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Mrs oilrag breezed in, tossed her Home Care uniform into the washer and headed for the bathroom. Just the job, I thought.... i could do an interview on her new car while she is a captive audience.
"How do you find the new Panda, now it`s run in" --- " IT`S SLOWER THAN A COCKOACH!!"
Oh, dear - shouted a little and I caught that rare edge of emotion coming through ..Gulp.
"Anything else, Mrs O?" --- " It only has one door lock and the drivers backrest won`t fold back"
Leaving the cockroach to rest for a moment, I explored the last two comments.
I saw the lack of a lock on the passenger door as a good thing. something less to oil and if a new lock set were ever required - it would cost less. (as it seems Fiat ony sell complete lock sets) But Mrs O, sees you as being cheap-skate, Mr Fiat. And i bet you never thought that someone would want the drivers backrest to fold forwards, on a four door car either - so they didn`t have to open two doors to put extra stuff on the floor behind the front seat...
Returning to the cockroach claim now, which I had challenged, having had one of those mental images where a giant oriental cockroach - like a brown shivelled carrot on legs - had overtaken the Panda on the M1 while it was doing 90mph.
There was a snort of derision from the bath. "look I know them, what they can do, I grew up with them"
Actually there was one in the fridge on holiday and it slid out on it`s back twitching after us switching it on when we arrived. They are quite good looking really, very functional in an insecty sort of way - when you look closely and you could get them to keep still.
Should Fiat be going for `cockroach brown` in their colour palete then? Perhaps a proboscis shaped grill and shimmering wings attached to the roof, instead of the roof bars?
" It`s slow away and has no go" (Echoed from the bathroom)
Oh dear.... It should be said at this point though, that Mrs O wants a Ferrari - would settle for a large Audi - but found a Grande Punto far too big - before buying the Panda...
Anyway, she seems to be right because comparing the speed over the ground - and in particular away from a standing start, the giant oriental cockroach can move it`s own body length in a fraction of a second, where the Panda cannot. (It`s a slug away from lights compared with the old `torque by cylinder capacity under 1,000 revs` 1.9D.)
It`s reported to be "great on ice and snow" and first experience of a car with ABS was very positive. The high driving position is liked, along with light controls and a heater that is hotter than the one in the old, 1.9D Punto - which it replaced.
The first - out of the box- fuel consumption figures on that multi stop-start home care running was 47mpg - contasted with 51/53mpg on the old diesel. I was amazed the Panda did so well, at temperatures down to -6c too, at the time of measurement.
looked at from my own perspective. This car will be serviced entirely by me, there is no aircon to go wrong, the Fire engine is easy to service and it had that non- interference cambelt design, that of course means no damage if the belt snaps.
It seems a good decicion to snap cars up with this well proven engine - as the more complex and possibly more potentially repair expensive new engines are surely almost ready to be fitted?
It looks great in white too, I`ve offered to to spray it with Flit to see if it will go any faster, but that has been declined.
oilrag
Edited by oilrag on 01/04/2010 at 09:11
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