The tried and tested buletproof 8v engine is totally gutless but still returns on average 44mpg around town! It's also what they call a 'safe' engine, this means if the cambelt fails no damage occurs to the engine
It's cheap as chips motoring for people who want a car to go from A to B with minimal fuss or outlay. Unfortunatly though it's a bit oversprung and a little under damped and the 155/80 R13 tyres made it drive like a boat! It would understeer at what I'd call 'moderate' speeds and if it wasen't understeering or wandering it was bouncing around like a trampoline. Generally I tend to avoid driving it as much as possible as the amount of concerntration needed to maintain 70mph in a straight line is enough to give you a migrane of biblical proportions.
So yesterday my Mother chucked me the keys and her credit card and told me to go get the tyres sorted. It had 4 Barums on it, two fronts down to 1.6mm and the rear around 2mm. I decided in which case it was a good idea to replace all four!
I went to about 5 different tyre places and couldn't find anywhere that stocked more than 2x 155/80 R13s. I had a bit of a think and played with a tape measure and a tyre calculator for 10 minuites and decided that there would be no serious issues fitting 165/70 R13's.
This meant the new tyres would be 10mm wider and have a slightly lower profile. The overall rolling radius would be around 17mm shorter or 3%. That means at 100mph the speedo would read 103mph. I could live with that!
I had a ring around a few places and the best deal I could find was a set of Maragoni E-Logics at £44 each at Kwik Fit. This included checking the wheel alignment FOC which needed doing as the front was out 2°, this was £45 to have adjusted which I thought was quite reasonable. But the icing on the cake is that a similar mid range tyre in her previous size would have been £60 a pop.
I drove out of KiwkFit and straight away the car felt much more solid, the roads were damp and it was obvious that the car just had MUCH more grip than it had previously.
I took it out onto the motorway and the car was quite happy at 70mph, on the standard tyre size it felt as though it was floating about, scarey infact at these speeds but all was well with the new tyres!
The car now inspires much more confidence than it did previously and actually made it into a bit of a go kart. A bit of a hoot to drive!
I always noticed that you never had enough front end grip to encourage any lift off oversteer, which is a shame as it uses a torsion bar rear setup. But now, chuck it into a corner with a bit of power on, let off and the back end slides around quite happily.
I'm rather impressed by the difference a simple set of tyres can make. It does make you wonder why Fiat wouldn't have opted for this size from the factory?
Bailes.
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