1987 Fiat Uno Reviews - Page 2 of 3

The car had had a lot of work on it before I bought it (new clutch etc).

In recent times I have had trouble with fuel leaks from the carburettor area - mainly due to hose clamps working loose, but also due to gunk in the fuel tank working through to the carburettor. The car has only cost me $300 in maintenance in two years though, so well worth it!

One thing I would not recommend is buying any Fiat with electric windows. The switches have cheap plastic in them which tends to melt on the circuit board. Unless you want to spend a lot of time with a soldering iron, try for one without electrics.

Despite the shoe-box comments, it has been a great first car, extremely nippy and economical.

Rust around the doors and around 45 symbol at the rear.

Needed new water pump at 60000 miles.

An extremely reliable car, 60000 miles and very few things needed fixing.

Fuel economy is excellent, I've been getting up to 600km on one tank (30 litre tank) you can't go wrong here.

Lacks grunt, but will surprise you for the size of its motor, haven't met a 1000cc mini that'll beat it.

Body roll was excessive when cornering, but that was soon fixed by changing the springs to harder ones, now it corners like there is no corner.

Nothing at all, just needed 2 clutches in 6 years.

Great little car, my gran had one of these after a Strada, it was a 45, with the all new 'FIRE' engine. It was incredibly noisy, but seemed very very nippy once upto a decent speed, it was also tiny and light (tiny and light as in the doors would slam-shut after you) which meant that it felt as if it was going faster than it really was and would sway from side to side at high speeds.

As with anything old and italian, it was poorly built, the plastics in the interior were incredibly cheap and pasta-like, (would crack easily) but I loved the incredibly basic interior oddly enough, it certainly had charm and the seats were really nice to sit in. The interior also smelt like it was new, probably because the car had only done 25k miles in 10 years, but was still impressive.

Come to think of it, my gran's Uno could have been some kind of special edition as it had thick blue stripey/dotty side markings on the door bottoms and alloy-lookalike plastic wheel trims which actually looked similar to the alloys on Maserati Biturbos of the same era, but were obviously much smaller.

My auntie had a Lancia Y10 at the same time, it was interesting to see the huge amount of parts they shared.

Anyway, I loved it, but it was getting old, old but not unreliable (it's reliability prevented her from selling the Uno earlier on) and seemed very dated by the mid 90s. I'm hoping it lives on today as when we left it, it was nearly A1 except for a few parking dents or so, and it was mechanically sound with only 25k on the clock.

I can't remember the exact reg number, but it was 'E' reg and ended in 'JCW'.

A rear section of exhaust fell off at around 135,000 miles!

Bad rust on the driver's door, rear wheel arches and tailgate.

A serious oil leak from the fuel pump.

On balance, an unbelievably good car for its age and wear.

Certainly not the most desirable-looking of cars! Not that this matters if you're mainly interested in getting where you're going!

A good little run-around for town, but also excellent on long-distance journeys.

Not the most comfy of cars - can be a bit of a bone-shaker on bad roads - although I've definitely been in worse.

Deceptively spacious. You can fit a surprisingly big load of stuff in once the back seats are folded out of the way.

Handling on corners is a bit like that of a refrigerator, but you get used to it.

Waft a few petrol fumes in the general direction of the car and it'll take you about 40 miles!