Hello car enthusiasts!
Today’s post regards my latest acquisition: the Fiat Panda, with a diesel engine, in commercial finish.
I will go past another background to this model, as I already made it when I reviewed my cousin’s Panda 4x4 Climbing Multijet. I always appreciated this car, but truth be told, what inspired me to go for the Panda was the (nice) surprise I had with the 4x4.
Having decided that the roadster is not suited to my daily life, but more of a weekend toy which will be a future classic (I am sure!), back in last Summer I went back to my parents Rover 200 and stored the smart.
But, as petrol prices started to rise so sharply, added to the fact that the Rover’s K-Series is getting thirstier (13 years old and 179k kilometres – 112k miles…) and as it is not really mine (well, at home nobody likes it very much, apart from me), I started thinking of an alternative. The specs? Second-hand, cheap, small, economical, distinctive and light. Let’s go hunting!
The cars immediately considered were the twins from the PSA-Toyota union: Toyota Aygo and Citroen C1 (107 out, too expensive and more common); the Volkswagen Lupo TDI 3L and, of course, the Panda. The first two with a petrol 1.0 and the last ones being oil burners (the Panda’s petrol’s are, at least, reliable, unlike the VW’s).
The C1/ Aygo went out for their prices; the VW because it’s too old, vulgar and all the examples I found had too much use. Having found a 4 year old commercial Panda Diesel with 40k kilometres (25k miles), well preserved and with black paint (I prefer the yellow paint, though), the choice was made. A two-seater is all I need right now!
First impressions: compared to the 4x4’s, the engine is much more responsive! On the road, even despite slightly longer gear ratios, it felt brisk and refined. But body movements soon felt less controlled, as in roundabouts, when accelerating or braking. Amazing, I thought, because the 4x4 is sitting higher.
Another letdown was the brake pedal feel – while the 4x4’s felt just perfect (brake disks all round), this felt as bad as the smart’s: spongy, with a lot of dead travel. Otherwise, apart from being a two-seater with a giant boot (about 650 litres, with a square shape, good cover and even better presentation), it was similar.
As I write this review, the car has covered around 4k kilometres, or 2.5k miles, so I can be more precise about it.
Built construction is astonishing, as I had already discovered; not a single squeak nor rattle from the hard, cheap-looking plastics.
Equipment level is a mix of Active and Dynamic: it has no glove box cover, only driver front airbag, the seat’s fabric reminds a blue, cold wet surface and the radiator grill has no chrome finish (Active details); on the other hand, roof bars, trip computer, rev-counter and remote central locking come from the Dynamic line. Resuming: it has all the basic kit, no more or less. Mine adds a very efficient manual air conditioning and a not so impressive radio with cd-player (both at a cost).
Storage compartments are abundant and well positioned, the door bins being the larger, the centre console ones small but handy.
Room is great in height but limited in length (I would say 1,85 metres is the recommended maximum driver height) and width. Even so, two average adults fit well, not disturbing each other. Not even when changing gear, as the gear lever is high in the centre console. Even so, plenty of glass make it feel very spacious and airy – a comfortable place to be in.
Together, all that glass, a high driving position (no seat height-ajustment) and the absence of proper lateral support from the seats, mean small confidence in corners. Add to that tires with a sidewall as tall as the Petronas Towers, short distance between axles and a soft suspension and the result is truly scary body roll. If one is brave enough to push it to the limits (as it is my case, of course… even if it took some time to! :P), it is amazing how much grip such narrow tires can manage to get. It may corner on its doors, but boy, does it stick to the road! For comparison: in the dry, on a roundabout just outside my work place, I achieved just over 60 km/h with the smart. With the Panda, I already got to 55 km/h! I was almost sat on the passenger’s seat, but that’s another story…
Predictably, in the wet, it loses traction at an early stage.
The advantage is, of course, ride comfort. It is not perfect (I have the tires over-inflated), but perfectly at Rover’s levels.
To the end, I left, on purpose, the engine appreciation.
For a start, just a reminder: I really hate oil burners, and, in certain conditions, this car reminds me why.
Every day I drive to my job, on a 2 x 6,5 kilometre-long (4 miles) journey. Starting at 6:50am, mostly cold days at this time (some days even frozen windows), the engine note after switching it on is… well, like a tractor. Very noisy, and with plenty of vibration, it’s as unrefined as only a diesel engine can be. Then there’s the high compression, which means that, when changing from 1st to 2nd gear, your head rolls forwards and backwards. You may say, “why do you rev the engine past 2k rpm in first gear, you ass?!” The answer is turbo lag: this little 1.2 is so turbo-dependant that it’s almost unable to accelerate the car below 1500 rpm (Fiat claims maximum 145 Nm at that point – yeah right…). Only from 1500 rpm to 2000 rpm it starts to wake up…
So, I arrive at my job with a headache from hell and thinking to myself “what the hell were you thinking of?!”
But, eventually, the week is over, and I do my long (150+ km – 95 miles) run back to my hometown, mostly on B-roads.
On the open road though, it’s very good, indeed. OK, turbo lag is still there, but with short gear ratios and a quick gearbox, it’s easy to keep the engine mid-range all the time. The engine, by this time warm, shuts up almost completely, and shows its progressive nature. However, it loses all its breath from 4000 rpm on.
But the party piece is mid-range performance: it has such a punch between 2500 and 3500 rpm that I already managed to lose traction in 4th gear (!) two times, on road joints, at 70 km/h (45 mph), while flooring it! So, overtaking is an easy task below 120 km/h (75 mph) – from there on, the not-very-good aerodynamics dictate a slower acceleration. Even so, I managed to see 185 km/h – 115 mph – on the speedo in two different occasions, while going slightly downhill…
Noise comes mostly from tyre roll – weirdly, given such narrow tires – and grows a lot at speed, as it does fuel consumption.
Average fuel consumption? I am far from being an average driver, but bearing in mind I floor it many times on these long trips and I do a lot of cold starts during the week, 4,3 l/100km – 65 UK mpg – seem like a pretty nice figure. While cruising at 100 km/h (62 mph), it burns around 10% less than that…
That’s what I try to recall when I am driving it in the city and getting mad with its dieselness…
Verdict: designed for the city, this impressively built, cheap, practical and economical small car really feels at home on the open road.
Vital data:
Engine and transmission:
1248 cc, inline-4 cylinder, 4 valves per cylinder, turbo (diesel)
70 hp (51 kW)/ 4000 rpm
145 Nm/ 1500 rpm
Red line: 5000 rpm
5-speed manual transmission
Dimensions and weights:
Length/ width/ height: 3538/ 1589/ 1578* mm
Empty weight (excl. driver): 1020 kg
Boot: 650 litres
Fuel tank: 35 litres
Tires: 155/80 R13 Continental Eco-Contact
* with roof bars
Official performance:
Top speed: 160 km/h (100 mph)
0-100 km/h (0-62 mph): 13 seconds
Fuel consumption (urban/extra-urban/average): 5,4/ 3,7/ 4,3 l/100km (52/ 76/ 65 UK mpg)
CO2 emissions: 114 g/km
2000 rpm, 5th gear: 84 km/h (53 mph)
2400 rpm, 5th gear: 100 km/h (62 mph)
Driven: From November to date
Main equipment: air conditioning, driver front airbag, radio with CD-player, trip computer.
Classification: 16 out of 20
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