For anyone thinking about ordering a 500 who wants to take an extended test drive....

I was just looking to book our hire car for our summer holiday and happened across an offer from Budget to rent a Fiat 500 from £12 per day. I'm sure that the word "from" plays a crucial role in that sentence but it might be worth investigating if you are thinking of taking the plunge and your dealer is being mean with the test drives.

http://www.budget.co.uk/budgetonline/gb/budget.nsf/c/Home

RobinPJ said:

For anyone thinking about ordering a 500 who wants to take an extended test drive....

I was just looking to book our hire car for our summer holiday and happened across an offer from Budget to rent a Fiat 500 from £12 per day. I'm sure that the word "from" plays a crucial role in that sentence but it might be worth investigating if you are thinking of taking the plunge and your dealer is being mean with the test drives.

http://www.budget.co.uk/budgetonline/gb/budget.nsf/c/Home

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I just checked the site and initiated a quote from my nearest branch (Brighton) for 24hrs and it came up with £48. To my mind a day is 24hrs, so I punched in 0900 hrs > 1600hrs and it still came up with £48. Be interesting to see what parameters the £12 refers to.

There may be one particular day where it's 12 quid....

or you commit to a 2 year rental ...

it usually assumes a 7 day rental, Avis also have these although you are not always guaranteed one as do thrifty, last time I looked you could get a 500 on a 3 day weekend pre booked and pre paid for less than £60 ... although i've just looked and its no near enough £100

After playing about on that website for a bit I managed to get a quote for a 500 from Southend Fri lunchtime - Mon morning 21 June-24 June for £44.65 all in - inclusive of CDW & unlimited mileage.

I'm guessing it'll be a 1.2 pop as it's stated as not having A/C. Still a good deal for anyone wanting to try out the car for long enough to form a realistic impression.

Thrifty have the lounge specs, not sure on the engines though. I'll ask next time they are in.

That's how the whole 500-affair started for me

I rented a 500 from Avis at Heathrow for a few weeks and found it perfect for my needs in England. I did some motorway trips, runs around Devon country lanes, B-roads in Kent, and some driving in London. It had 27 miles on the clock when I picked it up, and about 1200 miles when I returned it.

It was a white 1.2 Lounge with 5-speed manual, Stop-and-Start. Easy to drive, even played music off my iPhone, and the partially-white interior with glass roof was a cheery place to be on a grey day (it was March 2011).

I found it worked perfectly for everything I wanted and was better equipped than other small cars that I'd rented before (e.g. the Corsa, or the horribly-cheap Peugeot 107).

A year later I bought myself a 500 in New Zealand, but it turned out to be a very different experience. Being a 500 Sport, it was missing the various nice parts of the Lounge spec, such as that glass roof and the chrome trim under the windows. The Dualogic worked well but the 1.4 wasn't as economical as the 1.2. The interior seemed much more ordinary in grey. The ride comfort of the 2009-built Sport with 16" wheels seemed worse than the Lounge with 15" wheels (which had revised suspension made after May 2010) and the Blue&Me didn't work as well on the earlier car. I found it all quite a disappointment and the road noise was excessive in NZ conditions. And also that bumpy ride.

So the moral of all this is that there is quite a difference between the various 500 versions and between driving conditions on opposite sides of the world. If I moved to England, I'd definitely buy another 500, and it would probably be a white 1.2 Lounge I'd advise caution in assessing the particular version that you're interested in. I also feel that the basic versions are better value

-Alex

alexGS said:

That's how the whole 500-affair started for me

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Alex - have you seen your 500 since it was sold on ?
Got the impression that you might have kept it if it had been the smaller engine. And maybe it wasn't a colour that would be confused with 'I dare not mention the word'.

loveshandbags said:

Alex - have you seen your 500 since it was sold on ?
Got the impression that you might have kept it if it had been the smaller engine. And maybe it wasn't a colour that would be confused with 'I dare not mention the word'.

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Lol!

I really should have gone for Lounge spec. That would have probably made the difference. White with some Italian stripes and chrome trim, perfect. I know you're not a fan of the chrome but I think it would have suited it. (I love my V6 Alfa Spider and that's not exactly dripping with chrome).

I haven't seen my 500 since selling it and shudder to think what condition it might be in now - the person I sold it to bought it for his wife who had a short driving history of damaging cars while driving in south Auckland).

Thanks,
-Alex

alexGS said:

Lol!

I really should have gone for Lounge spec. That would have probably made the difference. White with some Italian stripes and chrome trim, perfect. I know you're not a fan of the chrome but I think it would have suited it. (I love my V6 Alfa Spider and that's not exactly dripping with chrome).

I haven't seen my 500 since selling it and shudder to think what condition it might be in now - the person I sold it to bought it for his wife who had a short driving history of damaging cars while driving in south Auckland).

Thanks,
-Alex

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A good reason not to sell a car to someone local. I would imagine if it was going for a knock down price in 2 or 3 years you probably still wouldn't want it.