Conference terri::cars_uk

    dir/title=tipo reveals note 728 ...
    
    J.

    I had done a dir/title=fiat .......
    

    	I don't know about diesel Tipo's but I hate the petrol versions!
    Had a couple as hire cars and find them extremely heavy on the steering
    (I know, I've got power steering on my BX but this is heavier than
    heavy), extremely knotchy on the gearbox and quite uncomfortable to
    drive. Apart from that, I luv 'em!
    
    Colin

    P'raps you DIR/TITLE ..... contained a Tipo, er, I mean Typo!

    Has anyone got/driven the new 16v Tipo yet?  Comments?
    
    I've read several good reports about this car, I may even add it to my
    list of 'wants'.
    
    ..Craig

    Hi
    
    I am a new (and proud) owner of a Tipo 16v. Great car, good handling...
    Anything you want.
    But one bad point is the fuel consumption, I feel that this will be
    very costly. I never emptied the whole gas tank, but I hardly can 
    drive to get below 12 liters/100 kilometers. In a very shy kind of
    driving..., racing stile driving will rise the consumption to 16
    liters. Does anybody else have some consumption values about this
    motor? maybe my car is just badly tuned?
    
    thanks, Andreas
    

    hi again
    
    my driving is very careful and without powerful accelerations (not 
    always, but to have the 12 liters/100km I have to do so.) In
    Switzerland, speed is limited to 80 km/h on normal roads and to 120
    km/h on motorways, but the Tipo is already at 4000 rpm at 120 km/h!
    this is quite much! (I wonder how to reach the 200 km/h...)
    
    lets see
    
    Andreas

    
    re -1:
    
    I think your car is badly tuned or maybe because it is so new.
    Uno Turbo that my friend drives takes about 10 litres/100km and
    he really accelerates!!!! I read from a car mag that Tipo 16V
    consumes a bit more that japanese 2 litres, but no SO much.
    
    Hannu

    >I think your car is badly tuned or maybe because it is so new
    
    yes, so do I (think)...
    let's see after the next check-up!
    
    Andreas
    

    
    re -1:
    
    By the way, I am interested in Tipo 16V. How is the handling?
    Suspension should be good (at least Uno Turbo is good).
    Does acceleration feel fast?
    
    Tipo is not small car; reasonable big inside space.
    
    I think it would be a good choice for next car.
    
    
    Hannu

    re -1:
    
    yes, I think it is a very good choice, at least from a technical point
    of view. I am surprised by the ease of handling (degressive power
    steering) and the very powerfull brakes. Acceleration is not as
    impessive as onother powerfull cars, you have to run up to 5000 rpm to
    really feel the power pushing. The car is rather heavy (~ 1200 kg)
    which, in my opinion is about 100 kgs too much. 
    Best feel I got on curvy roads, yes the suspension is very good.
    Unfortunately, the transmission is a bit "short", this means that on
    highways, you cannot drive below 3000 rpm, (if you don't want to take
    the risc of a penalty for driving too slow, of course :-))
    
    But I fell I will have a lot of fun with it!
    
    Andreas

    
    
    Nobody knows when the Fiat tipo was "Car of the Year".
    
    
    Philippe
    

    
    We test drove a couple of Tipos yesterday (a 1.6 DGT and a 1.4
    Formula).
    
    Pros: Very roomy, handles nicely, good gearbox (not notchy at all).
    
    Cons: The way it looks, but heh, we've got an Uno at the moment.
    
    Anybody got a 1.4? How do you find the performance on a long run? Is it
    an acceptable motorway cruiser or is it a noisy buzz box?
    
    Any suggestions of an alternative (provided they're not a) Japanese or
    b) Rover (too expensive, we looked)) will also be accepted.
    
    Thanks.
    
    Mark

    
    I have to rent cars almost weekly in Europe. Usually now settle on the
    Tipo, against all its contemporaries.
    
    Best of the cheap end is the 1.6ie. Well equipped, quiet, & very good
    at a sustained 160 kph. Stable on corners, even when pushed pretty
    hard. High ride quality.
    
    The 1.4 is OK as a town car, but nothing that has those strange winder 
    thingies for windows & mirrors will ever get my vote again..... I've
    also had variable gearchange quality in the 1.4's (but I have no idea
    whether the box is different in the bigger Tipo's).
    
    I've yet to try the 16v 2 litre. Suspect it will give my own car a run
    for its money, so I'm curious ....
    
    
    Colin

I have a '90 1.4 DGT. Overall I'm just satisfied with it but my wife
thinks its a great car. 


I like:

The amount of space. The 1/3, 2/3 split rear seat is a great feature.
It allows you to transport 4 adults and a lot of baggage.

Full range of features: central door locking, electric windows. I'm
not so gone on the digital displays though.

Its quiet.


I don't like:

The lack of performance. The 1.4 is too small for the car.

Mine has a noisy clutch. I've been assured that its the release bearing,
a common feature/problem on Fiats. The gearchnge is a bit notchy.

The paint is flaking away from the plastic bodywork over the rear
quarterlights. Btw has anybody heard of a recall for this problem.



If only my Alfasud Sprint hadn't biodegraded.


/Paul.

    
    How about a Pug 306 or Citroen ZX?
    

    
    Re .20
    
    Both pretty good suggestions, except they tend to be too new and/or too
    dear for us.
    
    We found an F reg (89) Tipo DGT SX (basically has a sunroof over the
    normal DGT) with around 28k on the clock and a service history to 
    suggest it's legitimate.
    
    So, I'm off to the dealer to at lunch time to sign on the dotted line.
    
    Mark
    
    PS If anyone's interested, I'll post some observations on the car once
    we've had it a while. 

    
    Well, we've had the Tipo a while now and here are a few observations.
    
    Looks : Well it's no beauty, but it grows on you. Ours has one or two 
    little dings where people have opened doors into it, but there's no
    sign of rust on any of the panels (just a little where a rubber cover
    has torn away from one of the rear door quarterlight uprights). The 
    metallic dark grey paint (Pewter to Fiat) is quite attractive when clean 
    and doesn't look too bad when caked in road muck. 
    
    Space : Excellent. Rear seat space especially is extremely roomy for
    a car with it's external measurements. Boot, though, while bigish could
    be a little roomier. Still we never need to put bags in the back seat
    when we go away for the weekend now. 4 doors IS much easier with a
    baby, although we never found 2 doors much of a problem with the Uno.
    
    Comfort : The Tipo is much quieter than the Uno was and compares
    favourably at legal speeds with my Calibra. Seats are good in the front
    on a long run and the back seats are comfortable on a short one (not
    tried them on a long run). Radio (A Blaupunkt) has a reasonable tone
    and doesn't need to turned up to full power to hear it. Ride is very
    smooth.
    
    Performance/Economy : Performance is fair, although we find it
    difficult to judge as we've never had a 'normal' 1.6 litre car before.
    We either have fast-ish cars or econoboxes - nothing between. However,
    we've seen 100 mph and cruising at 70-80 is very easy. Economy is C.33
    mpg which is a lot lower than the Uno was (C.50 mpg), but sounds ok
    considering most of the Tipo's trips involve a fair amount of driving
    on choke after a cold start. 
    
    Driver appeal : The Handling is really very good for a bog-standard
    saloon car. It puts, if I'm honest, the Calibra to shame with little
    understeer and responsive (if very heavy at parking speeds, get PAS if 
    you buy a Tipo) steering. Grip, obviously, isn't in the Calibra's
    league, but the 185s aren't that bad. This is no GTi, but it's
    entertaining enough for my wife to comment on how often I volunteer to
    drive it...
    
    Problems : There's a ticking noise (sounds like a relay to me) for the
    first 5 miles or so from cold, but after that it goes away and there's no 
    sign of any electrical problems other than this noise. The front passenger 
    door doesn't always seem to shut properly (well, to be honest, it didn't
    yesterday, may have been a freak), but there's a warning light to let
    you know and the central locking won't work unless all doors are shut
    properly. The sunroof blind rattles a little at speed when opened.
    
    Overall : A roomy, comfortable, enjoyable family car with no obvious
    major problems and enough luxury (Electric sunroof, windows, reasonable 
    radio, velour seats, etc) to not seem like slumming it when switching 
    from my normal car. So far, the Tipo seems like an excellent choice.
    
    Mark
    
    PS It's strange how many Tipos there are on the road, now we own one.
    Or maybe they were always quite popular, just we never noticed them?
    :^)
    
    PPS Happy New year.

    We have a Tipo and i'd agreee with most of -1. however the Tipo is well
    designed car, cheaply built. Many of the "luxury" features are low cost
    implementations (eg electric windows are flakey and the electric wing
    mirrors are glued on, rather than clipped on, mirrors). Even some of
    the standard features are questionable. The wiper motor only works at
    one speed. So all the numerous options such as fast, slow, fast
    intermittent and slow intermittent are "created" by varying the time
    between strokes.
    
    But for the money not a bad buy.
    
    Rupert 

    Hi Mark, Rupert,
    
    How do you get on with the position of the pedals? Or the accelerator
    pedal in particular? I just had one (briefly) as a hire car and the
    accelerator pedal seemed to be positioned somewhere behind the central
    console! Yes, I know it was LHD but are the pedals still dodgy on a
    RHD?
    
    The only comfortable position for my right leg had the accelerator
    pedal just above my heel (I know I've got big feet but ...). I got so
    annoyed with it and considered it dangerous that I changed the car
    within 10 minutes for a new shape Seat Ibiza CLi (which is an excellent
    little car in a plasticky sort of way. Great handling but the engine
    *must* have been detuned....next time I have a hire car I'll bring my
    spanners and strobe-light).
    
    By the way, I was impressed with the Tipo (for a family hatchback) even
    though it has an ugly bum.
    
    Cheers,
    Barry. 

    
    Hello Barry,
    
    (Still got that plastic Renault rocketship?) 
    
    I've not noticed the RHD Tipo's pedals being particularly off centre,
    certainly not to the extent of being a problem when driving or
    switching from it to my car.
    
    Cheers.
    
    Mark
    

>    Problems : There's a ticking noise (sounds like a relay to me) for the
>    first 5 miles or so from cold, but after that it goes away and there's no 
>    sign of any electrical problems other than this noise. 

Is it supposed to have self-adjusting tappets ?   If so, it may be those.

My Nova sounds like a clockwork car (rude comments not allowed) when it's 
getting low on oil.   Cure for ticking noise, top up the oil.

>	Cure for ticking noise, top up the oil.
    
    Or, turn up the radio :-)
    

    Barry,
    
    Ref the pedals. Must be a quirk of LHD. Never noticed anything odd
    about their layout. Driving position (wheel, Seat) is a bit odd, but
    Ok.
    
    Rupert