nigel s

I am after some advice on these little shopping carts as a second car for my partner. Had a look at couple of Cinquecento’s and the also the Seicento but would really like some buying guides or owners experiences before we make the purchase. In 2001 they made a Schumacher edition of the Seicento but I am struggling to find out the differences between this and standard car apart from maybe the Abarth bodykit.

MBK

We had a little Cinquecento Sporting as a commuting/round town car while we lived in Germany (almost 10 years ago now eek!!) and it was economical and fun to drive. Felt a lot quicker than it really is, even managed to get nicked speeding in it by the german plod - they just laughed, showed me the video there and then and fined me 50 Marks, a much better system than the UK!!

Gave it to my Mum and after 3 years the problems began - the ecu went which was about £600 to replace and there were numerous brake and handbrake problems as the car got older. At the time the Sporting tyres were one off special size/make so cost a lot more than a comparable small car same with the exhaust which was expensive for the car. As the Cinq is getting on a bit now I would have thought you might expect a few problems.

No experience of the Seicento as we tended to keep away from Fiat's after that.

Depending on your budget the Suzuki Ignis is a much better built small car - also newer, available with warranty etc and the dealers almost give them away!

scooby_matt

Only driven a Seicento once...never again.

I managed to press all 3 peddles with one foot

Jonathan Davies

I found the 600 to be slow, flimsy and cramped to be honest. You might want to check out crash protection/safety issues too... not great on most small cars of course, but I seem to recall some concerns on that front. Can't remember properly so I might be wrong... a search might help, it was on here some time ago in a thread about small cars generally iirc.

Brendan Hughes

Gompo

Either you have massive feet and/or wear massive shoes, or you're not very good with the positioning of your feet. I have size 10 shoes and never had a problem with the pedals. No there isnt masses of room, but it's easily managable.

This echoes some of my experiences and experiences I've read from other owners.

I am pretty sure there are no performance differences between the Schumacher and the regular 'Sporting'.

As previously said, their safety record isnt great. If you just want a modern nippy supermini I'd suggest looking elsewhere purely down to the safety aspect.

They're great fun to drive though. Not that quick but reasonably nippy and easy to chuck about.

avonvilla

Had both, there fun and cheap but not well made and WILL go wrong a lot of the time. The pedals are close together for sure but you get used to it. Theres no pas on the cinq and it can be heavy, like stated the tyres are a rare size so you'll never get cheapies and on all of them the clutch cables go a lot, and i mean a lot, i had 5 in my time and i dont drive strangely or anything.

I had a Ford Ka after as a company car and it was better in every respect to be honest and i hate Ford !

Oh and the safety thing is true, i remember seeing something on fifth gear or the like where a cinq or seincento got rear ended and it was a heap, no one would have walked away :-(

So basically......you can do better :-)