Fiat Punto 1.3 Diesel

willham

Hi folks,
Has anyone any experience of these cars? I'm currently driving a 2007 1.6 petrol focus, but need to downgrade and get something more economical on juice. I've found a 07 Grande Punto 1.3 Diesel emotion for €7950. If anyone has any info re reliability etc I'd really appreciate it. Or if you could recommend anything else that would be great too.

Cheers.

cantdecide

The first thing that comes to mind is that you'd want to be doing a LOT of weekly mileage before it would become viable to change from a 07 hatchback to an 07 hatchback. In the real world, a modern 1.6 being driven responsibly would get maybe 38-40mpg. The likes of the Punto would probably get 45-47mpg. IMO, whatever you'd save in fuel would be lost in depreciation. I have a 2.0 petrol at the moment and I know that although, it's relatively heavy on juice to most tastes, there's a huge element of better-the-devil-you-know. If you were determined to change to an oil burner, personally, I'd recommend waiting and doing it as part of an upgrade to a newer car.

We have a couple of Doblos here at work with that engine and they're ok to drive. They are pretty quiet and fairly refined. I do actually believe they're not a bad engine to do longer distance with compared to equivalents. Finding the 'sweet spot' in the rev range takes a while. The power comes in one lump.

colm_mcm

I think you're being a bit mean with the mpg on the fiat

si_guru

A mate of mine had the Corsa CDTi and he rated it.. i drove it once and it seemed nice enough.

Did you consider a smaller petrol car? I have a FIAT 1.2 that does 50mpg no trouble and once rented a Peugeot 107 that did over 55mpg around Paris! (was a hoot to drive too!)

willham

cantdecide wrote: »

The first thing that comes to mind is that you'd want to be doing a LOT of weekly mileage before it would become viable to change from a 07 hatchback to an 07 hatchback. In the real world, a modern 1.6 being driven responsibly would get maybe 38-40mpg. The likes of the Punto would probably get 45-47mpg. IMO, whatever you'd save in fuel would be lost in depreciation. I have a 2.0 petrol at the moment and I know that although, it's relatively heavy on juice to most tastes, there's a huge element of better-the-devil-you-know. If you were determined to change to an oil burner, personally, I'd recommend waiting and doing it as part of an upgrade to a newer car.

We have a couple of Doblos here at work with that engine and they're ok to drive. They are pretty quiet and fairly refined. I do actually believe they're not a bad engine to do longer distance with compared to equivalents. Finding the 'sweet spot' in the rev range takes a while. The power comes in one lump.

Cheers for the advice really appreciate it.

BJ2007

cantdecide wrote: »

The first thing that comes to mind is that you'd want to be doing a LOT of weekly mileage before it would become viable to change from a 07 hatchback to an 07 hatchback. In the real world, a modern 1.6 being driven responsibly would get maybe 38-40mpg. The likes of the Punto would probably get 45-47mpg. IMO, whatever you'd save in fuel would be lost in depreciation. I have a 2.0 petrol at the moment and I know that although, it's relatively heavy on juice to most tastes, there's a huge element of better-the-devil-you-know. If you were determined to change to an oil burner, personally, I'd recommend waiting and doing it as part of an upgrade to a newer car.

We have a couple of Doblos here at work with that engine and they're ok to drive. They are pretty quiet and fairly refined. I do actually believe they're not a bad engine to do longer distance with compared to equivalents. Finding the 'sweet spot' in the rev range takes a while. The power comes in one lump.

i disagree. i recently changed from a 1.4 petrol honda civic saloon to a Renault trafic 1.9d van and noticed a big improvement in mpg, and i only cover approx 10k miles a year.

and not to slate the civic, as i was already getting good enough mpg in that.

i was unsure of changing to a diesel but glad i did. changing to diesel in these times is worth it in my opinion.

willham

si_guru wrote: »

A mate of mine had the Corsa CDTi and he rated it.. i drove it once and it seemed nice enough.

Did you consider a smaller petrol car? I have a FIAT 1.2 that does 50mpg no trouble and once rented a Peugeot 107 that did over 55mpg around Paris! (was a hoot to drive too!)

At this stage I'm considering anything! Have you had any major problems with the fiat? I know they had a bad rep in the past, but I assume they're ok now?

NIMAN

Read these:

http://www.whatcar.com/car-reviews/used/fiat/grande-punto-hatchback/summary/25553-5

http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/reviews/fiat/grande-punto-2006.aspx

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/articles/2007/06/cars/fiat/grande-punto/fiat-grande-punto-1-9-multijet-130-sporting-car-review

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/carreviews/usedcartests/208711/fiat_punto.html

http://www.usedcarexpert.co.uk/cars/fiat/punto/advice/fiat-grande-punto-1-3-multijet-75-dynamic/4302/

Anan1

BJ2007 wrote: »

i disagree. i recently changed from a 1.4 petrol honda civic saloon to a Renault trafic 1.9d van and noticed a big improvement in mpg, and i only cover approx 10k miles a year.

and not to slate the civic, as i was already getting good enough mpg in that.

i was unsure of changing to a diesel but glad i did. changing to diesel in these times is worth it in my opinion.

How much money were you saving per 10k miles?

si_guru

willham wrote: »

At this stage I'm considering anything! Have you had any major problems with the fiat? I know they had a bad rep in the past, but I assume they're ok now?

To be fair my FIAT is only 1 year old.. no problems at all.

BJ2007

Anan1 wrote: »

How much money were you saving per 10k miles?

not sure of exact figures but im not having to visit the petrol station as often.

50euro (38 litres) of diesel gets me about 10-11 days.

Anan1

BJ2007 wrote: »

not sure of exact figures but im not having to visit the petrol station as often.

50euro (38 litres) of diesel gets me about 10-11 days.

The OP will need fairly accurate figures, along with the cost to change, to even begin to decide whether it's worthwhile.

MugMugs

Would you not get a good decent reliable VAG TDI for that budget? Nothing against FIAT but their legacy fails them somewhat.

shamwari

MugMugs wrote: »

Would you not get a good decent reliable VAG TDI for that budget? Nothing against FIAT but their legacy fails them somewhat.

And if you can look beyond that old stereotype, you might now find Fiat are a fine car.

I've experience of that 1.3 diesel. It doesn't pull till it hits 1800rpm and then it absolutely flys. Regular oil changes are utterly essential with these so make sure it has FSH. Apart from that, I rate them too. Great car, and because of the naysayers against Fiat, they are excellent value for money too.

I should add that in the GM installations, I would be more wary because they were sold with a much longer service interval than the Fiat. Once servicing is adhered to, the Fiat should be ok

MugMugs

MugMugs wrote: »

Nothing against FIAT but their legacy fails them somewhat.

shamwari wrote: »

And if you can look beyond that old stereotype, you might now find Fiat are a fine car.

I've experience of that 1.3 diesel. It doesn't pull till it hits 1800rpm and then it absolutely flys. Regular oil changes are utterly essential with these so make sure it has FSH. Apart from that, I rate them too. Great car, and because of the naysayers against Fiat, they are excellent value for money too.

I wasn't being down on them.

I've no experience of Diesel FIAT's. Any experience I do have of FIAT's was bad but that was a few years back and I didn't drive my cars with TLC back then either.

si_guru

Ford use the FIAT Diesel too.

coolbeans

NIMAN wrote: »

Read these:

http://www.whatcar.com/car-reviews/used/fiat/grande-punto-hatchback/summary/25553-5

http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/reviews/fiat/grande-punto-2006.aspx

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/articles/2007/06/cars/fiat/grande-punto/fiat-grande-punto-1-9-multijet-130-sporting-car-review

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/carreviews/usedcartests/208711/fiat_punto.html

http://www.usedcarexpert.co.uk/cars/fiat/punto/advice/fiat-grande-punto-1-3-multijet-75-dynamic/4302/

I wouldn't take notice of any of these particularly that from the useless "What Car". They're grand from a raw data POV if you're buying new, but apart from that I've found them utterly useless to the point of spreading misinformation through hackneyed journalistic generalisations. If you want a car, pick it on its merits and look up the data re reliability and known issues from fleet owners, dedicated forums etc. Those links are beyond useless when buying secondhand.

coolbeans

si_guru wrote: »

Ford use the FIAT Diesel too.

Do they? In what?

shamwari

MugMugs wrote: »

I wasn't being down on them.

I've no experience of Diesel FIAT's. Any experience I do have of FIAT's was bad but that was a few years back and I didn't drive my cars with TLC back then either.

Well you'll be pleased to hear that they are massively improved compared to their earlier brethern. That 1.3M-jet first appeared in the Punto in 2003 and is still going strong today. All Grande's are more reliable that the MkII Punto it replaced, and even so, the Mk2b Punto (facelift from 03 on) had a lot of the gremlins of the earlier Punto's sorted too (particularly the PAS motor)

Incidentally, I've a relation in the UK that has a Grande Punto with a 90bhp 6-speed 1.3M-Jet. His description is that it is obscenely fast

si_guru wrote: »

Ford use the FIAT Diesel too.

Correct! In the Ford Ka.

ShiresV2

cantdecide wrote: »

The likes of the Punto would probably get 45-47mpg.

I suspect you'd get that out of the 1.2 8v petrol Punto, nevermind the diesel, as long as you don't drive like a tool.

shamwari

ShiresV2 wrote: »

I suspect you'd get that out of the 1.2 8v petrol Punto, nevermind the diesel, as long as you don't drive like a tool.

I get high 40's out of mine in mixed driving.

Mr Benevolent

Wait, there's a 90hp Ka? I want one.

road_high

Does this not seem a tad overpriced, nearly 8k for 4 year old supermini? Granted it's diesel but it's not in the new tax regime even.

shamwari

Confab wrote: »

Wait, there's a 90hp Ka? I want one.

Ka and Fiat 500 are almost the same

cantdecide

ShiresV2 wrote: »

I suspect you'd get that out of the 1.2 8v petrol Punto, nevermind the diesel, as long as you don't drive like a tool.

I had one. I took it handy. I never got more than 42/ 43 mpg. Both of our Doblos never get more than high forties and our MD drives one; very carefully.

The point remains, you're going to have to do a lot of miles @ 10mpg to justify downgrading your car and the risk of buying someone else' problems.

@OP: how many KMs are you travelling annually? How many l/100km or mpg are you actually getting from your car?

MugMugs

They were the first direct injection oil burners too :pac

CiniO

From what I've found.

Average fuel consumption
Grande Punto 1.3 Multijet - 4.7 l/100km
Focus 1.6 Duratex - 6.7 l/100km.

Thats average figures, assuming you do some city driving and some country roads driving as well.

At current prices 1.5 petrol, and 1.42 diesles,. you get cost of 10.05 euro per 100km in focus, and 6.67 euros per 100km in punto, which makes a saving of 3.38 euros per 100km.

I don't know how much you drive per annum, but assuming it's something like 15k kms you can save about 507 euros per annum on fuel.

willham

First off, thanks a million for all the replies. Can't believe it's over two pages. To answer some of the questions that have come up:

I do about 10-15k per year. The fuel consumption thingy on my dashboard tells me I'm getting 7.1-7.3ltr per 100km.

With regard to the price, now that I've done a bit of research it is a bit overpriced. I saw it in my local garage and thought it seemed like good value for a 07 diesel, but I've since found similar models (albeit with higher mileage) for less.

shamwari

One bit of advice: haggle!