1998 Fiat Seicento Sporting review from UK and Ireland

Speedo cable broke 0.5 miles after purchase.

Clutch cable snapped at 38,000 miles and again at 42,000.

Hand brake cable snapped at 40,000.

Front brakes are very unresponsive and squeal constantly.

The car has been broken into several times.

The Fiat Seicento Sporting is the most fun car I have ever had the chance of owning. The speed and acceleration produced by the 1100cc engine is like nothing I've seen before in a budget car.

The styling on the car is impressive, with the front skirts with fog lamps built in and the alloy wheels. The interior is also worth mentioning with the sports seats, rev counter in the centre of the dash, and the cut away side panels makes the car look very ‘sporting’ indeed. All this topped off with the colour being Broom Yellow.

My main criticism with the car is the security, its very lacking to say the least, it takes a very amateur car thief 20 seconds and a screwdriver to make his entry into the car, leaving with anything and everything you have in the car. Even after fixing the lock back into place, only to find it ‘popped out’ again two weeks later. The solution to this problem is to fit a decent alarm (Toad AI606) and de-lock the car fully.

The brakes are also a little shoddy, but having spoken to the dealer apparently this is common to all Seicento.

Getting any information out of the dealers can be a pain (except when you go in cheque book in hand)

All in all I found my Seicento sporting a very fun car to drive indeed, you can put it into corners at any speed and she is very forgiving. I’m planning on selling it in the very near future, because I can see it costing me more and more money on repairs. The clutch cable keeps snapping less than every 12 months, and according to the dealer, it’s the clutch release baring which needs replacing, along with the clutch at the same time, which will no doubt cost mega bucks.