Friendly Fiat dealers for all your needs

Advantages: friendly, cheap (for a car dealers), do as they say
Disadvantages: depends on the car, sometimes they are visited quite often

...can't really miss the showroom, seeing that there is a ruddy great aeroplane on a pole in their grounds. The dealership used to only deal with Fiat on the site, but has since added Alfa Romeo and Nissan to its roll of honour. Anyway, let's look at the dealers in terms of various attributes: SETTING As I said, on the northern edge of the twin towns of Hastings and St Leonards on Sea, a bus ride from the town centre, about 3 miles I would say. The setting is quite nice, although there is an industrial estate nearby. There is also a large Tesco Superstore 5 minutes away by foot along Churchwood Drive, so if you are staying a while (they normally look at servicing or fixing any car), you could nip in there and have a cheap breakfast, buy a newspaper, add to your DVD collection, buy a lottery ticket and do the week's shopping, though...

Nolly 17.09.2002 · Read review
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Review of Fiat

Fiat. A good deal?

Advantages: Competative prices, Service with a smile.
Disadvantages: After sales niggles.

...My old Mondeo was on her last legs. Bless her! She had been a good old bus but enough is enough. I have a fifty mile round trip everyday to work,a very modest budget,and a need for car with a reasonable amount of warranty to a allow for trouble free motoring. I couldn't afford a new family car so decided to go for a "supermini". After baulking at the price of nearly new Fiestas,Polos and even Fabias, i found myself on the forecourt of my local Fiat dealer, T.J.Vickers of Telford Shropshire. I was really in two minds about buying a Fiat. I had heard the old joke Fix It Again Tomorrow , a play on the first letter of each word, but liked the look of a six month old 1.2 ELX Punto which was on sale for £ 2,300 below its new price. A salesperson finally approached me. I relayed my concerns about Fiats reputation .He dealt with my...

moodyman9 15.08.2005 · Read review
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Review of Fiat

The Fiat Punto - An ideal First car!

Advantages: Cheap to run and Fun to Drive, Excellent Value for Money
Disadvantages: Safety, Style

...I began driving this time last year and my first car was and still is a Fiat Punto 1.2 S, T-reg 1999, 3 doors. For a student such as myself, I would say that it is an ideal first car to have and I have thoroughly enjoyed driving it. It is not lightning quick and insurance is cheap! Obviously because of the age of my car, it is not going to set the world on fire, but I have been very pleased with it so far. I paid £750 for it from an auction and two years previously it had been bought for £4,200! Luckily for me, it has so far been very reliable and I hope that it will last me until next year when I will sell it before I go to University. Ride Quality Obviously, the car's ride quality is not awesome compared to most modern cars around today. But if you can't afford to spend loads on a set of wheels, the Punto offers a very good...

sbutler1 02.11.2006 · Read review
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Review of Fiat Punto 1.2 

Living and driving with Fiat Punto

Advantages: Economical and spacious
Disadvantages: Heavy steering and noisy at speed

...Why, of all the cars on the market did I choose to buy a Fiat Punto? I have to admit that I only considered this car because I had been driving one on hire for a few months. When I looked at the vehicles available, Fiat seemed to offer good value. Have I come to regret this decision? I bought an ?98 registered vehicle in early 2000, and have driven about 16,000 miles since that time. So what are the pros and cons of this vehicle? This isn't the current model, but the immediately previous one wnich is very commonly available second hand. Firstly, I should say that I am married but have no children and virtually all my mileage is from my daily 50-mile round trip to work. Most of my driving is on the motorway with a few intervals of stationary urban traffic. Pros ? Decent fuel economy, not the best in class but I return about 43...

pauljm 16.03.2001 · Read review
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Review of Fiat Punto 1.2 

Fiat Stilo Problems

Advantages: Nice drive, lots of space, tons of features, fuel on motorways
Disadvantages: Too many computer problems, fuel in town driving

...My experience with my Stilo, which I bought 4 months ago, is somewhat depressing. I have had it in the garage 3 times now. Shortly after I bought the car it started to report airbag failure and also told me, mainly at high speed, that my engine had failed (scary!). I took it into the fiat garage, who cleared some errors off the computer and replaced the sensor on the passenger seat - £180 Next visit to the garage was a couple of months later when the computer light came on and told me I had engine failure, ABS failure and traction control failure. Took it to a non-fiat dealership this time who said it may need a service (and as the MOT had a week or so to run got both done). They told me the spark plugs were mashed even though it had been serviced only 1k miles and 6 months earlier - £150 Two months go by and it runs fine...

gavinburke 23.05.2008 · Read review
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Review of Fiat Stilo

1998 Fiat Punto 55 sx

Advantages: Parts are cheap, fuel efficent, drives well (when running)
Disadvantages: Car suffers mid life crisis after 40,000 miles.

...I bought this car for £500. It was a 1997 (R) reg Punto 1.1sx. It had 50,000 miles on the clock with full service history. I thought the car would be OK as the milage was quite low and there was only two previous owners. After a month of owning the car the heater matrix went. These cost £60 from fiat and about £300 to fit as the whole dashboard has to come out. When the matrix goes you know about it as steam starts coming through the heater vents inside the car. I fitted the matrix myself, the job wasnt hard but it was time consuming. The car lasted another 2 months when the engine started overheating, this was a blown head gasket. apparently punto's are known for this problem, they fail around 30 to 60 thousand miles. A month and half later the clutch went. two months later there was a water leak from the bottom of engine...

masterm1nd 29.10.2008 · Read review
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Review of Fiat Punto 1.2 

Fiat Panda 1.2 Eleganza

Advantages: Very small & manouverable, specious, superb visability, cheap to run
Disadvantages: Small boot

...earth, to a car that I could actually afford to buy and more importantly run. If there is a motoring equivalent of the sublime and the ridiculous, then the two massive VW's and the baby Fiat are it! And do you know which of these three cars was most fun to drive? Yes the Fiat Panda, 2004 Car of the Year - costing less than one sixth of the price The Volkswagens are big and impart a tremendous feeling of safety certainly. My everyday car, the Honda accord diesel in which we had travelled up from the south coast too has a genuinely reassuring feel of integrity about the way it drives, it too feels like a very safe car. Again however it is no lightweight, around 1500kg, when it comes to perceived safety there is no substitute for weight, or is there? My wife has a particular aversion to very small cars. Coming from Poland, where...

RICHADA 25.04.2005 · Read review
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Review of Fiat Panda 2003

My experience with Fiat dealers.

Advantages: Nationwide dealers, a model to suit every need. Good warranty.
Disadvantages: Shockingly bad after sales/ customer service.

...Its a shame that Fiats always get slated in the press, and by and large are regarded as unreliable. It is my belief that Fiats are great cars but are let down by their dealerships. As a Fiat owner I have almost two years experience in dealing with Two dealers in London(DESIRA, HAYES AND THAMES, SLOUGH.) Unfortunately the experience is not good at all. M car was purchased from Thames, and up to the point of driving the car off the forecourt the experienvce was very good. But six months into ownership things started to go wrong, the first and most important issue was with the cars front tyres, both were worn out on the inside edge after only 12000m(purchased 6 months old with 7000m on the clock). Initially the dealer was was fairly helpful, in providing a courtesy car, and repairing the car under warranty.(paying for 50...

katkoh1 02.12.2004 · Read review
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Review of Fiat

Fiat's Piccadilly Motors, Wakefield - excellent!

Advantages: Friendly service, straight and to-the-point, little pressure
Disadvantages: Distance from home

...I am a 17 year old first time car buyer and have 2 parents that are equally inexperienced in buying used cars, therefore I felt my only option when getting my Panda was to go to a dealership. I was reccommended this dealership as my boss at work's sister's friend works there, and my boss herself has purchased cars from Piccadilly previously and enjoyed the experience! Wakefield is a train ride away for me, but was well worth it as they had around 5 Fiat Pandas inside and outside the showroom for sale, and after 2mins of sitting with a salesperson they had knocked off £500 for me! I simply stated my budget, the engine size I wanted, colour, and extras, and he found me one immediately and knocked down to price to be affordable to me! Me and my mum had a little sit in it, me in the driving seat of course, and a general look around to see...

skye_hoppus 18.08.2006 · Read review
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Review of Fiat

Expensive Fiat problem!

Advantages: Economical and not too expensive. Cheap insurance and tax
Disadvantages: Read review for power steering problem!

...I bought my Fiat Punto privately about a year ago when it was 2 years old. It was a a few months after this when I was out for a drive, that the power steering warning light came on and remained on. I took it to my local Fiat dealer for a diagnostic check and it revealed that the power steering pump needed replacing, the cost for this work was to be the best part of £1000.00. Unfortunately, the car did not have a FSH when I bought it and so when I approached Fiat to request that they pay for the repair they refused. My argument was that irrespective of whether the vehicle had a full service history, the car was virtually brand new, and such a failure occured because of a manufacturing fault. I did have to rectify the problem at my own expense which has tainted my view of Fiat. However, the car itself is a very tempting option...

barley5 22.04.2006 (24.04.2006) · Read review
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Review of Fiat Punto 1.2