Fiat Panda (2004 - 2011) 1.2 Eleganza 5d Owner Review
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In their own words
A nice car, attractive to look at, well built and finished, it drives well and is nippy enough. Well conceived storage and seating, comfortable aside from the offset pedals which I find get my back after a while driving it. Worth considering, but choose the version VERY carefully.
The one we bought, the ELEGANZA model with automatic climate control has a potential failure of a small piece of plastic that works the heater flap. Repair will cost well over £1000, so I'd avoid it. Sorry, due to that Fiat has lost me as a customer. A suggestion from someone else: If you have a working climate controlled system you should avoid enabling the heater while the fan is on. The amount of torque required to change the "flap" is high which likely leads to the common failures we are seeing here.
How reliable do you find the car?
READ to the end. We bought a low mileage one owner car 2006 with full Fiat service history from a garage ( in Warton ). I had an independant inspection done before I parted with my money. The car broke down three times on our way home, the starter motor had to be replaced, then another garage fitted a new battery on breakdown number two. We then had to abandon the car 150 miles away from our destination and go and collect it a week later - a wiring fault in the ignition system had caused the fault, another new starter motor, another new battery.. All cured, or so we thought, we drove our little car for a couple of months in the warm weather and I have to say she goes well, is comfortable ( except the offset pedals ). The garage in Warton paid us a token sum of money though I am certain they knew about the car's problems. The major fault and the reason I will never again buy another Fiat turned up once we tried to use the heater. No warm or hot air at all. I went on some forums and found numerous tales of the Eleganza model with automatic climate control with the same symptoms. There is a little motor that moves a flap to direct air into the footwell. The problem is the spindle that moves the flap is not up to the job and shears, leaving the stub in the heater box. Some people have managed a botched repair. So, I got our local garage to have a look. Yes, it is broken. Can we replace it ? No, you can't buy the £1 piece of plastic, you have to replace, wait for it, the ENTIRE heater box, which involves dismantlng all the dash and removing a door too. Cost ? around £1500 all in, the heater box is around £988, then hours and hours of labour on top of that - so not completely uneconomic. There are plenty of cases of this fault, but Fiat doesn't want to accept responsibility. I now have a car that is really only worth scrap value. So, BEWARE, check your heater works before you buy a Fiat Panda with automatic climate control. The manual one doesn't have this problem.About their car
- Fuel type Petrol
- When purchased July 2017
- Condition when bought Used
- Current Mileage 81,000 miles
- Average MPG 42 mpg
