I am thinking of buying an '88 Fiero Formula. I have heard that they can catch fire. Is that true? If it is, can it be fixed inexpensively?
This is a car line with problems.
The fire problem IIRC was plastic fuel-line clips that melted in the very hot engine compartment and allowed fuel lines to drop across the exhaust, which would cause a nasty gas fire. This was very simple and easy for the dealers to fix - they replaced them with metal clips.
There were also many cases of engines (V6’s) with main bearing cap bolts that were torqued much too low, which led to several spectacular catastrophic engine failures. IIRC, the UAW guys on one line fiddled with an air wrench they thought was at the wrong torque setting, and bolts which were supposed to be at 130 ft-lbf were instead at 50 ft-lbf.
The Fiero had a long line of nagging problems that affected it’s interior, electrical system, front suspension, engine, transmission, and rear wheel bearings. See Consumer Reports if you don’t believe me.
If you must have a small, mid-engined sports car, go with an MR2. While not as visually appealing as the Fiero, it’s a hell of a lot better car.
I eagerly await the day that the last Fiero catches fire, is driven off a cliff, or meets some other horrible fate and the species is officially declared extinct.
Maybe also avoid those mid 70s Triumphs. Was it the TR7 I’m thinking of? They were pretty sporty in their day, but they don’t work anymore. I still see them around sometimes, most often in back yards with four flat tires and a few parts on the ground.
If you are talking mid-engined, you are probably referring to or thinking of the FIAT/Bertone X 1/9 - a car I owned 2 of! It looked similar to the TR7, which was front-engined. The FIAT was not a bad car at heart, and was a simply incredibly handling car. However, the major faults of it were:
Rust - bad, structural rust.
Exhaust (rust)
Overheating.
NO power to speak of.
Rust.
A/C was a joke.
Rust.
An incredibly small and cramped car.
Rust.
Some repair jobs were incredibly difficult to do - valve adjustment, timing chain replacement, clutch, cooling system - ugh. (Hey! How else do you think this gal got to be such a good mechanic?)
Still, IMO, a superior car to the TR7, but that’s sorta like saying Regis is better than Kathie Lee…
Whoa…a good gal mechanic…be still my heart…
Well, in case you haven’t seen me around the board much, a lesbian gal mechanic. 
I had a Triumph Spitfire convertable and my friend had a Triumph TR7. Stay far away from these cars. I didn’t think it was possible to build a car this bad. I have also heard the Fiero is a very bad car, and I heard this from several ferio owners.
“…a lesbian gal mechanic…”
Actually, I do know…from all the other posts. But you must also know that it is nevertheless exciting!
Back to OP. I had experiences with a few older British sports cars, and yes, they are crap. But…they give rise to imagination and a style that can’t be beat. I think the British just had a hard time coming up with good cars, just exciting ones. My brother had a Fiero, it too is definitely crap.
A/C was a joke? Didn’t the A/C controls on each door work? Or the auxillary overhead A/C vent?
I had a couple of X1/9s, among other Fiats, and I have a Spider ("stop popping the rust bubbles!!!) in my garage right now (which keeps blowing running light fuses, and it’s been a pain to track down the prob, dammit. The joy of Fiat.)
I would love to get another Fiat. My first X1/9 rocked. It had a lot of power. Being a glorified go-cart, it ate up mountain roads as if it were a slot-car. Honkytonkwillie, if you see another Fiat or ‘Triumph-lookin’ thing’ sitting on blocks, please let me know. Seriously. I would love to get another basket-case to work on.
A lot of my friends have different older sports cars. I would not wish a Fiero on anyone. You need to be a mechanic to own a TR. The MR2s do seem reliable. My friend who had one as a daily driver wasn’t much of a mechanic, and his MR2 never let him down.
Anthracite, you won’t let that lesbian thing get in the way of marrying me, would you?
My father has a TR8 he picked up about a year or two ago…after some body work, that car is nice. Of course, he’s also good friends with a super-duper Triumph mechanic in Taunton, so anything that could go wrong is fixed before it does. Regardless, its still a sweet car.
“We build excitement…”
Wow, I’m so glad I read this because I had NO idea that Fieros sucked so bad. A friend of mine keeps kicking around the idea of getting a kit car of some kind and so many of them use the Fiero as the donor car that you strap the new body to. I mean, I always assumed all mid-engine cars were lame because you can’t get to anything easily, but you’d think from reading some of the magazines that the Fiero MUST be the most dependable and easy to obtain mid-engine of the lot. Guess I better tell him that before he makes a stupid move. [Well, o.k., to be fair, buying a kit car is ALREADY a stupid move, so I guess I should say a STUPIDER move with the potential purchase of a Fiero
LMAO! Of course, I loved the targa roof (when it didn’t leak). I think it was silly of them to even try to put AC on it though.
What the hell kinda X 1/9 did you have? Even the 1981-1986 fuel-injected ones only had about 75 hp IIRC, compared to the 1979-1980 Weber Carb ones that had 67 hp.
With a 0-60 time of 11 sec (new), 12-13 sec in practice, and 1/4 mile of about 18-20 seconds, I really hated being out-dragged by Honda Civics.
I even got an FI engine from a Strada and swapped it with my 79’s carb engine. The only improvement was in fuel economy - I saw no noticeable power increase. And torque was LOW.
But dude, that engine loved to rev - 7000 rpm and it still felt fine.
Here’s my dilemmma - I’m old and “rich” now, and could easily buy a couple X 1/9’s to play with in my spare time. Except that I bought my 98 Mustang GT. I am now addicted to POWER. Lots of POWER. Or more correctly, TORQUE. And the sad thing is - my GT handles about as well as my FIAT ever did - sure it’s not nearly as nimble, and it doesn’t feel like you are hugging the road like the X 1/9, but it’s not bad either.
Hmmmm…I think you really just want someone else to help you change clutches and timing belts.
The TR8 is certainly neat from a collectors standpoint - it’s a pretty desireable and uncommon car with that V8. Ever see a Triumph Stag (also V8)?
And wasn’t there a Triumph “GT6” that was kinda neat too?
I always thought it was “We build excrement…”
I had an 85 fiero GT with the V6 engine. In general it was a pretty reliable I car. I finally got rid of it about 2 years ago with a blocked exhaust leaving it unrunnable, it had about 190K miles.
The major problems I had were:
Clutch, and you had to pull out the engine to change it.
A/C. With a condenser in the front and compressor in the back, leaks could form anywhere, I finally just let it be.
Ignition. For some reason it would eat up distributor position sensing coils. As soon as I sould start having mysterious engine cut-outs with refusal to start until cooled somewhat, I knew it was time to change the little coil.
Until the recall, it was almost impossible to change the front 3 sparkplugs. After the recall when things were dressed away from the engine, it became much easier.
Gosh, maybe it was worse than I thought!
Stay away from Anthracite. I swear on my mother’s grave, I’ll break your fingers.
My mom’s not dead.
–Tim
I had a Triumph GT-6. It was a fun car (basically a fastback Spitfire with a 6 cyl. instead of the Spit’s 4 cyl.), but, as with all British Leyland products, it was poorly built. I had friends who had other Triumphs and various MGs and you just got used to guages, door handles, windshield wipers, etc. not working. I carried a box of valve springs in the car because they broke often enough that I came to think of replacing them as about equivalent to changing a flat (which you couuldn’t do with the stock scissor-jack - that was soft metal that just sort of crumpled on first use).
But it was fun and it looked neat. Here’s a picture of one. I notice he’s lost his windshield trim - as I did with mine.
The Mark I MR2(normally aspirated) used the Corolla GTS engine. Aside from being to withstand frequent trips to the redline, the engines also last forever. It’s not uncoomon to meet MR2 owners whose cars have over 200K miles.
Look in Consumer Reports. The MR2 is by far the most reliable, cheap(no NSXs) mid-engine car.
The MR2 is also much faster than the 4 cylinder Fiero and the X/19. The NA does 0-60 in about 8, while the supercharged version pulls about a 6.5.