| Product: |
Fiat Coupé in general |
| Date: |
08/07/00 (1753 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Stunning looks and exhilerating performance. Reasonably practical as well.
Disadvantages: Poor build quality. Poor service backup.
Beatiful car, beautiful engine. It's spectacularly quick and handles confidently. It's a shame that such an inspiring package is let down by poor build quality and, from my experience, diappointing customer service from local (Surrey) Fiat delears, Fiat UK and Fiat Italy.
I purchased my Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo new in October last year. It was imported from Germany and is one of the last 5 speed models. The fact that it is imported has created problems with most of the dealers I have visited who have wanted to carry out 'additional checks' before doing warranty work on the vehicle.
Within the first few weeks the alarm was triggering intermittently and despite numerous attempts, Fiat declined to resolve the problem and I had it fixed (at my cost) by an alarm specialist. The car has suffered from a sticky throttle since new. Fiat have been unable to trace and resolve this problem. After about three months one of the switch clusters in the central console disappeared inside the dashboard. This still remains to be fixed. The rear wiper works intermittently and there has been a rattle from the passenger door from day 1.
On top of this I have been extremely disappointed with the quality of service from Fiat and it's dealer network all of whom seem to treat me as an annoyance rather than someone who paid a great deal of money for one of their products. Based on this alone I would not recommend a Fiat to anyone and I, for one, will certainly not re-purchase.
Summary:
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Last comments:
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- 07/10/06 My response to the comments in "confirms my opinion of italian quality and service" are in my opinion not entirely true.
I've owned two of these wonderful cars and i've had no problems at all, they have been completely reliable and i also haven't had any problems with rattles, squeaks, alarms, electrics etc etc.
If fact i've had many fast Fiats and had hardly any problems with them.
However i have to agree that Fiat dealers are totally rubbish, i have yet to find one that has good customer feedback.
Before you all moan i now drive a BMW & have had more trouble with this car than any other car i've owned so now in the next two months i will be changing it for another Italian car.
Times are changing as Fiat have started to get their act together.
Dealers are now being trained to give better customer care and complaints are now begining to be herd. Build quality is improving.
In my opinion now is a best time to buy a Fiat as you will get a well built car with style and at an affordable price and now with much better customer suport. |
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- 11/02/01 This is not a typical opinion on the Coupe; what you must bear in mind is that it offers a huge amount of performance for the money, and judge it accordingly; garage services do vary and there are other Fiat garages that try much harder to look after their customers. My local garage has a mechanic who has won international awards for maintaining Fiats. I recommend anyone interested in the Fiat Coupe spends time looking at a very active user site at www.coupe-sport.co.uk where its pros and cons are reviewed by over 200 users, and there are rating on garages. The car is typically Italian, in that the engineering and finish are not up to Japanese or German standards, but the dynamics are way ahead. I have had a 2 litre turbo model for a year and get 28-34 mpg, which for possibly the fastest production front wheel drive car in the world, is not bad. I have previously owned BMWs and a Toyota Coupe, which I liked very much and were pretty reliable, but no where near as much fun. |
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