moonbeam wrote:My brother bought a second hand Allegro. Two days after he bought it went round a roundabout down at Bowling on the A82 when the front wheel sort of fell off. It got taken back to a Leyland dealership to be told -they all do that. I had a Marina and the petrol tank rusted through.The car was only 18 months old.Quickly got rid off. I mentioned my neighbours Moskovitch.The guy bought it new. Spent every day polishing it and showing it off. His first new car. Felt really sorry for him when it went on fire and the petrol tank exploded just as the fire brigade arrived. Another friend bought a new Lancia. Took it for its first MOT. Failed due to rust. The engine mounting brackets had rusted right through and the engine was not really attached to the rest of the car! Yes I did buy a Fiat. Rampant rust under body filler. Yes a friend lent on a wing and his arm went right through! It was a Fiat "Sport" 850. I think the "sport" was getting the thing all to work at the same time.The starter motor never seemed to work. There seemed to be two types of starter motor as I had the "sport" it had a slightly different mounting from the ordinary 850. The wiper motor had a mind of its own.The suspension/shock absorbers were replaced and the headlights filled with water. A saturday morning season ticket for Shields motors. I got a regular customer discount! What annoyed me was it would take maybe 5 weeks to get an exhaust or a suspension part. Then something else would fail like some sort of obscure electrical part that meant the direction indicators would not work.
Remember the old adages about Fiats:
FIAT stands for "Fix It Again Toni", or "if the rust doesn't get you the wiring will"