Fiat: Crap or Not?

I have a friend who has been in Afghanistan for the last couple years. He's been home a month now and I finally got to talk to him for a descent amount of time the other day. He just bought a brand new Fusion SE and was showing it off when we got into the conversation of new cars. I made the comment that my wife really likes the new Fiat 500 and that started a little argument.

Side note: My friend thinks he knows everything and because he worked at a Chevy dealer 15 years ago as a porter/oil changer, he thinks he knows everything about cars.

He's telling me that the Fiats are POSes that break down all the time and fall apart. He claims that he sees them "broken down" on the side of the road in Afghanistan. He also tells me that the British Soldiers have nothing good to say about them and blah blah blah at that point I zoned out.

I on the other hand have not heard any problems with Fiats (except for minor crap like the seat adjustment handle breaking off), especially the 500. They have been on sale now in Europe for 3 or 4 years? Nothing has come across the automotive media that makes these cars sound like they're breaking down all the time or falling apart from the showroom floor. I actually told him this, he wasn't sure how to respond.

I know we have 1 or 2 people here that own them and a couple more that have driven them. Any opinions or issues that you've had?

I'm sure the Fiats he saw broken down were all late model cars that had be properly serviced and driven on good roads right? 3rd world beaters are not a fair comparison to anything. Granted, I know little of the new models reliability but would treat it as any other new car. Give it a few years and see what sort of a track record develops. Besides, I'd have a hard time taking car advice from someone "showing off" a Fusion.... Not trying to bash the guy, just sounds like we'd have different opinions when it comes to cars. My thanks to your friend for his service regardless though.

Fiat is known for making small, affordable cars that put Italy back on the road after WWII. Surprisingly, they were not all built like a Grosser Mercedes. They also had issues with labor during the 70's, like every other automaker on the planet. Surprisingly, their quality might have suffered a bit, just like everyone else. They also make cars for the European market, but exported to the US for some additional profit. Surprisingly, not all of their cars translated to the US market perfectly.

I'm no Fiat guy, but casting aside a car brand on rumor an innuendo alone seems dumb to me. That said, the 500 is way overpriced.

Gearheadotaku wrote: . Besides, I'd have a hard time taking car advice from someone "showing off" a Fusion....

Bahahaha! They are nice cars, but only the small engine in the base model comes with a stick... like too many other cars...

As for Fiats, I don't know, but my wife likes the 500 a lot.

pinchvalve wrote: That said, the 500 is way overpriced.

I'm curious to ask why you think it's overpriced? The base model starts off at $15,500. That's about where I would expect it to start at in price.

yeah, even nicely equipped, the Sport Model I'd want is only $18k, which is less than a similarly equipped MINI.

I think their quality is vastly improved over the 1970's, just like pretty much every other manufacturer in the world.

I like the new 500 but I don't think I will ever get one since they are using J Lo in their commercials. I don't want to be associated with that crap.

The Fusion is a great car. I'm a Ford guy, but the new Fiat has a great reputation. I wouldn't call it junk.

nervousdog wrote: I think their quality is vastly improved over the 1970's, just like pretty much every other manufacturer in the world.

Exactly.

Fiat made some advances in the late 60's and early 70's that their market wasn't quite ready for. For instance the 128 was pretty much the cheapest car you could buy in the US and it was the first really cheap car to use a timing belt. They had a low service interval and needed to be changed every 25K miles. A lot of the people who bought 128's because it was all they could afford didn't neccesarily have the money to do the prevenative maintenance so a very large amount of these motors suffered bent valves.

I hear about these piece of E36 M3 Fiats needing head replacements at 40K miles every damn time I go to the gas station in mine.

Yeah they rusted. But so did everything else.

In 1967 the fiat 850 made more hp per cubic inch (53hp out of 52cu/in) than most other passenger cars avaliable at the time and it sold for $1250. So yeah a 40K mile rebuild schedule would be the obvious penalty.

What Gearheadotaku said.
Been to Afghanistan. Let's see now. Lack of parts/service, lack of good/decent roads, lack of care (both service care and careless what happens to it) is rampant there. Nothing last very long there because of the abuse. Seen new pickups trashed over there. Wouldn't count on what someone seen in a third world country that is also at war count for anything about how good a car is.

My parents had several fiats when they were newer, the only one that wasnt reliable was a beater 600 bought for well under $1k. Its the same problem as any cheap car, people buy them and dont maintain them, then blame it on the car when something breaks. Lots of people hate italian cars anyway for no real reason, when i used to have a milano once a guy in a automatic 240sx with mismatched wheels told me that I was crazy to buy an alfa becasue he had been to europe and heard they were known for quality problems, and i should have bought a well made car like a 6 cylinder jaguar. lol

^Not to knit pick Travis, but isn't that the Milano that you sold for $900 after sinking 10k into it?

I'll be watching the 500's pretty closely - I'll need to take one for a test drive one of these days.

Yes, the milano was a worthless car and the parts were too expensive. I wouldn't say it was horribly unreliable, the only mechanical problem it had when I sold it was the transmission input shaft seal leaking. For someone with more money to spend on it, a less abused one would not be a bad car. I still dont think a 70s XJ6 would have been a better choice though.

I would not trust what the brits say about cars anyway. They still have a very much UK centric view on anything not made there.

This coming from some friends who are either living in or are from the UK.

One friend of mine over there has a malasian car. When she got into an accident, she was given a 500 (base model) for use while her's was being repaired.

She hated the 500 and could not wait to get back into her (much) cheaper car because she knew it

2 things wrong with your friends "argument":

1.) Comparing cars that are a FEW years old, maintained by folks who don't see a lot of cars, and driven on roads that are basically strings of bomb craters (see, I can make stupid generalizations, too) is like comparing apples and watermelons.

2.) While I really like the British, and most of their cars, any country that thinks a Rover (be it a Rover sedan, Land Rover, or Range Rover) is THE paragon of automotoring....well, it was back in the '70s and even the late '80s that the British thought ALL Japanese sedans were crap. The possible exception? The Celica All-Trac.

I've been reading CAR for nearly 40 years, the British have auto biases, and I would imagine many other forms of bias, that would make a pickup truck driving redneck seem like a piker.

integraguy wrote: and driven on roads that are basically strings of bomb craters

That's not a generalization, that's fact silly

Yes, those Fiats are rubbish. Just ask my friend Jim Magill, who drove a crappy little Fiat Panda from the UK to Morocco: Fiat to Istanbul

As for the Milano, I worked for the dealer when they were a couple years old. While I won't tell you we didn't do work to them (stupid leaky timing belt tensioners being one item), they really were quite good cars. The 164 that replaced it was even better, but we just couldn't sell the darn things next to our Saab line.

integraguy wrote: 2.) While I really like the British, and most of their cars, any country that thinks a Rover (be it a Rover sedan, Land Rover, or Range Rover) is THE paragon of automotoring....well, it was back in the '70s and even the late '80s that the British thought ALL Japanese sedans were crap. The possible exception? The Celica All-Trac. I've been reading CAR for nearly 40 years, the British have auto biases, and I would imagine many other forms of bias, that would make a pickup truck driving redneck seem like a piker.

Don't necessarily confuse the UK press (or sections thereof) with what the people there think. It's not as xenophobic as it was 30-40 years ago (mainly because the journos that are now working in the Automotive press there only caught the tail end of the manufacturing decline when the Japanese cars were a lot better than the UK-built ones) but there's still a bit of "Made in England" going on there.

The man on the street probably likes his Ford or Vauxhall, but you see a ton of Japanese and Korean cars there. The "car scene" also isn't split into quite as rigid factions as you seem to get over here.

That said, cars in general don't seem to be that well looked after over there in terms of oil changes etc as they are here with the 3k quick lube that most people still do. As one hack put it over there, a lot of people think that "maintenance is something that their fathers fail to pay their mothers".

nervousdog wrote: I think their quality is vastly improved over the 1970's, just like pretty much every other manufacturer in the world. I like the new 500 but I don't think I will ever get one since they are using J Lo in their commercials. I don't want to be associated with that crap.

I wouldn't mind being associated with dat ass.

Seems to me, in years past, that the issues with Fiat were as much with crappy dealerships and their service departments as anything else. I also seem to recall that parts sometimes took ages to get. So, sometimes a minor issue kept a car down for WAY longer than it should have. Hopefully, they are better prepared this time around.