Help The Wife Pick A Cute Ute

The Wife is getting close to finally buying a replacement for Joy The Fiat.  Her wants are small, cute, comfortable on longish trips, ok on gas.  It also needs to fit a wheelchair in the trunk.  She’s narrowed the field to the Fiat 500X, Jeep Renegade, and Ford Ecosport.  

Her reasoning so far:

500X: Cute like her previous Fiat, comfortable to ride in (We rented one last year), we had good luck with our last Fiat.

Jeep: Looks cool like a baby Jeep.

Ecosport:  We test drove this today. She was very comfortable with it.  Size was ideal, seating position was good, getting big and our was easy, and wheelchair fit in the back.  

Now where we need some help.  

The 500 has a new engine this year, a 1.3 turbo.  To start I’m not a huge fan on tiny turbo engine working hard.  I have no scientific  reason for this but I like bigger relaxed lazy engines and am somewhat afraid of turbos being regular wear items.  Am I irrational?  Does anyone have experience with these good or bad with this little engine?  I don’t want to buy something I will regret 100,000 miles from now.  

I know nothing of the Ecosport, I’ve never seen one in public, no one I know has one, what am I getting in to? Is there anything I need to watch for to get a long happy life from?  It seems simple but I’ve read horror stories about some Fiesta transaxle.  Is that an issue on these too?  

Im not too concerned with the Jeep, I have several coworkers that have them and they are still available with the 2.4 which is what she’s probably get.  

Thanks for reading all that blather and offering any help.

Test drive photo 

Was just checking this out for my sister; https://www.autobytel.com/sport-utility-vehicles/car-buying-guides/10-suvs-with-the-best-bang-for-your-buck-132733/

My SO just got a Hyundai Kona,  loves it.

Old pilot addage: Never fly the A model of anything. The 1.3 would be suspect for a year or two. 

iceracer said:

My SO just got a Hyundai Kona,  loves it.

Kia Nero too but the Nero is hybrid and I think she drives enough to benefit from a hybrid. 

The Kia Soul just got updated too

Did you look at the Mazda CX-3?  Also, they showed the CX-30 in Europe the last few months.  It’s supposed to be a true Mazda 3 based CUV that splits the difference between the CX-3 & 5. CX-3 is Mazda 2 based and the CX-5 was a combo 3/6 design.  

If those are the only three candidates, I would probably go the Jeep or the Fiat.  I have heard nothing bad about the Ford specifically, but it is not a fun car.  Very slow, handling that doesn’t live up to the Sport in its name. Coming from a 500, I would think that might be a disappointment. 

The Renegade is based on a Fiat platform.  

John Welsh said:

iceracer said:

My SO just got a Hyundai Kona,  loves it.

Kia Nero too but the Nero is hybrid and I think she drives enough to benefit from a hybrid. 

The Kia Soul just got updated too

Alright both of you stop it. This is my one job on this forum and you’re taking it away from me. 

Also Kia Sportage/Hyundai Tucson would be great at this. Buying 1-2 years old and you can capitalize on Korean resale values and still have the bulk of the factory warranty 

Wxdude10 - Mike said:

Did you look at the Mazda CX-3?  Also, they showed the CX-30 in Europe the last few months.  It’s supposed to be a true Mazda 3 based CUV that splits the difference between the CX-3 & 5. CX-3 is Mazda 2 based and the CX-5 was a combo 3/6 design.  

If those are the only three candidates, I would probably go the Jeep or the Fiat.  I have heard nothing bad about the Ford specifically, but it is not a fun car.  Very slow, handling that doesn’t live up to the Sport in its name. Coming from a 500, I would think that might be a disappointment. 

The Renegade is based on a Fiat platform.  

I’m just the opposite. Indint care how crappy the drive is in the Ford it’ll be 1000000000% better inreliability than either fiat or heep (which are now the same company anyway)

In reply to bobzilla :

Perhaps I have read "The gospel according to Bob" a few times too many. 

-your disciple, John

I've gotta plug the Mazda CX-5.  It's the class of the field.  Dunno what a CX-3 is, but I'm sure it's cute and great for dwarves and midgets.

Fiat? Jeep??  Of those three, I'd go with the Ford, no question.  But there are better choices, IMHO.

CX-3 if you want real cute CX-5 if you don't mind a little bigger. CX-5 would be my choice. 

In reply to bobzilla :

Oh. I don’t think the Jeep or Fiat will be more reliable, but since she is used to the 500 now, I thought they would be roughly equivalent. Reliable, Ford would be better.  But I have seen no other really redeeming reports for the Ecosport.  That’s why I asked about the CX-3.  Gets the fun of the 500..

People keep joking about Fiat reliability but in 150,000 miles it needed nothing but scheduled maintenance, brakes, and a couple wheel bearings. Compared to the money I see relatives pour into other cars she ran like a Swiss watch.

In reply to Wally :

Is the Honda HR-V on her radar? With the flip-up rear seat bottoms I think she could fit a wheelchair back there & not have to drag it in/out of a hatch. 

I’ll add another vote for he Mazdas.

In reply to Pete Gossett :

She wants to put it in the hatch and keep the rear seats useable.  The short length and sloping roofline make that impossible in a number of small cuvs. 

I'd go Mazda. Or the ecosport with the spare on the hatch for cool points. 

I had a Fiat 500X as a rental, twice actually... once diesel, once gas.  I was pleasantly impressed with how not-awful it was, given all the stereotypes. 

If you had good luck with the fiat and she is used to the control layout, why switch?

The answer might not be obvious, but its clear:

The coolest most reliable longest lasting inexpensive SUV would be a 1998 Toyota RAV4 2-door.  

My convertible has over 300k miles.  They are a bit noisy, so if that matters, the hardtop 2-door would be next best.  :)

I removed my back seats (easy to do), so effectively it is a very short 'ute', with a side-opening door and a very low cargo load platform.

And with the sunroof, I've put 10ft lumber out the sunroof.  This always gets a lot of looks.  :)

In reply to MazdaFace :

We are going to ask about the rear minted spare if we decide on that.

In reply to Steve_Jones :

The biggest concern with the Fiat is the new engine for this year, I am hoping that someone has experience with it to tell me if it will or won’t stay together well.  

In reply to nimblemotorsports :

We wouldn’t be opposed to something like that but all of the 1st gen RAV 4s have disappeared from our area long ago. 

First gen rav4 is what turned me off Toyota. Wife had a manual 4 door. Thing was a complete pile of crap. In 90k mikes it burned up 3 cats, a rear diff, struts and an ecu. That car left us stranded on 3 different occurrences in 2 years. 

I'm here to preach the gospel of the Lord and Savior, Honda Element. 

Another vote for the Mazda CX5.  We just got one for the wife and she loves it.  BTW, it is the eighth Mazda in the family.

You owe it to yourself to check out the Buick Encore, their best-selling vehicle worldwide. My wife looked at everything when she bought hers, VW, Mazda, Kia, Ford, Toyota, etc. (The Echosport wasnt out yet, but she has sat in one at the dealer since and did not like it one bit.)  We got ours at a CarMax-type place and paid $24K for a loaded model with an unlimited warranty.  It has been reliable and she loves the size, space, and tons of features.