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General Hi, new member about to buy a 500, advice please!

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General Hi, new member about to buy a 500, advice please!

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rs4al

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Hi all,

Just joined the forum and hoping to get a little advice from fellow members if possible please!

I am about to buy a 500 for my wife, the car i'm looking at is almost 5 years old and has only done just under 5,000 miles so it's practically still new. I just had a general question about servicing schedules - its service book shows the first service was done in Feb 2011 at 2800 miles, and the second service has just been done a couple of months ago at 4,500 miles. I read somewhere that the 500 should get serviced every 9,000 miles or annually, whichever comes first. Obviously this one hasn't been serviced annually, but then it's hardly done any miles either, so does that matter?

Thanks in advance, and hopefully I look forward to putting some photos up of our new car soon! :)
 
I think that to conform with the book it would need a low mileage service and then a proper service in alternating years, regardless of the fact it has still not got to 18,000 miles.

However, as it is now well outside the warranty, the only issue is whether the car will have been harmed by having only two services over such a long period.

My view would be that it will be fine.

I would be slightly concerned why the mileage is so low - are you buying from the original owner or from a dealer? If the former, what is the reason? If the latter, can you track down the owner? The dealer should give you their name and address off the V5, and you could also speak to the servicing dealer to check if the car has had any warranty work done.
 
rs4al said:
Hi all,

Just joined the forum and hoping to get a little advice from fellow members if possible please!

I am about to buy a 500 for my wife, the car i'm looking at is almost 5 years old and has only done just under 5,000 miles so it's practically still new. I just had a general question about servicing schedules - its service book shows the first service was done in Feb 2011 at 2800 miles, and the second service has just been done a couple of months ago at 4,500 miles. I read somewhere that the 500 should get serviced every 9,000 miles or annually, whichever comes first. Obviously this one hasn't been serviced annually, but then it's hardly done any miles either, so does that matter?

Thanks in advance, and hopefully I look forward to putting some photos up of our new car soon! :)
Click to expand...

With so few miles I would think it would be fine [in my opinion].
I would certainly not be worried.
Was it garaged... if not you may want to check for brake caliper / shoes / handbrake sticking. If it was in a garage corrosion should not be an issue.
 
It's from a dealer, and it's always been garaged, so like The Twins said, corrosion shouldn't be an issue. It'll be garaged here too. The previous owner had several cars and I guess they just didn't use this one much, hence the low mileage!

RobinPJ you mentioned about warranty work with the servicing dealer, were there any recalls on these cars over the past few years that it should have been in for, and that i need to check have been done prior to buying it?
 
I don't recall any with the 1.4. I was more wondering if the lack of use was down to recurring problems that caused the owner to park it up and not drive it. Unlikely I know, but always worth checking these things out if you can.
 
RobinPJ said:
I think that to conform with the book it would need a low mileage service and then a proper service in alternating years, regardless of the fact it has still not got to 18,000 miles.

However, as it is now well outside the warranty, the only issue is whether the car will have been harmed by having only two services over such a long period.

My view would be that it will be fine.

I would be slightly concerned why the mileage is so low - are you buying from the original owner or from a dealer? If the former, what is the reason? If the latter, can you track down the owner? The dealer should give you their name and address off the V5, and you could also speak to the servicing dealer to check if the car has had any warranty work done.
Click to expand...

What he said.

It SHOULD have been serviced more often, but with such low mileage I would have to be honest and say it should be fine.
 
As above, however I would get the belts changed for my own peace of mind. This is because I'm paranoid and rubber perishes when not being used. But that's just me.
 
Last edited:
You can of course use the lack of servicing as a negotiating tactic with the dealer - when you sell the car you will NOT be able to advertise it as having a "FSH". That impacts on its value to some degree.
 
Update! Well, that was a waste of our time. Went to see it having spoken to the stealer and being told it's 'like new'... Firstly, it had done closer to 7,000 miles, the pre-del service had been done, but the 1st service just had 'not done' written in it and stamped by a main dealer, the second service (which was really the first) was done at 3000 miles back in early 2011, and nothing since... apart from the dealers own spit and polish service, which now makes it not Full Fiat SH.

Separately, the previous owner may have only done 7000 miles, but what a bad driver - there were bodge repair scratches on the corners of both the front and rear bumpers, the piano black passenger side fascia had a huge scratch, the side window had a gouge/massive scratch on the INSIDE plus all the footwell plastic was scratched to hell too, perhaps she had a dog?

Anyway that one's done, best of luck to its new owner!!

We're off to see another one (11 plate this time), it's a 1.2 auto with 25K on the clock, one owner. Apparently it had the pre-service done march 11, then the next (its first) service at 19K miles in Nov 12, so it's done around 10,000ish miles per year, all servicing has been done by a main dealer. Does that servicing period sound about right or is 19K between pre-delivery service and its first service (after around 18 months) classed as incorrect or under-serviced? Obviously still has some warranty left, but we'd like to make sure we get one that has been serviced at the right intervals...
 
rs4al said:
Update! Well, that was a waste of our time. Went to see it having spoken to the stealer and being told it's 'like new'... Firstly, it had done closer to 7,000 miles, the pre-del service had been done, but the 1st service just had 'not done' written in it and stamped by a main dealer, the second service (which was really the first) was done at 3000 miles back in early 2011, and nothing since... apart from the dealers own spit and polish service, which now makes it not Full Fiat SH.

Separately, the previous owner may have only done 7000 miles, but what a bad driver - there were bodge repair scratches on the corners of both the front and rear bumpers, the piano black passenger side fascia had a huge scratch, the side window had a gouge/massive scratch on the INSIDE plus all the footwell plastic was scratched to hell too, perhaps she had a dog?

Anyway that one's done, best of luck to its new owner!!

We're off to see another one (11 plate this time), it's a 1.2 auto with 25K on the clock, one owner. Apparently it had the pre-service done march 11, then the next (its first) service at 19K miles in Nov 12, so it's done around 10,000ish miles per year, all servicing has been done by a main dealer. Does that servicing period sound about right or is 19K between pre-delivery service and its first service (after around 18 months) classed as incorrect or under-serviced? Obviously still has some warranty left, but we'd like to make sure we get one that has been serviced at the right intervals...
Click to expand...

The normal oil change interval for the 1.2 is 18k, but several of us here feel that's too long & choose to change it more frequently. 19k & 18 months will just about scrape into keeping the warranty intact.

However, don't put too much reliance on the third year warranty - there are a huge number of exclusions and most of the common failure items won't be covered. Nothing serious, but any one of them could give you an unexpected £100 bill.

Personally I feel the 500 is still too expensive secondhand to be good value; by the time you've replaced all the stuff that's likely to need replacing in years 2-5, you might have done better to have negotiated a decent discount on a new one & bought that. If residuals hold up as they have done so far, you'll likely have a lower cost of ownership in the first three years if you buy new rather than secondhand.
 
I can't remember how much leeway you get with a service, if my memory serves me correctly it might be up to 1k miles? That doesn't sound right.

Shouldn't be a massive issue, personally I'd go for something with proper history, but if you can get a big discount.
 
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