Handbrake requires skills of a bomb disposal expert and strength of a gorilla.

    mrmonkfinger
    Free Member

    Other FIL

    Two lots of in-laws?

    Tough gig man.

    DrJ
    Full Member

    Eats shoots and leaves. Allegedly

    CountZero
    Full Member

    There are some rough parts where it eats, shoots and leaves. Allegedly.

    timber
    Full Member

    Have a 100hp that the wife mostly uses, better than we expected for a small car. Quite happy to pinch it for a razz to the shop, not lots of go, but quite fun, especially keeping off the brakes. Pretty easy to work on, most faults are battery related with the exception of the beam mentioned above.

    PiknMix
    Free Member

    I have a 53 plate twin air 4×4 and if you leave the eco button off its bloody brilliant.

    I do a 65 mile round trip daily commute in it and if it ever goes bang then I’ll be getting another one. It’s really quite capable off road as well.

    sbob
    Free Member

    Nippy just means slow.

    100Hp is less than a 26yr old Rover 214.

    55mpg is achievable in the above, except the Rover provides much greater comfort.

    Shit cars all in all. 🙂

    pondo
    Full Member

    Mrs Pondo had an 08 Multijet from new for, ooo, about seven years? Mega car, we’d go camping in France with two bikes on the back, bit of a squeeze but eminently doable. “Nippy” enough to be entertaining (not sure what the textbook defintion of slow is, but it had enough poke to be fun to drive and lose your licence), not an agile handler although it went round corners well if you leaned her in early enough, and she was comfy over distance as well as cheap to run.

    regenesis
    Free Member

    Oldbloke- could be interested depending on where you are.

    ivantate
    Free Member

    Great fun.   Later 1.2 in the boxy shape are probably the best value.  They had a bit more power and go well.

    We we had an 05 multijet ‘Sporting’ for a number of years, took it down to its homeland at one point.

    Had a dodgy key switch and a weepy water pump.  Both only took about 30mins to sort out each.

    Swapped it for an Idea, due to child seat space needed, and found something that was essentially a bigger Panda but handled worse.

    hp_source
    Full Member

    I have a 100hp…. it’s my second one, it’s great fun…. nippy not fast, not amazingly comfortable but it’s not about that. It just drives so well.

    It’s the second car and does about 5000 miles a year. It’s been cheap to buy, run and maintain, does 40ish mpg or a bit less on a spirited B road jaunt.

    For reference we have a new shape Golf Estate as car number one, and given the choice I take the Panda whenever I can.

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