PT gets a one more year!

[Stoga]

http://www.leftlanenews.com/fiat-giv...execution.html

"Fiat has decided to extend the PT Cruiser’s stay of execution in order to keep the Toluca plant humming at full speed.

[mannye]

They never thought to make any changes to the PT. I'm not familiar, but it knida looks exactly the same now (except for headlights I think) as it did when it first went on sale. Am I wrong? I think a little update here and there might have helped.

[nhdriver]

They did make a few updates to the PT in 2006. They changed the headlights slightly, & the grill. The early ones the grill extended below the front bumper. On the later ones they have a sloted (horizontal) valence panel below the grill. They also changed the dash board at the same time. I have driven the newer ones & don't care For the dash. The early ones look more retro. Also they made the PT convertable which imo is hideos looking.( It was dropped)

[mannye]

Yeah they should have just kept going more and more retro with it. The new interior looks like every other car interior in 2010. Not bad but too modern IMO. A super high milage diesel would have been nice too and made it into a real workhorse, but we're never going to see those over here in the States.

[Stoga]

The problem I expect is it's old Neon based substructure. Chrysler Corp would be well advised to update the car and keep the nostalgic style, but I expect it may be awhile before Mopar has the bucks to redesign much of anything other than what they've already got going.

[nhdriver]

Originally Posted by mannye

Yeah they should have just kept going more and more retro with it. The new interior looks like every other car interior in 2010. Not bad but too modern IMO. A super high milage diesel would have been nice too and made it into a real workhorse, but we're never going to see those over here in the States.

They did make them W/ a high mileage diesel, for Europe only They reportadly get 46 MPG w/ the diesel too bad they weren't available here. My '03 only gets 26 MPG a lousy number for a 4cyl car.

[mannye]

Originally Posted by nhdriver

They did make them W/ a high mileage diesel, for Europe only They reportadly get 46 MPG w/ the diesel too bad they weren't available here. My '03 only gets 26 MPG a lousy number for a 4cyl car.

And they wonder why they are in trouble.

[nhdriver]

Originally Posted by mannye

And they wonder why they are in trouble.

They are in trouble because Daimler ran them into the ground! They took what they wanted & left for the "Fatherland".

[RB]

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...these are very decent vehicles. My wife is on her 2nd one (the 1st ran over 160k miles w/ only mech trouble being a front wheel bearing and lower control arm bushings). We bought a new '07 and now have over 70k miles on it. Funny thing, it also had to have a front wheel bearing and bushings replaced (under warranty). It is a stick shift (as well as the 1st one) and has always delivered 30+ mpg (gets 32 at steady hiway speed while on a trip for example).
IMO, it's one of the most useful smaller type vehicles we've ever owned. With 4 studded snows on it for winter, it will go almost anywhere (and believe me we get some decent snow storms here). It's one of those vehicles I wish they'd never stop making so we could always buy a new one when the old one wears out.

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