Hi everyone, I'm Francesco, I'm a boy who lives in Italy. Unfortunately our 2.0 16V Expression from December 2000 has just broken, and we have to repair the engine (probably not broken pistons because the car was at idle, so it should be just the valves and the head), the auxiliary belt came off and broke the timing belt (the mechanic said it), but it's a long story, if you're interested I'll tell you whats'happened. Now we bought a small used second car (Fiat Panda Emotion 2004, like new!), so I have the time to decide what to do. We really like the Espace, and I would like to have a Initiale Paris mk3 (with sunroof also!). The expression Espace has to do some repair, some bodywork, tires change, and other little things. I would repair it but I would like to have a Initiale Paris. Here's what I was thinking to do: buy the Initiale, fix the little problems that it may has got and sell my Espace for repair (as-is), because I already found a buyer.
I'm looking for cars in Italy and in the western Europe (Germany, France etc).
I want only a Initiale with sunroofs. The problem is the engine to choose:
2.2 dCi 16V: I heard about many many problems about the 2.2 dci, the performance aren't very good about what I read and the fuel consumption doesn't seems to be very good too (in comparison with the 2.0 16v petrol, plus it slower and the regular manteinance is more expensive (not considering the special manteinance), and we don't like diesel engines (too noisy and not so good to drive imo), and i heard about turbo and injectors problems (mainly on espace 4 but i think it's the same engine). So i think that mainly I have to choose between the 2 petrols, but I'd like to know your opinion.
2.0 16V: the same engine of our Espace, very good, snappy and not so fuel thirsty, pleasant to drive and it has a good sound, definetly we really liked it, perfect for what we need.
3.0 V6 24V: I never drived it, but it has to be a really good engine too, but too much fuel thristy, of course. My idea was to buy it only to convert it to LPG. And regarding to technical data it doesn't seems to be much better in performance than the 2.0. (we don't care much about max speed, and we felt the 2.0 powerful). The insurance would cost some more (but not too much), and the tax wouldn't cost much more (only with LPG, the tax is less). So mainly the problem is fuel consumption. We would buy the 3.0 only with the intention to convert it to LPG, i think the 2.0 with LPG wouldn't be enough powerful, but is it worth to buy the 3.0 and convert it to LPG than buying the 2.0 petrol? We usually don't do more than 15000 kilometres/year, or even less.
Here in Italy are most common the 2.2 dci for sale, you can find the V6 Initiale easier than the 2.0 Initiale but I found a 2.0 16v for a good price and I'm interested to buy it. I'm looking for a Initiale only, that I would take care of. Our 2.0 never gave a problem in 200000 kilometres, and it was like new!
I would like to know all your opinions. What do you think about the 2.2dci?
Thank you!
Francesco