Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan A
Do what everyone else does.
Get a $5k Subaru.
The bloody things are unkillable and everyone that has one loves it.
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Ding ding! I'll subscribe to that!
My older brother down in New Orleans has owned 4 of the Fiat 500's in the past 5 years. The first was a 2012 Sport with a 5 speed. Well, they've all been 5 speed manuals for him anyway...
The '12 was prone to incomplete welding around the firewall and after hitting a pot hole in a New Orleans street he wound up with a bent lower radius arm. This was when New Orleans had a Fiat "Studio". A search of the lower radius arm revealed that there was 1 (ONE) in the entire USA parts network. His was an "early" '12 and somewhere along the line they made a change to that lower radius arm. He didn't have it much longer after that as he traded it for a '14 Sport. The 14 had various issues and it wasn't as quick as the '15 Turbo he traded it for.
Then the New Orleans Studio closed. Closest Studio was either Houston or Pensacola. The turbo got traded in along with his fairly new BMW 328ti or whatever hatchback doo dad for a Subaru Outback......and a car note.
Subaru seats weren't conducive to his sciatica and the "eyesight" feature was a driving nightmare so it got dumped for an Audi A4. Then he needed a cheap car to travel in and run up the miles, so he flew out to Scottsdale AZ and drove out in a '16 Fiat Sport at $12,500 out the door now that the Chrysler/Dodge dealerships started fixing the Fiats....like they should have done in the first place.
Alas the '16 sport had it's minor issues such as Conti tires that were flat spotted from sitting in the Arizona sun for so long, of which the dealership told him too bad Bub and was traded for a new Mazda 3 hatchback.
And then there was the INSURANCE: The comprehensive insurance cost for any one of the previous mentioned Fiats was MORE than the same coverage on his 05 Boxster, or his BMW, or his Audi, or his Subaru, or his Mazda. That alone is worth seriously looking at. Apparently, the insurance industry sees a cheap Fiat as a probable total loss in pretty much any "crash" situation.
With all that being said, I'd buy a Mazda or a Subaru.
