Off Topic No longer in the top 10

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Off Topic No longer in the top 10

From Super Uwe's post:

But the fact remains that the 500 has still been selling well this year overall, which is why I question how much people really care about dodgy door handles and boot wiring...

I suspect because there will be many people who won't know about the issues unless they actually take the time to look at forums such as this and there will be many who don't take their internet use to this sort of level, only finding out once they've parted with their cash and then start delving into why these things are happening. Let's face it, you dont' walk into a dealership and say to the salesman, 'I love the look of the car, the door handles look nice, are there any reliability issues with them?' Both of our 500's had door handles replaced by the way, thankfully, both under warranty. Still the only car I've ever owned where this has been a problem, except for a Metro I owned over 25 years ago when the driver side handle snapped off during very cold weather, sending me sprawling onto the pavement and causing me to hit my head on the kerb. I've never been the same since lol! :p

The 500L doesn't float my boat at all and certainly in no way has any of the aesthetic appeal of the little 500. Personally, I like the look of the original 500 over it's reincarnation ;)
 
If people took the time to research cars many best sellers would not be so, turbo "prince" engined minis and ds3s have a shopping list of design flaws far worse than dodgy door handles or iffy tail gate wiring. But they still sold well despite this, fact is the cars have showroom appeal and drove well enough and how many people truly go past that?

Also even notorious cars can be totally fine in general my dad ran the least reliable car of modern times (Peugeot 307) for 4 years without issue, buying a car with a bad reputation doesn't guarantee you'll get all the faults.
 
It's hard to know how widespread the 500's "issues" are. Mine is coming up to 5 years old with 37000 miles and apart from a tiny hose leak, which nobody else has reported, has been faultless.
The fact is, though, there are so many good small cars out there it's a case of whatever you fancy. They will all be reliable and cheap to run. I wouldn't have another 500 simply because I'd fancy trying something else.
In terms of sales, a journalist presenting a video review of the facelifted 500 I watched the other day alleged that the 500 outsold the VW Up, Seat Mii and Skoda Citigo combined, Europe wide. No idea if this is correct, but if so it's not doing too bad.
 
The A1 is absolutely a re badged Polo, except in certain areas it's worse than a Polo. Ride / handling is appalling and the packaging is a joke compared to a Polo.

But Audi along with a few others are past masters at selling stuff like this at a premium. Btw I've had a few Audi's and have liked them, past tense though.



A rebadge implies they are the same car, and while they may share components something that VAG pioneered across the various ranges and brands they own they do not share a shell or body panels. They share less in common than a 500 and a ford KA which I would consider a rebadge. Where as the new mini clubman and the BMW 2 series do share components and a platform but are nothing alike. Having gone down the route of buying a VW over an Audi because of the price difference I do agree there is little to gain in buying an Audi. My point here however is that they are not a rebadge.

We'll never agree on your opinion of Mini's.The only thing going for them from my perspective is that they are a sweet handling fwd car, that's it.
I own one and have a huge number of friends who have them, at least 3 neighbours and not one of those people complain about their mini. I'm not claiming they are free from faults and you will always be able to look online and find someone complaining however the build quality and materials used on a mini far exceed that of the 500 which is why the cheapest most basic mini is still £2k more than the most dear 500. If your opinion differs good for you but that is nothing more than an opinion



You again give singular examples of amazing cars that have no faults. I have a 200k 20yr old T4 that apart from usual service stuff has required a new vacuum pump. And that's it in 17 yrs of ownership. What does that prove? Apart from the fact that it's been looked at pretty much zero.
the T4 is a commercial van which is very over engineered compared to the cars we are discussing. You'll be hard pressed to find a T4 that hasn't done a couple of hundred thousand miles and needed major work anywhere, they are largely indestructible. My brother recently bought one with 400k on the clock which he broke for parts just because the mileage was so high it wasn't worth a camper conversion. Nothing wrong with it though.



If all that fails on 500's is door handles and boot wiring that's pretty good in the scale of things and certainly doesn't warrant the joy you seem to feel for it dropping out of the top 10.

As others have pointed out its not in the top 10 for being the most reliable car in the world and these little things don't really matter to first time buyers. However it's was its looks and popularity that saw it in the top ten and in dropping out of the top ten the implication is that popularity has slipped. I think it's been in the top 10 since 2008 but the big issue here is that sales of the 500 are propping up fiat as a company. Nothing else they make even sells half the numbers of the 500. 7 years with only a bit of a face lift is not going to keep people interested.



If I was so dissatisfied with a car or any product I'd just sell it and move on. Merry Christmas:cry:

You seem to be taking offence when really the topic is purely to discuss if fiat have lost their edge not in anyway Imply that the 500 is now the crapest car on earth because that's clearly not the case.

You can't compare car A to car B and say one is better because it sells more, there are many cars better than the fiat an equally many that are worse, the question is what makes the top 10 cars so popular and what has fiat now lost?
 
You can't compare car A to car B and say one is better because it sells more, there are many cars better than the fiat an equally many that are worse, the question is what makes the top 10 cars so popular and what has fiat now lost?

Looking at the rest of the top ten, a mixture of talent/a unique selling point and/or cheap lease deals would be my guess, and the second one of those relies on solid residuals or heavy point of sale discounts.
 
Looking at the rest of the top ten, a mixture of talent/a unique selling point and/or cheap lease deals would be my guess, and the second one of those relies on solid residuals or heavy point of sale discounts.


It wasn't that many years ago the mondeo was the top selling car, as the quintessential family car... then times changed and people moved on an while it still sells well it's not a top seller. People bought smaller cars and ford reacted to that with the fiesta and focus.

I suspect something similar maybe happening here. People have moved on but fiat are not in a position to react to it, they've put all their eggs in the 500 basket and if the basic 500 isn't as popular it will have a knock on affect on the rest of the 500*** models
 
It wasn't that many years ago the mondeo was the top selling car, as the quintessential family car... then times changed and people moved on an while it still sells well it's not a top seller. People bought smaller cars and ford reacted to that with the fiesta and focus.

I suspect something similar maybe happening here. People have moved on but fiat are not in a position to react to it, they've put all their eggs in the 500 basket and if the basic 500 isn't as popular it will have a knock on affect on the rest of the 500*** models

To me the mondeo isn't hugely relevant it was a car of fleets and those fleets realised that if they bought something German and premium that the whole of life costs would be lower due to longer service intervals and significantly better residuals. I would be surprised if any more than 1 in 10 new cars in that segment were bought privately by the time you take it out lease deals and vanilla company cars. The escort and fiesta were big sellers on their own right before the mondeo slumped.

Given the bloat in current cars there could be another factor at play as well, a focus is the same size as a Sierra, a fiesta the same as an escort, a mondeo a Granada. How big a car do you need in the end?

Never been a fan of the 500 everything brand strategy, if you didn't want one you had to go elsewhere as they let the rest of the range wither. Hope they've saved enough to invest in a new platform in the time they've been making money out of it.
 
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How about a £3k premium for a re badged polo with an Audi badge on it (plenty of stupid people queuing up for A1's) or of course the BMW Mini, poor quality sold at a premium.

Nearly half a million people can't be stupid. Let me tell you, there's a significant difference between a Polo and an A1. Everything from the build quality, the interior, right down to the dealership experience.

Some people prefer to buy into a brand that offers the better experience and don't mind paying a premium, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Plus, with the majority of cars bought on finance these days, deals are so close between manufacturers why would you not want the better car?
 
Nearly half a million people can't be stupid. Let me tell you, there's a significant difference between a Polo and an A1. Everything from the build quality, the interior, right down to the dealership experience.

Some people prefer to buy into a brand that offers the better experience and don't mind paying a premium, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Plus, with the majority of cars bought on finance these days, deals are so close between manufacturers why would you not want the better car?

As a former A1 owner, you beat me to the reply. My A1 was marginally more expensive to buy than a new Polo in equivalent spec, came with 5 years warranty/servicing and lower monthly payments. If you don't want AC, alloy wheels, 7 airbags, leather trim, DAB radio, Bluetooth, 6 speed gearbox, ESP and a 122Hp engine then yes the base model Polo is possibly £3k cheaper than the base model A1. But this is the equivalent of comparing a 1.2 Panda Pop with a 105 TwinAir 500 Lounge then suggesting that anyone who buys a 500 on this basis is stupid.
 
A rebadge implies they are the same car, and while they may share components something that VAG pioneered across the various ranges and brands they own they do not share a shell or body panels.

Yet we often hear the 500 is just a 'rebadged' Panda, so he's just applying the same logic.

I own one and have a huge number of friends who have them, at least 3 neighbours and not one of those people complain about their mini. I'm not claiming they are free from faults and you will always be able to look online and find someone complaining however the build quality and materials used on a mini far exceed that of the 500 which is why the cheapest most basic mini is still £2k more than the most dear 500. If your opinion differs good for you but that is nothing more than an opinion
Here's a stat for you then:

MINI_4.gif


http://tradeinqualityindex.com/reports/MINI.html



the T4 is a commercial van which is very over engineered compared to the cars we are discussing. You'll be hard pressed to find a T4 that hasn't done a couple of hundred thousand miles and needed major work anywhere, they are largely indestructible. My brother recently bought one with 400k on the clock which he broke for parts just because the mileage was so high it wasn't worth a camper conversion. Nothing wrong with it though.
Commercials aren't what they used to be, my T5 only made it to 30K miles before being uneconomical to repair. Most commercials today use engines straight out of passenger cars with little more than software differences. The T5/6 engine is out of a Golf, the Trafic engine is out of a Megane/Scenic. The T4 was the last reliable VW. I still want a nice T3.

I think it's been in the top 10 since 2008 but the big issue here is that sales of the 500 are propping up fiat as a company. Nothing else they make even sells half the numbers of the 500. 7 years with only a bit of a face lift is not going to keep people interested.
You could also say it's the best selling 7 year old car on the market, nothing wrong with a proven design. Worked for VW, Porsche, Jeep, Landrover, Mini, Citroen and indeed, it's even worked for Fiat before.

You can't compare car A to car B and say one is better because it sells more, there are many cars better than the fiat an equally many that are worse, the question is what makes the top 10 cars so popular and what has fiat now lost?
I wonder what was previously the longest run for a car in the top ten and what was it? The 500 is a fairly exclusive thing here, selling about 2000/ year. I like it that way. Overseas sales mean parts won't be a problem, but with local exclusivity, a win-win :)
 
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Yet we often hear the 500 is just a 'rebadged' Panda, so he's just applying the same logic.

I'm sure he can comment for himself.

This often crops up when ever minis come up on this forum. It encompasses supposedly ever car from 1996 up to 180k miles in America. for the mini that not only includes the old rover built cooper. It also includes all the sub 2004 with a well known automatic gearbox fault which has long since been repaired. Go an buy a 2001 automatic mini and drive it 180k miles and you might find it unreliable as this makes up about 99% of the cars sold in America. You'll also notice America brand cars score generally better than European cars suggesting an element of bias.

What ever the case fiat isn't included so it doesn't prove anything and doesn't allow direct comparison.

Commercials aren't what they used to be, my T5 only made it to 30K miles before being uneconomical to repair. Most commercials today use engines straight out of passenger cars with little more than software differences. The T5/6 engine is out of a Golf, the Trafic engine is out of a Megane/Scenic. The T4 was the last reliable VW. I still want a nice T3.

The original microbus used a beetle engine so vans using car engines isn't new or novel and the T4 is the same, it has a Passat engine, if you T5 was uneconomical to repair at 30k that doesn't prove anything as most vans will do that in their first year if not first 6 months. My brothers company is frequently converting 2014 - 2015 T5 vans to campers which excess of 100k on the clock and they're not even a year old. All you've shown is you bought a duff van.... Which happens but doesn't prove a rule. It's also go nothing to do with the larger discussion of this thread.


You could also say it's the best selling 7 year old car on the market, nothing wrong with a proven design. Worked for VW, Porsche, Jeep, Landrover, Mini, Citroen and indeed, it's even worked for Fiat before.

In 2015 VW do not keep cars the same for many many years and develop new models and new technologies to keep customers coming back. Porsche do update their cars even if on the surface the look very similar. Jeep have updated their whole range. Landrover only kept making the defender as it continued to sell well in a specific sector of the market where change would likely have affected sales, but it's the Range Rover discovery models which they frequently update to keep the buyers interested. Mini is in the processed of updating all its models to a new platform, the cooper hatch is now on its third incarnation since 2001. It's not about what was done in the 1960s 70s and 80s because the motor industry has moved on, and people update their cars now far more often.

I wonder what was previously the longest run for a car in the top ten and what was it? The 500 is a fairly exclusive thing here, selling about 2000/ year. I like it that way. Overseas sales mean parts won't be a problem, but with local exclusivity, a win-win :)
I think the fiesta has been in the top 10 for decades but ford do update the design every so often to keep it fresh, the corsa has been there a long time too.


I do love how these threads always seem to follow a trend of Mini versus 500, go look at the mini forums and no one there gives a stuff about the 500.
 
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As a former A1 owner, you beat me to the reply. My A1 was marginally more expensive to buy than a new Polo in equivalent spec, came with 5 years warranty/servicing and lower monthly payments. If you don't want AC, alloy wheels, 7 airbags, leather trim, DAB radio, Bluetooth, 6 speed gearbox, ESP and a 122Hp engine then yes the base model Polo is possibly £3k cheaper than the base model A1. But this is the equivalent of comparing a 1.2 Panda Pop with a 105 TwinAir 500 Lounge then suggesting that anyone who buys a 500 on this basis is stupid.
They are built on the same platform. Fact. So some superficial stuff may be seen as better quality.

I stand by my original opinion. They have horrid ride / handling and pathetic packaging compared to their skoda / vw sisters.

If you enter into this with your eyes open, as you appear to have fine. If you think it's anything different to a re badged vw then yes your deluded or stupid.

Sound familiar? Panda / 500? Difference being I know and accept this and am happy with my decision.

The context of my posts has been the boredom and a bit of incomprehension that people want to knock their own choices.

I.E. a newbie arrives and asks about a broken door handle or boot wiring. Stock answer. Well they all do that. That's because your a dumb person who has bought a cheap car built to a poor standard. Oh and your a complete cretin if you've bought a dual logic:)

All tongue in cheek and I promise I'll never mention Mini's ever again:D
 
jrkitching's explanation sums up pretty much in entirety why we now no longer a 500. Having owned two, a 2011 (built 2010) 1.2 and a 2013 (built 2012) TA, we've had enough experience of some of the common faults the 500 is known to have. We escaped the boot hatch wiring issues because we got rid of both cars almost out of warranty and that issue never arose.

It's such a shame because the 500 is an eye catcher, just poorly built in my opinion in some areas and when you couple that with putting service items like pollen filters in the most ridiculously inaccessible places, then it's no wonder some of us got fed up. The door handle issues are just a poor joke :(

As for the competition out there, well obviously I'm going to big up the new i10 as we now own one in 1.2 Premium guise. Ok, as I said before, it doesn't have the cutsey looks, but for us it is a far more useable car, four doors with solidly built/attached door handles! a whisper quiet engine, very well specced with air con, cruise control, electric windows all round, decent DRL's (if you're into that sort of thing!) excellent bluetooth/hands free connectivity and what's more, it's competitivly priced. We did particularly well getting our i10 on a good discount on Hyundai's Affinity Scheme, that with a reasonable PX price on our old TA, we just had to find £4.5k to own the car outright.

Above all, our dealer experience with Hyundai was excellent, above what our Fiat dealership experience was when we bought our TA when the sales person conveniently failed to menton to me at the point of sale that our pre-reg car was in fact already 14 months old from build date. Partly my own fault for not digging deeper. I live and learn. :rolleyes:

I want to make it clear though, we thoroughly enjoyed many aspects of 500 ownership, we just couldn't face reliability issues later down the line and often, the necessary expense of having to fix stuff outside of warranty at our own expense and of course when it comes to stuff like broken door handle hinges, the car wouldn't pass its MOT, so you have to have those repaired for obvious safety reasons.
easiest way to check how old a car is (when you are buying 'new'.) The age of the tires = )
 
The favorite part of my Fiat ownership experience?
The beloved dealers.
The Fiat is sold as a 'cheap car'. So why when something breaks (and with the Italian cars it seems trivial things that are not so expensive to fix break all the time), you naturally want to go to the main dealer.
You go to the main dealer, and they say ok your rear hatch wiring is broken and this is a common fault with the Fiat 500 (of course they don't say it is Fiat being stingy that caused this design issue in the first place).

Cost to fix to change a few wires? 500 GBP. Oh and you get a 1 year warranty with that.

In the scheme of things, I financially regret buying my Fiat 500 for 17,500 EUR in 2010. I should have kept my 2002 Audi A2 and driven it to the ground and then bought a nicer car instead of spending a few grand on fixing my lovely Fiat. It was far more reliable than my Fiat will ever be.
 
It's not about what was done in the 1960s 70s and 80s because the motor industry has moved on, and people update their cars now far more often.

Yes, the motor industry has moved on, from cars that lasted forever to throw aways where a minor fault means they're scrapped.

I've got a mint (45K miles from new) R32 Skyline, it drives better than (I'd say most) new cars, so I view the move to constant replacement as a move towards pointless consumerism and little else.

But it's unfair to say cars are updated now far more often. The 1955 Chevy was an all new design, with face lifts in 56 and 57, before being replaced by another 'all new' design in 1958, which was face lifted in 1959...Ford Pick Up trucks had annual face lifts from the late 40's all the way to 1978, when updates became less frequent.

There were always 'evergreen' designs in the car world and I don't view that as a negative, if anything it proves the soundness of the original design. An original Mini or 911 are still unbeaten in many ways today.
 
Yes, the motor industry has moved on, from cars that lasted forever to throw aways where a minor fault means they're scrapped.

It's not just cars, UFI - you could say the same about pretty much anything you can buy.

Folks who have the skill to fix minor faults can save a fortune by buying such discarded goodies for little or nothing and repairing them :).
 
It's not just cars, UFI - you could say the same about pretty much anything you can buy.

Folks who have the skill to fix minor faults can save a fortune by buying such discarded goodies for little or nothing and repairing them :).

I've got a mini lathe/ mill with gear cutting capability, so I can fix just about any mechanical fault on a home appliance, but it takes a crazy amount of time to make up even a simple part (limited by cutting speed - I can only take off 0,1mm in a pass if I want any accuracy).

However, ever increasingly things are completely sealed (eg epoxy encased PCB's) that are there purely to make them unrepairable.

As a kid I'd buy any returned R/C cars they had on the department store clearance trolley, they were usually 75% off and usually easy to fix. In this day of SMT and micro controllers it's not so simple.
 
easiest way to check how old a car is (when you are buying 'new'.) The age of the tires = )

Yes ahmett, it's more than fair to say I'm aware of that. The problem was, I bought the car completely blind, from a photograph on the Fiat dealer's website. The car was 150 miles away from where I live, the first time I saw it, was the day I pitched up to drop off the 1.2 POP in PX on a crisp Saturday morning. Funny thing was though, as I was pumping 15 psi into each tyre on the ahem 'brand new' pre-reg TA I'd just purchased 4 days previously over the phone on the dealership forecourt because seemingly they couldn't even be bothered to check a simple thing like that, I should have noticed the tyre dates then, but I didn't, blinded by the fact that the car looked absolutely mint with only 9 miles on the clock. I'm not going to name and shame the dealership because to be honest, I'll never go back to them ever and I don't want to give them free advertising in any form.

Anyway, I live and learn and despite the TA actually being a relatively good car to own for the 18 months we had it, despite two major warranty fixes, heater control flap failure and the entire instrument pod, I won't be buying any pre-reg car blind again. The new i10 wasn't an issue, we bought brand new, first registered owner and when we drove it away from the forecourt, it had only rolled off the production line in Turkey just seven weeks before we got our hands on it.
 
http://www.smmt.co.uk/2016/04/recor...r-market-as-16-plate-change-increases-demand/

The 500 is back in the top 10 both for March 2016 and 2016 YTD.

Looking at the figures as a whole, it's almost the case that for every 3 Fiats sell, 2 of them are 500s.

It's incredible really how the 500 continues to prop up Fiat's sales in the UK, although it does look like the other models are making a bit more of a contribution.
 
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Looking at the figures as a whole, it's almost the case that for every 3 Fiats sell, 2 of them are 500s.


I've noticed a hige number of 16 plate 500s recently, It can't hurt that the updated facelifted model has a big improvement in technology and some modern touches to both interior and exterior, but it will be of concern to fiat that they are so dependent on the 500 and they've been unable to come anywhere close to achieving even a smidge of the success they have had with the 500 compared to other models.

Though it has been facelifted that is really only a precursor to a new model and to get a little more mileage out of the 8 year old design, and with the 500, fiat have most of their eggs in one basket. Get the new design wrong and it could cost them a huge chunk of their market sales
 
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