I'd wager that an awful lot of folk here in the UK will now be hanging on to their £0 or £30 VED cars for as long as possible now seeing as the VED rates all change from 1st April 17.

Despite the fact I wasn't the main driver of both our former 1.2 and TA 500's, I did enjoy both cars. It was just a huge shame that even under warranty, both cars suffered pretty much the same well known issues, none of which we've experienced with the Hyundai i10 1.2 we now have. I understand that people do object to the line trotted out that a Fiat 500 isn't a car you'd want to own outside of warrany, but for me, that was entirely the case. I could see the problems that people were routinely reporting, and it completely put me off from wanting to keep and maintain for years outside of warranty.

However, back to the subject of ride/handling, I can also honestly say, I didn't find it a problem on both of the cars. These days, I only ever drive 500's at work and still I would say they're not as 'uncomfortable' as some of the cars I drive. Drove my first 500 Arbarth the other day, couldn't stop !

Thanks for the comments evrybody

i think the B14 route maybe too harsh for me as the wife has to drive the car aswell sometimes.

I still want to lower the suspension and have found a Eibach kit -

the b12 pro or sportline kit - Has anybody got some experience with these kits on a 2008 500?

frupi said:

I'd wager that an awful lot of folk here in the UK will now be hanging on to their £0 or £30 VED cars for as long as possible now seeing as the VED rates all change from 1st April 17.

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I'd wager it won't be long before the government brings the rates of duty for existing cars in line with those which now apply to newly registered ones.

A situation where older, more polluting cars pay less than newer, less polluting ones is unsustainable.

jrkitching said:

I'd wager it won't be long before the government brings the rates of duty for existing cars in line with those which now apply to newly registered ones.

A situation where older, more polluting cars pay less than newer, less polluting ones is unsustainable.

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God I hope not, my Mazda would fall into the £1200 a year bracket! Pricing myself off the road, just about managing to keep the car legally on the road, it's bad enough the tax is £270 a year

frupi said:

Despite the fact I wasn't the main driver of both our former 1.2 and TA 500's, I did enjoy both cars. It was just a huge shame that even under warranty, both cars suffered pretty much the same well known issues, none of which we've experienced with the Hyundai i10 1.2 we now have. I understand that people do object to the line trotted out that a Fiat 500 isn't a car you'd want to own outside of warrany, but for me, that was entirely the case. I could see the problems that people were routinely reporting, and it completely put me off from wanting to keep and maintain for years outside of warranty.

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What sort of issues are people seeing in or out of warranty that would really put you off?

So far the TwinAir has had, top mounts and new Monroe shocks all round (the rear shocks had had it by 18000miles - fronts were ok, but the top mounts were noisy) front discs and pads and it's 3 1/2 years old with 22000miles.

The 1.2 is coming up to 4 years old with 23000miles and it had rear shocks, front discs and pads... The waterpump and cambelt were done early for my convenience.

Both the Fiats now drive really well, as new. The TwinAir feels better than it did when it was new and is certainly more quiet.. as the shocks and top mounts were not quiet when it was new etc!

With the OEM Fiat top mounts you can pop the bearing out and take it apart to add more grease before fitting it. I then made some decent covers to keep the water out and I spray some silicon grease in there every few months

To be fair our Honda CRV also needed front discs and pads at this mileage at double the cost. Then at 5 years old the automatic gearbox failed and cost £4000 to replace.

The previous small car was a Smart car MHD, which at 14000miles shredded its drive belt on the M25 due too a well known issue with the engine (Starter/Alternator bolts wear) and took Smart/Mercedes 4 weeks to fix under warranty.
The car was never the same and this is a reoccurring faulty that was never really sorted!

The previous Smart car spent more time in the dealership than in my ownership (1 year old, spent 6 weeks with the dealer out of 9 weeks of ownership) and was swapped by Smart due to the issues - non functioning aircon, clonking front suspension, grinding gears going into reverse, heater fan failed, second key lost coding, and then the interior drivers door release failed to open the door!

500s may have their issues, but so do other cars

The UK JD power 2016 study shows that Fiat (12th) was slight above the industry average for dependability and Hyundai (18th) is well below average!

Can the warranty direct survey be as accurate if WD wouldn't see a Hyundai for the first 5 years! Where as the JD survey is based on new car ownership going forward! Both manufactures' cars were more highly rated than BMW, Audi, Land Rover and Mercedes. Fiat cars were more highly rated for dependability than Citroen, Renault, Honda (yes £4000 gearbox at 29000miles and 5years), Jaguar, Volvo, Mini and Hyundai.

As I say and has been documented countless times on this forum, plus from my own experience from ownership, the things that put me off from owning a 500 outside of warranty were:

Door handles inexplicably breaking off. Happened to both the 500's we owned. For me, too dangerous an issue if involved in an accident. Wouldn't want a potential rescuer in a dangerous situation grabbing hold of a door handle and it just coming off in their hand. The 500 is the only car I've ever owned where the door handles have just broken off and so early into ownership. Handles replaced under warranty.

Constant electrical niggles, battery, Stop/Start, so much so, we kept ours permanently disabled. Drove us quite literally round the bend!

Electric Steering Motor replaced in a car barely two years old....acceptable? I think not, done under warranty.

Broken heater flap/actuator on the Twin Air requiring the car to be out of action for repairs for over 24 hours, done under warranty.

Brand new instrument pod because of the 'flashing mileage' and other electrical oddities, done under warranty.

And of course there's the dreaded hatch wiring problem that many seem to be suffering. I didn't want to have to start mucking about sorting that out.

No car should be in a situation whereby major suspension components need replacing at such ridiculously low mileages. The stories of shocks being replaced at 20k miles etc, really rather poor.

I enjoyed the cars whilst we had the benefit of free repairs from Fiat, but I wasn't prepared to pay for any further issues outside of warranty.

Lovely cars to look at and even quite nice to drive around town, but hideously overpriced in my opinion compared to other cars in their class. Plus neither of the two cars I owned at the time had the option of cruise control which we use all the time living near a motorway.

Think you must have had a Friday car by the looks of it. :bang:
Of course the problem with a forum is, that people only seek them out when they need help.
I have heard about the door handle issue and I have spare metal hinges in the workshop to replace the plastic ones if this ever happens to me. Not experienced this yet and both cars are now over 3 years old.
I did have 2 newish Smart cars, where the door handle on the interior failed to open the door, which is worse in my opinion and also had to be fixed by Mercedes under warranty.

Stop Start - I disable it as generally it has the ability to over time ruin a turbo through repeated oil starvation... but this was the situation on our BMW X3 also so not just a Fiat issue. All of the (many) 1.2 hire 500s (including our own) that I have driven have had some stop start niggles, I just switch it off.

The power steering motor is unusual, but again I have seen this happen one way or another to so many different cars.. the electric pump fails or the rack fails etc...

Not experienced the hatch wiring fail yet lol

The problem with the rear shocks is not so much the shocks themselves, but the bushes.... Fiat use void bushes which transmit much less noise into the car, unlike solid bushes... but the void bushes fail early, due to their design.
Once replaced with aftermarket shocks with solid bushes, there is no longer an issue... anymore than any other car.

Sounds like you were unlucky and most people don't have so many issues with one car.

As for price I think they are comparable to others. My previous small car was a £14500 Toyota IQ which you could say was expensive compared to the Aygo etc

You can't compare a fully spec ed TwinAir or Abarth with leather interior to a Hyundai i10!
Oh the last model i10 (2008 - 2014) - suffers from as many issues - https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/hyundai/i10-2008/?section=good

My point being that all car manufactures have their problems

The problems I experienced were with BOTH of the 500's we owned. We first owned a 1.2 and after that, a TA. The door handle issues were identical on both cars. The 1.2 had the steering motor replaced, the TA, the heater actuator and the pod. Both cars suffered the same Stop/Start issues

So probably, two Friday afternoon cars!

Seriously though, when the cars were running well, they ran well.

I'm not comparing the price of a Hyundai i10 with a fully leather bound Abarth or a top spec run of the mill 500. What I'm saying is, the on the road price for our 1.2 Hyundai i10 Premium with full hands free integrated bluetooth and cruise control, leather steering wheel, A/C, door mirror indicators etc, was cheaper than the first 1.2 500 POP we owned and that had very few 'extras'. It did have integrated BlueandMe, but that was a Fiat Fleetcar spec.

We also benefitted from a generous public sector worker discount with Hyundai, so jumping ship was a no brainer for us at the time.

As for JD Power reviews, never taken much notice of them to be honest. We could all sit here and point to reviews and determine that one particular marque might be more reliable than another, but from my own particular experience, our Fiat experience was pretty bloody poor and not one I will repeat. And that is what it is all about at the end of the day, your own personal experience.

As for our i10, well we've had that almost two years and not suffered a single mechanical or electrical issue with it other than the clutch cable was adjusted during the car's first service. Other than that, my wife is extremely pleased with the car, though she would be the first to tell you, she absolutely loved the TA, it's unmistakable little roar and it felt so quick off the mark. But she now has the benefit of four passenger doors and cruise control, something the 500(s) didn't have.