I've now returned from sunny Wiltshire and have a 1.2 Panda loan car which drives as a new 1.2 should do and which highlights the inadequacies of my 500.

My contact at Pewsham has promised to open the technical ticket today/tomorrow and hopefully something will show up. However, we're both expecting nothing to show and the car to be working within 'normal tolerances'. However, SOMETHING needs to be done to highlight the faults. It shouldn't just come down to assessing 'normal tolerances'.

They've assured me they're going to take it for a test drive too, try and find a hill, and hopefully experience the same problems that both myself and my partner have.

I need someone within the industry to agree with me; I've been slowly feeling like I've been going mad with all this aggro and those of you who have been following my posts will probably see this.

I think there's a lot to be said for 'safety in numbers' - we need a lot of 500 1.2 owners to come forward and start rejecting their cars. It's all very well for the odd one or two like me prepared to do so but we need far more to. So come one - REJECT YOUR CARS. Fiat isn't going to take this ongoing issue seriously unless we start putting up a proper fight.

And yes, whilst some have received the fix, I'm sure there are PLENTY like me still waiting and feeling more and more frustrated by Fiat's inability to do anything.

Time is still ticking for me....at least now the car is hopefully going to get conclusions from this technical ticket (given that the one that was opened at Huttons - do not touch with a barge-pole - and a conclusion never reached).

On this point, actually, I wonder how many owners who share my predicament with their own 500s would be prepared to meet up and make a demonstration? I could organise getting press (possibly TV, too - hey, we could try to get Watchdog to come along given that they originally asked me to do the filming for their second programme report and because of my unavailability they got the Stig) to cover the demonstration....

Let's put our wheels where our mouthes are - any thoughts?

ab4444 said:

On this point, actually, I wonder how many owners who share my predicament with their own 500s would be prepared to meet up and make a demonstration? I could organise getting press (possibly TV, too - hey, we could try to get Watchdog to come along given that they originally asked me to do the filming for their second programme report and because of my unavailability they got the Stig) to cover the demonstration....

Let's put our wheels where our mouthes are - any thoughts?

Click to expand...

go to Fiat HQ in UK with all the press and cars you can have and park all your cars blocking the HQ. That should do the job = )

Super Uwe said:

Going slightly off topic, but the SMMT figures for 2014 are out now:
http://www.smmt.co.uk/2015/01/uk-new-car-registrations-december-2014/

Fiat registered 67,162 cars in the UK in 2014, of which 44,005 were 500s (making it the 9th most popular car in the UK for 2014). So it's still by far and away Fiat's best seller.

Even with the onset of this 1.2 problem, sales have still been holding up at around 3k per month since September 2014 (when the 500 was the sixth best selling car that month with 9,122 registrations).

December 2014 was fairly quiet, but it's hard to say whether that's just down to the time of the year, or if people genuinely are steering clear. We'll have to see what happens over the next six months I guess.

Click to expand...

I know it's not completely on-topic, but 500 registration numbers in January were still pretty good to be honest. Data available from the files at the bottom of this page:
http://www.smmt.co.uk/2015/02/uk-new-car-registrations-january-2015/

It was the 9th best seller in January 2015 with 3,145 cars registered. Fiat only registered 4,184 in the whole month - that means roughly 4 out of every 5 Fiat's registered was a 500!

To be honest, as many problems as we have seen reported on here, they're not necessarily translating into lost sales. I'm personally more shocked that the rest of the entire range barely mustered 700 units

Which just goes to show that Fiat don't want to attract attention again to the one model that's apparently saving their bacon.

It's not fair the way they're treating their customers. If I had a customer really unhappy with something I had sold them I'd be bending over backwards to make them know that I was really sorry for their disappointment and FIX things.

When I went to the dealers last week they had loads of nearly new 500s for sale ,so I dont think the registrations are real private sales,they are being sold to fleets.

I rang my dealer at the beginning of jan to find out when the update was available as I thought it was coming out in January, and they said they would find out and call me back as they didn't know. Still haven't heard from them to this day so I emailed fiat customer care last week and this was their response.

"In regards to the concerns you have raised we would like to confirm that we have not been notified of an update that relates to these concerns being available for your vehicle at this point. We would recommend that you stay in contact with the dealership as they would be the best point of reference for you regarding this type of enquiry."

I can vouch for Pewsham Garages in Chippenham. I know sometimes when people have had awful dealer experiences, the better one they discover next can be described as the best thing since sliced bread, but these guys really are good on the servicing side (I've not used them for sales). I used to take my Fiat Stilo there, even though it's a 3 hour round trip & we've far closer dealers. No fancy showroom in a glam location, but they don't need it - just good honest service. Can't fault them

Unlike the rest of the Fiat experience, it seems! They're so laid back about it it's unreal. Annoyingly as already pointed out, the 500 still registered in the top 10 best selling cars in the UK in Jan, although I agree that a lot of these could be non-private sales. I've seen a few 64 plates on the road, but not enough to stack up to the 3000-odd supposedly registered.

The fact the rest of the range makes up so little of the sales makes it even more unbelievable that Fiat are treating 500 customers with such lack of effort.

I agree,without the 500 many UK dealers would have gone by now.

In the german board it´s a topic, too. (mybe not that big) Here the same some owners experience it, others not. But from Fiat side also not solution.

http://www.forum500.de/community/index.php/topic,7241.0.html

Hi all.
Just thought I would check back in out of interest.
Absolutely flabbergasted that we are now nearly into march, and still it isn't sorted.
Words fail me.
Fiat have lost me as a customer for one- I went and bought a Hyundai i10 for my daughter, and what a lovely little car that is.
Just shocking, pure and simple.

The worst thing is Fiat have probably lost a fair few customers long term over this. to add I don't know whether anyone else is also experiencing a brake problem where intermittently the brake pedal will go notchy on operation particularly if you brake lift off and brake again (according to fiat this is normal operation but something i've never heard of on any other vehicle being normal before)

I noticed something odd happening with the brakes on my car shortly before I sold it. If you came on and off the brakes quickly it seemed to affect the throttle, in that the throttle would give a slightly longer pause before picking up, it would would then pick up in a couple of small surges. I had initially thought that it was just the clutch causing the problem, as you often use clutch and brakes together. I then mentioned it to a local motor trader and he said it sounded like it had ESP or hill assist which, of course, it didn't.

Given the length of time this problem has been known I can't see Fiat ever getting a proper fix for it. I haven't seen much on the forum from people who have had their cars fixed. They are taking people's money and ripping them off. To my mind this is criminal, if they know that someone driving one of these cars is likely to need more advanced techniques than the average driver has ever been taught they should tell potential customers before they buy the car, otherwise the buyer is entitled to assume the car will be suitable even for very inexperienced or learner drivers.

I am very relieved that I was in a position to get rid of my Fiat. Now I have a car that drives well and, more importantly, is predictable and safe. Driving my new car has highlighted just how awful the 1.2 Fiat was. I can enjoy driving once more.

David Bliss said:

I noticed something odd happening with the brakes on my car shortly before I sold it. If you came on and off the brakes quickly it seemed to affect the throttle, in that the throttle would give a slightly longer pause before picking up, it would would then pick up in a couple of small surges. I had initially thought that it was just the clutch causing the problem, as you often use clutch and brakes together. I then mentioned it to a local motor trader and he said it sounded like it had ESP or hill assist which, of course, it didn't.

Given the length of time this problem has been known I can't see Fiat ever getting a proper fix for it. I haven't seen much on the forum from people who have had their cars fixed. They are taking people's money and ripping them off. To my mind this is criminal, if they know that someone driving one of these cars is likely to need more advanced techniques than the average driver has ever been taught they should tell potential customers before they buy the car, otherwise the buyer is entitled to assume the car will be suitable even for very inexperienced or learner drivers.

I am very relieved that I was in a position to get rid of my Fiat. Now I have a car that drives well and, more importantly, is predictable and safe. Driving my new car has highlighted just how awful the 1.2 Fiat was. I can enjoy driving once more.

Click to expand...

lets be honest here; fiat never had a good reputation for customer service or reliability in the past many years. its their 'mentality'

dexydog said:

Hi all.
Just thought I would check back in out of interest.
Absolutely flabbergasted that we are now nearly into march, and still it isn't sorted.
Words fail me.
Fiat have lost me as a customer for one- I went and bought a Hyundai i10 for my daughter, and what a lovely little car that is.
Just shocking, pure and simple.

Click to expand...

i10 is a very good car,we almost got one last year but the dealer would not budge on the deal,for the £400 I wish we had gone for it now and rid of the 500.

David Bliss said:

I noticed something odd happening with the brakes on my car shortly before I sold it. If you came on and off the brakes quickly it seemed to affect the throttle, in that the throttle would give a slightly longer pause before picking up, it would would then pick up in a couple of small surges. I had initially thought that it was just the clutch causing the problem, as you often use clutch and brakes together. I then mentioned it to a local motor trader and he said it sounded like it had ESP or hill assist which, of course, it didn't.

Given the length of time this problem has been known I can't see Fiat ever getting a proper fix for it. I haven't seen much on the forum from people who have had their cars fixed. They are taking people's money and ripping them off. To my mind this is criminal, if they know that someone driving one of these cars is likely to need more advanced techniques than the average driver has ever been taught they should tell potential customers before they buy the car, otherwise the buyer is entitled to assume the car will be suitable even for very inexperienced or learner drivers.

I am very relieved that I was in a position to get rid of my Fiat. Now I have a car that drives well and, more importantly, is predictable and safe. Driving my new car has highlighted just how awful the 1.2 Fiat was. I can enjoy driving once more.

Click to expand...

On the note of brakes I find that whenever i brake a bit then lift off and brake again the brake pedal feels like the abs is activatig, also sometimes the brake pedal seems to go stiff and at others i'll be on the brakes and it feels like the brake pedal is dropping away from my foot, twice it's been in the dealers and i've been told that it is how all of them are which i don't believe, has anyone else noticed any of these issues on their vehicle to back them up or not?

The last two Fiats I have owned both had ABS. When this worked (ie when braking in icy conditions or on a wet grass verge) it was less agressive that some ABS systems are, the pedal did not vibrate as much as some do. In normal conditions the pedal was fairly firm near the top and only had about one and a half to two inches movement, you could not feel any feedback from the system. The only time I ever had the pedal move under my foot was when the back brake shoes came unbonded (at the time this was a common problem, but I haven't heard of it happening for years).
I did see a post a week or so ago from someone whose ABS was cutting in on a dry road, almost stopping the car from actually braking, and the car was being taken in to have it fixed. I can't find the post now so don't know what happened after.

Is the brake servo on the 'passenger' side of car? If so, there will be a rod connecting pedal across the car to the servo so a lot of feel will be lost. It could also foul with other things underneath dash.

Novo said:

If so, there will be a rod connecting pedal across the car to the servo so a lot of feel will be lost.

Click to expand...

Not so, as you're still in direct contact with the servo, feel should be no different to if it were on the drivers side, I can confirm this is the case with the LHD and RHD mk3 Panda's I've driven which both have the servo in the same place.

Well...we're going to be back in a 500! But not a new one as I mentioned earlier in this thread. Wife has agreed to buy a 13 plate 1.2 Colour Therapy in Volare Blue (just waiting for the finance docs to get sorted before we pick up next week).

Tested it out with four in the car (the salesman, me and one of our children!) and did some hill starts and it was perfectly fine - it responded just as we'd expect. That one was registered at the end of June 2013 FYI.

Being a Fiat dealership, I had a quick chat to the sales guy about the issue with the cars featured on Watchdog. Firstly, he was very keen to point out that our car "had a different engine" and wasn't affected (I just nodded). He seemed to think that the 1.2s being sold now are all absolutely fine, and that the problems were ECU related with a batch of cars.

Truth be told, I don't know whether that's really the case or not. I don't know if we'll ever officially find out what's wrong with all these cars either.