Faults:

Far too much to list, but here are the highlights:

Airbag light came on, 3 trips to dealer to sort.

Alternator failed.

Engine would randomly cut out (I am a good driver and I was not stalling it).

Engine used enough oil to top up a couple of times between services. No leaks, was obviously burning it off somewhere.

Interior wore very early, materials were very cheap. Gear-stick numbers wore away, air vents broke, etc.

All within the first year of ownership!

General Comments:

My beige color Brava was bought nearly new in 1999 from the dealership. I tried to like this car, but it had too many problems to begin with.

Had it a good 5 years or so and put over 40K on it; once all the initial problems were sorted it seemed to be OK for the rest of the time; I still wouldn't trust it however and was glad when I sold it.

During my ownership after the problems the car was no better than average. A similar Focus, Golf or Astra is a better choice.

1.4 petrol was economical but not quite fast enough. 1.6 is probably better.

Interior was comfortable, SX was equipped enough for its time.

Really liked the look of the car but that was all.

Faults:

The car cuts off when idle for a long time, and has even cut off many times when driving in 3rd gear at about 30 mph, which is extremely dangerous - no one can figure out why it does this.

I see from other remarks I am not the only person to experience this - I previously thought it was just my car.

It has cut off many time turning corners, which nearly resulted in colliding with traffic on the opposite side of the road, due to loss of power steering, or turning off a road and stalling, resulting in oncoming traffic nearly slamming into me. No one would touch this car with a barge pole - I tried to sell it previously, and not one person called for it.

There are a lot of blind spots on the car.

The electrics on the car are disgusting. Nothing seems to work altogether, always something is not working - if not the wind screen washers, the electric sunroof, if not the rear wiper, the airbag doesn't register or something on the dashboard won't light up or work. Really tacky quality.

The body work also seems to be made from tin foil - when you look closely, and after the novelty of buying it has worn off - it really is a cheap, nasty and tacky car.

The stalling and cutting off problem seems to be worse in summer - doesn't happen to my car in winter for some reason. This cutting off also consumes a lot of petrol - starting up all the time - or when you are in traffic, and it keeps cutting out - I've used nearly 1/4 of a tank driving hardly anywhere because of this.

I paid probably too much initially for this car, and it hasn't kept its value at all. A same spec car, say a VW or Peugeot, are easily worth £1000 more - same mileage, condition and year - so do yourself a favour and buy something else.

My car was recently written off - due to a tyre blow out - and all I can say is thank goodness the piece of crap has gone.

General Comments:

The interior is very plastic and ugly.

Electrics on the car are very poor quality; even the wiring of the car is poor quality and tacky.

It is a sluggish car for a 1.6; very slow pull off.

It sounds like an old diesel or a tractor when idle.

Seats are fairly comfortable, which is probably the only good feature.

Not a reliable car at all, and very dangerous.

I'm surprised Fiat has not recalled these cars.

Expensive to fix.