Marxiexxx,
From what you say about overtaking power, you need a minimum of 100hp in this size of car.
An 80bhp car wouldn't pull its hat off.
|
|
Sister in law has a Stilo - it's a shed and has regular trips to the garage, just like every Fiat she has owned, but she is in the "Fiat trap" and has yet to see the light.
|
Personally, I wouldn't buy this car if it got up before me every morning and made me a cup of tea and breakfast.
It's so ugly I cannot understand why anyone would want to buy one let alone with the terrible reviews people have given it!
That car is scarier to look at than my mother in law.
|
You're mother in laws not for sale is she? what sort of mpg does she do?
Ok, thanks guys, people have slagged off the Stilo before but as it won't be an everyday car I was up for giving it a go. I thought it looked fresh as it was a 'new' model not one revamped every 4-5 years.
I was trying to avoid the obvious like the Golf/Fords/Vauxhalls.
Will look into Seat/Skoda/Pugs/Alfas.
Thanks for your posts.
Mark.
|
"People have slagged off the Stilo before but as it won't be an everyday car I was up for giving it a go."
I don't believe in slagging cars without cause, but neither would I put my own money into a Stilo now. They have a remarkable reputation for unreliability. I did cast admiring glances at them when new, however, when I bought the Punto which was my first car.
To be fair, the Punto (a Mk 1; my brother had a Mk 2 at the same time) was a sound first car, cheap to run and reliable, so long as you paid heed if something seemed amiss and didn't wait for it to break down first. Though the rate of faults increased sharply at 7 years old, which is why I got sold it on.
For looks, an Alfa 147 is an option (but again, read the CBCB - they need minding, so find yourself a specialist to maintain it). Be wary of the Pug 307, as far as I recall they had their share of faults too, including a spate of cars catching fire while parked.
|
|
|
|
Hi,
Well maybe I'm too used to my little Clio in which I've pulled off some momentous overtaking manouveres.
I guess also diesels still have flat spots when you floor them?
I'll look at 100bhp+ models.
Thanks.
Mark.
|
>>I guess also diesels still have flat spots when you floor them?
Yes some more than others especially if you don't have enough revs to hand. I used to have a Fabia vRS with the infamous all or nothing VAG power delivery . Remapping it transformed the power delivery across the rev range making it much more linear and of course faster.
I hired a Megane 1.5 dci 80bhp a while ago and was seriously impressed with the smoothness and power. The same engine in a Clio must go pretty well andf if not quite well enough, a mild remap with 20% power increase might be worth considering. Quite a few Clio 80 bhps around at your price.
|
I am thinking of buying one of these as a runaround for my Mrs. I can find plenty of 02/52/03 reg ones for £2K - £3K which seems good value, taking into account the MPG, lower tax cost / performance and space available for the price. I have done a fag packet calculation and worked out that the diesel is some £500 a year cheaper to run than a 1.6 Petrol, it is summarised here below, I have to disregard the 1.2 though as it is hilly round here and I can't see it coping.
Comparison of 1.2 vs 1.6 Petrol Vs 1.9 Diesel Fiat Stilo
Urban MPG 34 27.4 38.2
Cost of fuel / Litre 112 112 122
Cost of Fuel / Gallon 504 504 549
Mileage 10000 10000 10000
Cost per mile 15 18 14
Cost per year £1,482.35 £1,839.42 £1,437.17
Tax / Year D E C
145 170 120
total £1,627.35 £2,009.42 £1,557.17
Difference -£45.18 -£452.24
0-60 13.8 10.9 10.7
I have read some rather unfortunate reviews, but has anyone any really experience of them ? I have used one for a few weeks in Poland in the Height of summer when it was so hot that the roads actually melted 35 - 40 degrees heat, it never missed a beat, was genuinely good to drive, and the aircon was a godsend. Also they are popular in Poland where the roads are absolutely awful, but similar to Sheffield where I live, the roads here are atrocious.
If they really are that bad can anyone suggest a better alternative, Ie Citroen C3 possibly, that is equally as economical, good to drive and roomy ?
Cheers
|
|
Sister in laws is an 02 reg and its now at the stage where very few warning lights go out after the ignition is turned on. Wipers failed the other week when it was pouring it down and it's also having starting problems.
|
I wouldn't touch one. Honest John stuck the boot into the Stilo?
Look at the A Class Mk1 warning.
Having read the review I am incredulous that dealers are still asking £5-7K for the Schumacher Ltd. Ed.
£3K tops?
A friend has a leggy, well used Mazda 626. It's just had a big trip to the garage had the brakes and a rear shocker done. They upset the wiring and the TCS and other lights now come on. That's a Mazda that's been touched by a Mazda garage. If his Mazda is like that one can only wonder what a Stilo is like.
I have had a 127 and an Uno.
All those bells and whistles will just go wrong.
If you want a Stilo ask the dealer how much he'll give you to drive it away. Did they do the Stilo in yellow?
|
Oh Well
I Think we'll go for an Astra instead . . . .
|
I have a Stilo 115bhp JTD estate.
It is teriffic. Great fun, loads of power, excellent build quality, very comfortable seats, lots of room all round. The engine pulls like a train and is very refined and quiet at speed ? a very civilised and under-rated engine in fact. Cornering isn?t the best, but that?s a facet of the estate and not applicable to the 3-door.
It?s my 5th Fiat (127, Regata, Marea and Ulysse being the others), all apart form the beaten up 127 have been virtually faultless, save a broken cam belt on the Regata which didn?t turn out to be fatal, nor expensive to fix (and it was my fault not changing it soon enough).
Let?s face it, all makes and models have problems, I personally wouldn?t touch any ?premium? brand second hand as they?re over priced and hugely expensive to run.
My Stilo was a low mileage example (27k in three years) when I bought it with full history, and I?d recommend the car to anyone, provided they find a similar low mileage, full history example ? but that goes for any nearly new car really.
Stilo offers great value for money and the diesels are very economical and have remarkable low CO2 figures for their performance.
I would definitely say avoid the petrol models, these do appear to have more problems than normal and aren?t cheap to run ? but you seem to have worked that out already. I think the diesel Stilo is a bit of a secret gem second hand. However I would advise you to go for a less ?loaded? spec, mine is an ?Active? and is well enough specified but avoids the potential pitfalls of having too many electronic gadgets to go wrong. Fiat make fine, basic cars but when they overload them with technology they can have problems.
Fiat does have a poor reputation, but I think it?s undeserved in my experience and if you buy a Fiat wisely then you can?t go far wrong, especially given the price you pay second hand compared to other makes.
Have a read through fiatforum.com in the Stilo section, there?s loads of good advice there.
|
I had two Fiats in the late 1980s-early 1990s, a 1.4 Miafirino and a Regata 1.6S (the latter bought because the former proved excellent).
Both cars were kept for three years and the only "problem" I had with both was that the Regata (as was the case with all its variants) had brakes that offered no progressive feel, being either on or off.
Re the Stilo. I was looking at one about five years ago in a hotel car park whilst on a trip to Cornwall and thinking its front end was very familiar.
Then I realised it was virtually a carbon copy of one of the then VW Passat models...:-)
|
> Fiat make fine, basic cars but when they overload them with technology they can have problems.
The flaw in that argument is that all modern cars, from the most basic up, are loaded with technology. You can't really avoid it.
The days when the like of Fiat can get away with making their electrics out of bits of string and cancelled component orders from a ZX81 are long gone.
In my experience of over a dozen relatives and friends who have owned Fiats of all descriptions, they seem to run tolerably OK until they hit year six or seven then all hell breaks loose. I wouldn't want to be there quite honestly, especially when the Fiat's raison d'etre (being cheap) is matched by various Nissan and Korean alternatives that don't break nearly as often.
|
|
|
|
|
