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General Fiat 500 Suspension/handling

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General Fiat 500 Suspension/handling

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R32Egor

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Hi All,

I have a 2008 1.2sport and would like to lowerthe car and put on 17"s.
Ifi just go for an Eibach springkit and get some 17" wheelswith the samespecasstandard fiat items-doyouthink this would be enough or do you think i should think abotu the shocks also?
 
R32Egor said:
Hi All,

I have a 2008 1.2sport and would like to lowerthe car and put on 17"s.
Ifi just go for an Eibach springkit and get some 17" wheelswith the samespecasstandard fiat items-doyouthink this would be enough or do you think i should think abotu the shocks also?
Click to expand...

Depends what you're trying to achieve. 17" wheels on a 1.2 will noticeably reduce the performance and fuel economy, and the ride will be harder, so unless your priority is appearance, IMO 17" is a step too far.

For normal driving, the car has barely sufficient ride height in standard form - personally it's not a car I'd want to lower; certainly not if there are speed bumps in your country.

One of the best ride/handling mods you can do on a 2008 car is to replace the rear beam, shocks & springs with the later type - there are plenty in the breakers now, at reasonable prices.
 
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jrkitching said:
For normal driving, the car has barely sufficient ride height in standard form - personally it's not a car I'd want to lower ........
Click to expand...
Certainly not.

Ours quite often catches the road over undulations and dips. If anything, I'd want to raise ours, not lower it.

Regards,
Mick.
 
Wheels, As long as you keep the same rolling radius(that you have a present) I can't see a issue regards performance/economy but there will be a serious reduction in ride quality and given the tyre height, any hole or speed hump would break the wheel?

If you do lower it buy a kit, or both shocks and springs which if original Fiat will be totally bust now.
 
Ignore the naysayers. The 500 is just fine when lowered. Mine is on Bilstein B14s which probably lower it 30-40mm and it's been on them for a good 20 months now with no issues. He suspension doesn't bottom out and pogo all over the road now because it actually has damping.
 
I'm on 30mm lowered springs too. No issues. I'm an archaeologist and work on road schemes and sand quarrys. One quarry in particular has a cattle grid with a missing bar. I have to be a tad more alert in regards to car position but it's generally fine.
 
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306maxi said:
Where do you live? Aleppo?
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Cornwall, as well you know.
Smaller roads and lanes round here are a little undulating and with raised bits here and there.
306maxi said:
Ignore the naysayers. The 500 is just fine when lowered. Mine is on Bilstein B14s which probably lower it 30-40mm and it's been on them for a good 20 months now with no issues. He suspension doesn't bottom out and pogo all over the road now because it actually has damping.
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Our daughter has a 14plate 500. It was parked on our drive yesterday along side our 61plate 500.

I was looking out of the front window, sort of eyeing up the two cars, and it looked to me that they were different height-wise. Similar mileage on both circa 25,000miles. Hers is a 1200 and ours a 85TA.

I went out with the tape measure and found hers was over an inch higher off the ground.
 
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I doubt you're actually catching the bottom of the car on anything, if it was truly that bad you'd had lost a bumper by now. Suspension bottoming out? That's actualy something that happens with standard suspension. I've not done it once on my Bilsteins.
 
It's the plastic engine bay bottom that catches the tarmac. Not the suspension bottoming out, and I'm not imitating a rally driver.

Next time I'm chatting to our daughter, I must as her if she has the same problem as us. Somehow, I doubt she is.

Why ours and hers are different ride heights, I don't know. I do know that the tyres and rims are the same size, but why the wheelarches are higher off the ground, I ain't got a clue.

If hers is "normal" and ours sags for some reason, I'm not experienced in these cars enough to comment one way or another. I suspect that ours is wrong, because people truely believe that you can lower their cars without issue.

Maybe as ours is over an inch lower than our daughters and we to were lower ours 30mm, we would be scraping the roads permanently! :eek:

For the record, our front wheelarches are 620mm, and the rears are 670mm.
Just measured them now.

Hope that helps,
Mick.
 
Mick F said:
If hers is "normal" and ours sags for some reason, I'm not experienced in these cars enough to comment one way or another. I suspect that ours is wrong, because people truely believe that you can lower their cars without issue.
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Mick, in fairness to Maxi & others, if as well as lowering it you fit stiffer springs and decent dampers, the front of the car may end up no nearer the ground when you hit a bump than on the stock parts; as an example, if you lower it by 30mm and the suspension travels 30mm less when you hit a bump, you're no worse off. So lowering could work out OK for some; it's not the kind of ride I'd want, but that's just personal choice.

Numptys who think they can lower it on the cheap by hacking a bit off the springs are, of course, another thing entirely.

Catching the bottom of the centre box when driving over a severe speed hump is also a different issue; you need absolute ground clearance for that, and if you live in a country that's addicted to the dreadful things, it might not work out so well. I have a good friend who has a lip at the top of her (sloping) driveway and in standard trim, the centrebox clears it by only a few mm; if I lowered it, I wouldn't have a chance.

My own view is that the 500 OEM setup isn't so much badly sprung as badly damped. The later stiffened rear beam models (2010 model year onward) are noticeably better in this regard.
 
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John202020 said:
Did you measure both sides? Broken or failing spring?
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I didn't measure both sides. no.
However the car handles very well indeed for what it is ........and isn't lop sided at all.

As ours is a 2011 model, it must have the stiffened rear beam arrangement, so as JR suggests, it's ok.

Yes, JR, badly dampened probably ............. but I ain't doing anything about it. It'll do me the way it is.

Regards,
Mick.
 
My 500 was fitted with 16" wheels and 45 section tyres, which made the ride a bit firm. I certainly wouldn't have wanted a lower profile, which you would obviously need if going to 17s to keep the same rolling radius.
I never noticed anything bottoming out, but if a speed hump was attacked a bit fast the plastic strip underneath the front bumper would scrape. Unfortunately Mick I changed the car last month so I can't do any measuring.
The 500X I've got now has 18" wheels, again with 45 profile tyres, so the ride is still a bit firm. However, the damping is much better than the 500's.
Fuel consumption and performance will be worse with bigger wheels as they are wider and will have more rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag. I wouldn't expect the difference to be huge, though.
 
jrkitching said:
Mick, in fairness to Maxi & others, if as well as lowering it you fit stiffer springs and decent dampers, the front of the car may end up no nearer the ground when you hit a bump than on the stock parts; as an example, if you lower it by 30mm and the suspension travels 30mm less when you hit a bump, you're no worse off. So lowering could work out OK for some; it's not the kind of ride I'd want, but that's just personal choice.

Numptys who think they can lower it on the cheap by hacking a bit off the springs are, of course, another thing entirely.

Catching the bottom of the centre box when driving over a severe speed hump is also a different issue; you need absolute ground clearance for that, and if you live in a country that's addicted to the dreadful things, it might not work out so well. I have a good friend who has a lip at the top of her (sloping) driveway and in standard trim, the centrebox clears it by only a few mm; if I lowered it, I wouldn't have a chance.

My own view is that the 500 OEM setup isn't so much badly sprung as badly damped. The later stiffened rear beam models (2010 model year onward) are noticeably better in this regard.
Click to expand...
Imho the 500 is more comfortable on average with coilovers.

I won't lie, there are some situations where it's less comfortable, but it's so so far improved over standard.

I think you'd be surprised if you tried one with Bilsteins.
 
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