We've had our 500 just over a month and 1000 miles now and the paint has started to come off the wheel centre caps (the car is never washed with a power washer, only a gilmour foaming attachment with non caustic foam, and the wheels were waxed from new) seems that the centre is chrome plated and then the dark grey centre is simply painted over the top. Thing is the service fella at Mirafiori Autovillage has already seen at least 5 examples personally since November.

Well, you just cant paint over chrome, it never works. Are they going to replace them under warranty?
This is the thing with any new model, best to wait until dealers feed all these things back to Fiat, so they can modify them.
You should see the poor quality on my brand new Vespa.. now that really is rubbish

iirc there was a similar issue for some gp wheels

nuovapanda said:

Well, you just cant paint over chrome, it never works. Are they going to replace them under warranty?
This is the thing with any new model, best to wait until dealers feed all these things back to Fiat, so they can modify them.
You should see the poor quality on my brand new Vespa.. now that really is rubbish

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Went to the dealers yesterday, parts arrived today Italy being Italy I had to make an appointment to get them fitted on Thursday. Your 100% correct re painting chrome, yet you would have thought a) the suppliers would know that b) FIAT would have had a test spec for them.

Mind you, Ive just been out and followed a Golf home, his chrome wheelcaps were perfect still

Ours did exactly the same on these wheels after 4k.

So if they replace that cap on the wheels does it just do it again after the same period?

andy armitage said:

So if they replace that cap on the wheels does it just do it again after the same period?

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We'll wait and see

If they have to replace 100,000x4 each year I'm sure that will act as an incentive in getting it right!

ensonricky said:

If they have to replace 100,000x4 each year I'm sure that will act as an incentive in getting it right!

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Thing is it's no cost to FIAT as the supplier takes all costs incurred

AJ69 said:

Thing is it's no cost to FIAT as the supplier takes all costs incurred

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Which means the supplier will get their arses into gear and sort the underlying problem out when they have to cover all those replacements under warrenty

I doubt very much anything will happen, no matter how good the Italians are at making cars and design etc... one thing they are worse at than anyone else in the world is chroming and finishing off. Personally if it were mine Id just strip them of the paint and do it yourself

New models have niggles. If a peeling paint on your wheels is the worst then that's a good car indeed.

Hellcat said:

New models have niggles. If a peeling paint on your wheels is the worst then that's a good car indeed.

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thats it, least its only the centre caps too, easily replacable.

You thinks that's bad.....

I had a Honda Insight until recently, & in 62,000 miles she had 5 (yes 5) new sets of magnesium wheels under warranty, at a cost of £1200 a pop to Honda.

Mark Elvin said:

You thinks that's bad.....

I had a Honda Insight until recently, & in 62,000 miles she had 5 (yes 5) new sets of magnesium wheels under warranty, at a cost of £1200 a pop to Honda.

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Why did you need 20 wheels?

I imagine they corroded?

nuovapanda said:

I imagine they corroded?

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Poor quality laquer leading to oxidisation of the magnesium.

i've got the same problem and i removed the paint with steel wool 000 and the result was great

davytjen2009 said:

i've got the same problem and i removed the paint with steel wool 000 and the result was great

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I actually prefer that!