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General A few more questions sorry..

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General A few more questions sorry..

Well i know the girlfriends Panda 1.2 is no sports car - it doesn't present many overtaking opportunities travelling up n down Wales. The 500 i tried seemed nippier despite minimal miles - be interesting to see how the 1.2 sport feels on Friday.

My other car presents plenty of overtaking opportunities with 300bhp but i hate using it to do 250 miles a week trekking through Wales. It also only shaves 5 minutes of the 122 mile journey compared to the Golf :D I guess the worst i will be in a 1.2 500 will be another 10 minutes extra.

Bring on Friday, and any further comments ;)
 
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percymon said:
Well i know the girlfriends Panda 1.2 is no sports car - it doesn't present many overtaking opportunities travelling up n down Wales. The 500 i tried seemed nippier despite minimal miles - be interesting to see how the 1.2 sport feels on Friday.
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Same as the 1.2 pop! There's is no difference in the cars other than spec. You'll notice the wheel is nicer than the one in the pop that Hartwell have.
 
306maxi said:
Same as the 1.2 pop! There's is no difference in the cars other than spec. You'll notice the wheel is nicer than the one in the pop that Hartwell have.
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Lol! i meant i wondered whether another 1.2 might seem slower or quicker based on variation in build or previous usage.

Been talking to my mate who had a 1.2 Grande Punto - he always had to plan overtakes and use 4th gear on inclines. He now has a 1.4 8V Grande and doesn't have the same issues now. Given the 1.2 500 and 1.4 GP have similar power/torque and the 500 has a better power/weight ratio i think i'll be OK with a 1.2. Would still like to try the 1.4 even if the mpg doesn't look promising - you can't have you fun and mpg i suppose :rolleyes:
 
The 1.2 is fun tho! If you doubt it, try driving in tandem with Lloyd for a 100 miles up the motorway... we did that on the way back from a recent meet and it was a hoot! That is until I eased off and let him go, to watch him disappear over the horizon!
 
nottsfiat07 said:
The 1.2 is fun tho! If you doubt it, try driving in tandem with Lloyd for a 100 miles up the motorway... we did that on the way back from a recent meet and it was a hoot! That is until I eased off and let him go, to watch him disappear over the horizon!
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Haha, that was good fun! I think we gave the bigger cars a run for their money! We certainly had no problems overtaking other cars and each other for those miles we were travelling together and I still got a good MPG readout despite putting my foot down in the end.
 
Lloyd71 said:
Haha, that was good fun! I think we gave the bigger cars a run for their money! We certainly had no problems overtaking other cars and each other for those miles we were travelling together and I still got a good MPG readout despite putting my foot down in the end.
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:yeahthat: Well obviously we know how to make our smaller engined cars sing, whereas other less skillful drivers have to rely on greater engine capacity ! :slayer:
 
nottsfiat07 said:
:yeahthat: Well obviously we know how to make our smaller engined cars sing, whereas other less skillful drivers have to rely on greater engine capacity ! :slayer:
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Having seen Rob drive on the Isle of Wight, I wouldn't quite go that far!

It was brilliant when me and Mark were blasting about the island because during acceleration we were perfectly matched but in the corners he pulled away due to his suspension and better driving skills!
 
Lloyd71 said:
Having seen Rob drive on the Isle of Wight, I wouldn't quite go that far!

It was brilliant when me and Mark were blasting about the island because during acceleration we were perfectly matched but in the corners he pulled away due to his suspension and better driving skills!
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Yeah I was just trying to big up the 1.2 posse! :D All the engines are good in their own ways, its down to what sort of driving you do and personal preference. You cant beat trying them out to make your mind up really, if there are 500,000 ways to personalise your 500, there are almost as many opinions on it! Its one of the things that makes this forum so lively.
 
don't get me wrong - the 1242 is a great engine and my Cinq Sporting track car has one in it putting out 80 bhp, has been used and abused for 7 years and thrived on it

glad i have the 1368 16v in the 500 though, the way it revs and screams is just so addictive, and such a contrast to my last italian daily driver an Alfa 156 2.4 JTD

thats the great thing about the 500, you can specify exactly how sporty or luxury and budget or expensive you want it - as you can tell, the more hardcore the better for me!

i will get an Abarth 500 essesse soon enough, and then probably modify that - I enjoy getting the most out of cars and tailoring them to suit

it's great to see the enthusiasm of other owners for their 500s
 
OK, I had a 1.2 Panda but we changed that for an SLK which we got rid of after 8 months due to gearbox & roof problems and I got a 1.4 500, my OH has a 1.3 Grande Punto 90bhp diesel.

Anyway, my 1.4 lounge is 1 yr old tomorrow and I have done 12,500 miles which are a mixture of town, country and motorway miles. On average I get around 42-44 mpg and I went for the 1.4 over the 1.2 as I assumed the 500 1.2 would be similar to the Panda in terms of performance, which was OK once you got the speed there but due to higher revs was a bit noisy. As for the 1.4 500, well that is still a bit noisy on the motorway but not really more so than the GP but driving wise, we both prefer the 500 and it feels much livlier now than when I first got it.

As an example, if you click the sport button (standard on 1.4) then it is far more responsive and great on the motorway, none of the lag that I got with the Panda when you put your foot down, but naturally not as fast as the SLK!

After a year am I glad I went for the 1,4, even given the higher tax (£120 for the year) well yes I am. Not really had any problems so far other than the usual flashing mileage occasionally and the drivers side mirror wasnt fitted correctly on delivery.

My suggestion would be to take both cars on the motorway and see how they feel, assuming that you do some motorway or country road driving? I would have gone for the 1.2 if I mainly drove it in town though.

Anyway hope you are happy with whatever you get
 
Shawny69 - its good to hear from someone with very comparable cars, my weekender is a 987 Boxster S.

Well stood like a prune in the middle of an empty Fiat dealership this morning waiting to be noticed (only one there). Eventually i spotted someone who turned out to be my contact, he'd ignored me twice desipte knowing he had an appointment at 9am :mad:

So off for test drive in 1.2 Sport - after 500 yards on the road, i notice it has a 6 speed gearbox :rolleyes:. Oh well !!.

So my impressions..

..sports seats are really nice, plenty of side support and under thigh padding. Just enough headroom without the glass roof (i'd tried the ByDiesel in the showroom whilst waiting and my head rubs on the blind (with seat on lowest setting).

Leather/fabric looks more robust than the lounge checkered trim which i'm sure would be filfthy after 6 months in my hands :(.

Ride quality OK on 15s and road noise OK too although it was running on Dunlop Sport 01s which are known to be quiet tyres.

Performance was OK, nothing really spectacular (i forgot about the sport button :bang: ). Was pretty slow pulling away from junctions, maybe i just needed a few more revs rather than being gentle with it. The engine didn't seem that willing to rev at any point in the rev range, not too bad from 4k-6k but still the rev counter was a bit slow. Car only had 1800 miles on the clock so obviously still tight. Tried to measure some in gear acceleration as a comparison to my old Golf TDi. From 30 to 60 in 3rd gear seemed to be around 9seconds - the Golf can do it in 8. The 500 is a little slow to get going at 30 but after about 45mph it was on par - figures entirely in line with the differences in power plants, and had i started in 2nd and changed to third i'm sure it would have been like for like.

Brakes - hell they were sharp, and people say VW brakes are sharp ! Didn't notice this on the 1.2 Pop is drove so maybe the bigger brakes ?

Annoyances - a metallic tingle/rasp at times - maybe an italian exhaust system, but more likely something metallic resonating under the rear end somewhere.

Overall - Great little car, nice to drive , ride and noise was fine for me. Bit disappointed it wasn't quicker though, certainly didnt feel much quicker than the 1.2 Pop and not what i thought 100bhp in 900Kg would feel like.


So conclusion is if i'm going for a 500 then i need the 1.4 engine, i really couldn't put up with a 1.2 in A/B road driving. Funny thing is i ran a 1.3Ka for 10 weeks once and my recollection of that was it was pretty punchy, although overtaking was often a challenge !

So need to find a dealer to discount so i can get a 1.4
 
Melanabb said:
Just a quick observation: if it was 1.2 (as they said) then it can't have 6 speed gearbox. So it must have been 1.4...? I'ma a bit confused now. Which one did you actually try?
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Yeh me too but then he said its got 100Bhp so I assumed he was talking about the 1.4 in fact. I don't understand why the :rolleyes: about the 6 speed gearbox though- I love my 6 speed box! True though the 1.4 does feel a bit lethargic when it's new but after about 4,000 miles it was like somebody had flicked a switch over to warp drive.... well not quite but you get what I mean. It definitely improves with time.
 
Melanabb said:
Just a quick observation: if it was 1.2 (as they said) then it can't have 6 speed gearbox. So it must have been 1.4...? I'ma a bit confused now. Which one did you actually try?
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I think he/she mis-typed it as the post mentions the 6 speed gearbox and then at the end says "Bit disappointed it wasn't quicker though, certainly didnt feel much quicker than the 1.2 Pop and not what i thought 100bhp in 900Kg would feel like."

I swear mine takes less time than 9 seconds to get from 30-60 in 3rd!
 
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