Hello Guys,

I am attaching the latest manual for the Fiat 500.

Two points i have noticed that have a lot of relevance to this forum.

1) All TA engines should use 0w-30 oil.
2) They now recommend you change cambelt and auxbeltat 60,000 km/4 years if you mainly drive in town instead of just check it like they used to say in the older spec manuals. (this would concern 1.2 and 1.4 owners specifically)

Now personally i changed my cambelt + auxbelt at 75,000 km/3 years. My cambelt and water pump looked fine and could have lasted a while longer in my opinion, but it wasn't worth the risk. The AUX belt was completely knackered and noticeably noisy by then especially on cold start up and power load whilst cold.

ahmett said:

Hello Guys,

I am attaching the latest manual for the Fiat 500.

Two points i have noticed that have a lot of relevance to this forum.

1) All TA engines should use 0w-30 oil.
2) They now recommend you change cambelt and auxbeltat 60,000 km/4 years if you mainly drive in town instead of just check it like they used to say in the older spec manuals. (this would concern 1.2 and 1.4 owners specifically)

Now personally i changed my cambelt + auxbelt at 75,000 km/3 years. My cambelt and water pump looked fine and could have lasted a while longer in my opinion, but it wasn't worth the risk. The AUX belt was completely knackered and noticeably noisy by then especially on cold start up and power load whilst cold.

Click to expand...

Concerning the oil, not according to my handbook or service sheet from Fiat which shows 5w40 oil. This argument though to be fair has been done to death. Might well apply to the latest TA's that have recently rolled off the production line, but evidently doesn't apply to models such as mine that rolled off the line in 2012.

Concerning cambelt and waterpump, can't stress enough, changing these service items is essential at the correct service interval. It is a fool who ignores this. I appreciate the cost can be too much to bear for some people to fork out, however, I've personally known too many people who've just left it and subsequently wrecked the engine, end result, most of the cars have been scrapped because they became too uneconomical to repair. Happened to a dear neighbour of mine who left it just 1k miles past its service interval, though to be fair, time was more a factor in his case, about 3 years too late!

My Saab 9-3 1.9 Tid gets a new cambelt and waterpump every 40,000 miles or 4 years, whichever comes first. The engine in the Saab is a Fiat engine used in a lot of Vauxhall's/Opel's as well as of course the Alfa 159 (and other Alfa's) and Fiat Croma. Even Fiat techs acknowledge that the cambelt and waterpumps should be changed much earlier than what the official handbook says. My Saab handbook says 90k which is an absolute joke! Too many people have suffered catastrophic failures leaving it, or though to be fair on my particular engine, the rockers are designed to snap off to prevent major engine damage. Not all engines have this 'fail safe' design.

As an end piece, the last cambelt/waterpump change on my Saab, genuine Fiat belt and waterpump were used, absolute bargain at just £85 for both bits of kit from a Fiat dealer. Cost me a couple of hundred quid to have the job done at a garage mind!

frupi said:

Concerning the oil, not according to my handbook or service sheet from Fiat which shows 5w40 oil. This argument though to be fair has been done to death. Might well apply to the latest TA's that have recently rolled off the production line, but evidently doesn't apply to models such as mine that rolled off the line in 2012.

Concerning cambelt and waterpump, can't stress enough, changing these service items is essential at the correct service interval. It is a fool who ignores this. I appreciate the cost can be too much to bear for some people to fork out, however, I've personally known too many people who've just left it and subsequently wrecked the engine, end result, most of the cars have been scrapped because they became too uneconomical to repair. Happened to a dear neighbour of mine who left it just 1k miles past its service interval, though to be fair, time was more a factor in his case, about 3 years too late!

My Saab 9-3 1.9 Tid gets a new cambelt and waterpump every 40,000 miles or 4 years, whichever comes first. The engine in the Saab is a Fiat engine used in a lot of Vauxhall's/Opel's as well as of course the Alfa 159 (and other Alfa's) and Fiat Croma. Even Fiat techs acknowledge that the cambelt and waterpumps should be changed much earlier than what the official handbook says. My Saab handbook says 90k which is an absolute joke! Too many people have suffered catastrophic failures leaving it, or though to be fair on my particular engine, the rockers are designed to snap off to prevent major engine damage. Not all engines have this 'fail safe' design.

Click to expand...

i wonder what dealers do about the oil, it must be confusing!
personally i'd just do the 0w-30 on whatever age TA it would be its not like they changed the engine to change the oil.

ahmett said:

i wonder what dealers do about the oil, it must be confusing!
personally i'd just do the 0w-30 on whatever age TA it would be its not like they changed the engine to change the oil.

Click to expand...

Not whilst my car is under warranty lol! No, the Fiat dealership can shove whatever oil they've been told to install and if there's a problem with it, they can sort it!

frupi said:

Not whilst my car is under warranty lol! No, the Fiat dealership can shove whatever oil they've been told to install and if there's a problem with it, they can sort it!

Click to expand...

That's fine so long as you don't plan on owning the car after the warranty ends.

A mistake made during warranty which causes a problem which only appears once the warranty is over comes out of your pocket, not Fiat's.