I am certainly glad to read that another reviewer was pleased with his Fiats and had good service with them. For a short time in the early 1980s I was a mechanic and the running joke was FIAT = Fix it again, Tony.

I'm basing my comment on having owned three Fiats (four if you count a 1967 Fiat Dino coupe, which was a license-built Ferrari). Anyway, based on the three (an 850 Spyder back in 1967, a 124 Coupe in 1969, and another 124 Coupe in 1972), I liked my Fiats a lot. They ran well, and were a lot of fun to drive. Never had any major mechanical problems with any of them. Admittedly, the first two didn't get much mileage put on them, but I ran the 850 at high speeds in Italy, and the 1969 124 I bought Stateside and likewise didn't accumulate many miles. That 124 had a significant problem with paint - it was red, and the paint just didnt last long before it began to fade. The 1972 124 couple was a great car - I put about 150K miles on it (again, this was in Italy, driving at high speeds most of the time, and driving on unimproved roads or cobblestones from time to time as well), and it really served me well. It looked and ran as good as new when I sold it in 1976. Can't say what the newer Fiats are like from personal experience. There used to be a saying in Italy that while cars like Alfas and Lancias (since bought out by Fiat) ran better than Fiats when they ran, they were temperamental and could die on you without warning, whereas a Fiat could always be counted on to limp you to give you plenty of warning before a breakdown. That may be exaggerated, but there were plenty of Fiats in Italy, and it seemed that every kid over age 12 was able to work on them. Maintenance was not expensive.