Faults:

A pin came out of the gear selector, leaving me unable to change gear, and I had to limp to the nearest garage.

Only minor faults like rear light blowing and hole in exhaust, can be expected from cars its age.

General Comments:

I'm a poor student and this car is great for getting from A to B while I rack up my no claims bonus. It takes a while to get used to the springy clutch, and the lack of power steering, things I did not have to worry about on my driving lessons!

It's quite nippy for a 1.1, with acceleration being best around mid-range, 3000-4000rpm. Plenty a time I have left my friends 1.3 or 1.4 cars eating dust, as the 106 is as light as a feather and handles amazingly, like a go-kart, so you can fling it around corners with ease, if you have the b@lls. Fuel economy is excellent, provided you are frugal driving it. (rare, as it is such fun to throw around, this car was built for country lanes)

My gripes with the car are the cheapness and quality of the car in general (to be expected with the base model and my income at the minute, but it is solid nonetheless) However I am not impressed with the brakes, as are my friends who also own 106's. (Prepare to brake slightly earlier and harder than with other cars.) The gears can be a bit troublesome, by sometimes refusing to play ball if you aren't as tender with them as they like.

Faults:

The build quality of the car is low, though it is the bottom of the range model. In the three years I had it (from new) I have had the exhaust fall off, the air bag light remained on until the dealer rectified this, and the rubber seals around the windows were poor letting in moisture resulting in mold!

General Comments:

If you want a cheap car with limited thrills then this is for you. The only advance features are an immobilizer and a driver airbag and the cool air fan lets in not so cool air (horrible in summer).

However, the car is a lot of fun to drive and is very nippy (I have been asked by passengers if they were in the GTi version). Full consumption is fantasticly low and it never seemed to need coolant or oil. As a first car then look no further.

Faults:

As I've only had the car a month I can't really comment on this, but in this time the gearbox has developed a bad crunch when engaging 3rd gear when the revs are above 6K.This happens only occasionally though.

General Comments:

Well what can I say... this car is so hyped up you would think it was the best car on the planet! It's good but not THAT good.

The performance after 5,000 revs is amazing! 2nd gear is the start then 3rd it really starts to fly.

Jeremy Clarkson rated this car the second best handling car in the world after the Ferrari F5O a few years back and I can see were he's coming from, but in my opnion the car gets very twichy particularly at the rear on tight B roads if you push it too far.Don't even bother driving hard in the wet.

My old AX GT had far better handling. Maybe a new suspension kit is in order? Koni's I reckon.

Interior isn't as bad as people make out as mine is the later model with Leather and Grey Alcantara. My car's also black which sets the look off perfect.

MPG can be the best as long as you don't go into that magic powerband. I get 90 miles to a tenner on optimax which involved a lot of hard driving.

All in all a cracking car which you will make excuses just so you can drive it.