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Technical Fiat 500 Handling Limits

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Technical Fiat 500 Handling Limits

Mick F said:
Ahmett,
If you fancy experimenting, would you weight the back-end down and do the same again?

Maybe a 25Kg sack of something carried on the boot floor would suffice. Perhaps 50Kg? (A normal chunky adult like me weighs nigh-on 80Kg)

I'd be very interested if you could repeat the run with the weight in the back to see if it makes any difference.

Thanks,
Mick.
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I am going to try it again after i change the tire pressures. However maybe need to wait a few weeks as the temperatures are really low right now (2-3c at night) so the grip will be lower. I take this corner at 2-3 am every friday and saturday night when its completely deserted and i am driving home. I would take a picture of the corner but i am too busy driving to be distracted with my phone haha.

Failing that then I will try your method! But the problem is i feel extra weight will simply make the car understeer more.
 
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Mick F said:
Maybe a 25Kg sack of something carried on the boot floor would suffice. Perhaps 50Kg? (A normal chunky adult like me weighs nigh-on 80Kg)
Click to expand...

Hey Mick would you consider flying over to Greece for the day and Ahmett could take you for a spin around Athens in the boot?:)
 
Weight distribution is around 63:37 this isn't the problem.

The asr will prevent excessive under steer but if you deliberately and aggressively lift off mid corner all you've done is transfer weight to the front. This combined with the rear axle bushes (correctly) distorting will absolutely result in over steer. If you don't correct this the asr will do it's best but it won't be pretty.

Adding weight won't work, it'll make it less stable.

Accept your own opinion. It's a crap car and a rwd will be so much better. Unfortunately they are even less tolerant of poor driver inputs.
 
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ahmett said:
However maybe need to wait a few weeks as the temperatures are really low right now (2-3c at night) so the grip will be lower.
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In Bournemouth last night it was -7C :eek: and they don't grit my local road so the grip would have been a LOT lower ;). There wasn't even enough grip on the path to get from my house to my car.

I stayed in :).
 
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I first discovered the delights of 500 handling in Italy last year when i hired one for a week
Personally i dont mind a bit of lift off oversteer as my Seicento does this too, and i spend as much of my spare time as i can autotesting it, and it helps me set the car up nicely for the tight turns.
My Italian car tended to have rear end bounce on corners which was frightening, the car was well weighed down with 3 of us in there.
we were sitting in the little garden area one night and right outside our holiday let a 500 flew past with tyres screeching and ended up on its roof in a ditch. The radio was still on full blast and wouldnt turn off so we had a lovely italian radio station blasting out for hours. Luckily neither of the 2 occupants were seriously injured but it was worrying.
Surprisingly my 500 now handles nothing like the Italian job, and TBH i'm quite impressed. Perhaps i need to push it even harder to feel the scare!!!
 
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RussH said:
Weight distribution is around 63:37 this isn't the problem.

The asr will prevent excessive under steer but if you deliberately and aggressively lift off mid corner all you've done is transfer weight to the front. This combined with the rear axle bushes (correctly) distorting will absolutely result in over steer. If you don't correct this the asr will do it's best but it won't be pretty.

Adding weight won't work, it'll make it less stable.

Accept your own opinion. It's a crap car and a rwd will be so much better. Unfortunately they are even less tolerant of poor driver inputs.
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i think the main problem is the turn is just after a steep downhill then suddenly becoming flat. So yes a lot of weight transfering.

My issue is the Fiat 500 is skittish at the rear in many occasions for me not just this time and for me its simple bad dynamics
 
jrkitching said:
In Bournemouth last night it was -7C :eek: and they don't grit my local road so the grip would have been a LOT lower ;). There wasn't even enough grip on the path to get from my house to my car.

I stayed in :).
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wow cold! here it rarely gets below freezing so i stick with the summer tires but i am driving to the airport next tuesday at like 5-6am so it may be 1 or 2 below due to the cold spell. So will be 'interesting' in mommy's Lancia Ypsilon with summer tires on the overpass near our house but i'll try and take it slow. If its really snowing, I guess we'll take the Grand Cherokee with M+S tires, and if it really gets out of hand it has snow chains as well! But if it gets to that then the flight would probably be canceled anyway = )
 
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This whole thread seems to be blaming the car for not being able to handle poor driver inputs. We are dealing with the laws of physics here, and you can't beat them.

The 500 is a bit skittish on the rear, but if the approach speed is correct, and the power is continuously applied throughout the corner, the rear will follow the front.

The correct way to corner, is to approach with the correct speed, then to apply some pressure to the accelerator to keep the engine gently pulling all the way through, not to increase speed, bu to maintain it. Lifting off mid-corner will change the dynamics, and will often result in a spin. Find a book on advanced driving techniques, such as Roadcraft, read the relevant section on cornering. Alternatively, get some help from a good driving instructor. A good instructor should already have explained cornering forces and techniques, and allowed some experimentation at safe speeds, but where differences can be felt.
 
portland_bill said:
This whole thread seems to be blaming the car for not being able to handle poor driver inputs. We are dealing with the laws of physics here, and you can't beat them.

The 500 is a bit skittish on the rear, but if the approach speed is correct, and the power is continuously applied throughout the corner, the rear will follow the front.

The correct way to corner, is to approach with the correct speed, then to apply some pressure to the accelerator to keep the engine gently pulling all the way through, not to increase speed, bu to maintain it. Lifting off mid-corner will change the dynamics, and will often result in a spin. Find a book on advanced driving techniques, such as Roadcraft, read the relevant section on cornering. Alternatively, get some help from a good driving instructor. A good instructor should already have explained cornering forces and techniques, and allowed some experimentation at safe speeds, but where differences can be felt.
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The point of the thread is not provoking the car as I took that corner on purpose to provoke the car and see what happens, the point of the thread is how light the rear of the Fiat 500 is and the need to be extra careful = )
 
Ahmett - i have to tell you i first felt the same as you described at your first post, but i replaced the 4 tires to the T1r and i must say the handling is much better now (35 psi each) + im still on the original suspensions
I too enter corners like crazy (50-70 kph) and that feels good, never had a screaming tire noise like the originals over hard corners - those tires sticks to the road like glue, the only cons are that they are a bit noisy + lasts about 20-30000 km + not the best traction over wet road + also at some point they will pull the car to the right a bit, im guessing because that theyre not symmetric

I had an opportunity to get perfectly new original Abarth suspensions / tires and wheels (16') under a 1000$ from a friend (he got an Essesse kit- i was stupid not to get it) and that would have improved that little car by a lot - i suggest you to find somthing like that it will be very nice for the handling :)
 
liav24 said:
Ahmett - i have to tell you i first felt the same as you described at your first post, but i replaced the 4 tires to the T1r and i must say the handling is much better now (35 psi each) + im still on the original suspensions
I too enter corners like crazy (50-70 kph) and that feels good, never had a screaming tire noise like the originals over hard corners - those tires sticks to the road like glue, the only cons are that they are a bit noisy + lasts about 20-30000 km + not the best traction over wet road + also at some point they will pull the car to the right a bit, im guessing because that theyre not symmetric

I had an opportunity to get perfectly new original Abarth suspensions / tires and wheels (16') under a 1000$ from a friend (he got an Essesse kit- i was stupid not to get it) and that would have improved that little car by a lot - i suggest you to find somthing like that it will be very nice for the handling :)
Click to expand...
no my suspension is the Bilstein B14 they are great but they still did not change the weight distribution obviously = )
 
ahmett said:
The point of the thread is not provoking the car as I took that corner on purpose to provoke the car and see what happens, the point of the thread is how light the rear of the Fiat 500 is and the need to be extra careful = )
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I don't need to be extra careful, there is nothing wrong with the way it handles. They don't have a low limit.

You constantly go on about how poor the handling is but IMHO you don't understand the dynamics of what is a relatively cheap and basic car. A conviction that rwd will cure any deficits confirms this.

You expect it to be something it's not. It's not a performance hatch but does what it supposed to do reasonably well. It has safe neutral handling UNLESS someone does something dumb in it.

Exactly the same can be said about any car. Let's say you decided you needed 4wd for tricky / snowy conditions. Would you moan about how rubbish an Audi R8 was? Because I can assure you it would be.

I accept it's not a "drivers" car compared to say Fiesta ST or Mini but it's still possible to make rapid, safe and fun progress in one. Again I don't or need to be extra careful.
 
any short wheel based car will have the geometry of a brick and can in certain conditions brake away at the back aggressively, three years ago I ask my new neighbor whether he would like to visit one of the country's best metal workers in body work and frames as they always were working on historic things. There was very little traffic on the roads that day because of a few inches of snow, the next day he told my wife that I had scared him some what to begin with driving our fiat and why and earth they had bought two new four wheel drive cars thinking that they were necessary out on country roads when I had just driven him he felt very competently with a little car, its know your car and don't do any aggressive man-overs in the wet, my neighbor had retired from the MET so he had some experience of drivers, one of my pet hates is ABS and traction control as I like to feel when things start to slide or loose traction that is the time to back off.
 
RussH said:
Exactly the same can be said about any car. Let's say you decided you needed 4wd for tricky / snowy conditions. Would you moan about how rubbish an Audi R8 was? Because I can assure you it would be.
Click to expand...


This is a current trending video round most areas of social media.

The wealth of the driving world disagrees that the R8 is bad on snow, but I'd say it's definitely down to the driver.

[ame]http://youtu.be/U_1NUjyYOtE[/ame]

If it were me driving it would have gone off at the first corner.
 
AndyRKett said:
This is a current trending video round most areas of social media.

The wealth of the driving world disagrees that the R8 is bad on snow, but I'd say it's definitely down to the driver.

http://youtu.be/U_1NUjyYOtE

If it were me driving it would have gone off at the first corner.
Click to expand...
Amusing video, but seriously "the wealth of the motoring world disagrees....":D

You've chosen to take my statement literally and backed it up with a German tv show with a vehicle on studded tyres.

An R8 will be rubbish in anything other than something as contrived as this. If you want a capable vehicle for snowy/tricky conditions get a a Subaru and put the right tyres on it, a Panda 4x4 is a giant killer if you don't have deep pockets.

Horses for courses, is my point.
 
The only cars I've driven with "loose back ends" have been rear wheel drive. Both my son and I had power-on oversteer in MX-5s, and he (harmlessly) lost the back end on his BMW325i the other day, despite ESP etc. Like me, I regard him as a competent driver, but we are both more used to fwd, which I believe to be inherently more idiot-proof. Never had a nasty moment in my 500 in nearly 5 years.
 
I've got this from my garage ánd from testing out a 500 TA a few years ago myself.
The dangerous thing about some of these small hatchbacks is that they feel reasonably stable and even a bit under steered... Until the back end reaches its limit and comes around very fast and agressively.

My 2000 Renault Clio diesel van had this issue as well, although it handled very well with a typical FWD understeer, it surprised me a few times thanks to the heavy 1.9 diesel in the front and barely any weight in the back.

Yes, some RWD cars feel very loose in the back, but because the rear controllable with the throttle, typically start to slip at lower speed and mostly have a longer wheelbase, it is very safe if you're used to RWD.
The back of an FWD car "snaps" loose, in bigger and heavier cars this happens well beyond the point of acceptable understeer, but light and short cars "snap" easier and more brutal.

The reason I said this in the other topic was because of the low-res "eco" tyre trend on new cars, which is simply dangerous on these short, light, FWD cars.

Isabelle
 
Candisa said:
I've got this from my garage ánd from testing out a 500 TA a few years ago myself.
The dangerous thing about some of these small hatchbacks is that they feel reasonably stable and even a bit under steered... Until the back end reaches its limit and comes around very fast and agressively.

My 2000 Renault Clio diesel van had this issue as well, although it handled very well with a typical FWD understeer, it surprised me a few times thanks to the heavy 1.9 diesel in the front and barely any weight in the back.

Yes, some RWD cars feel very loose in the back, but because the rear controllable with the throttle, typically start to slip at lower speed and mostly have a longer wheelbase, it is very safe if you're used to RWD.
The back of an FWD car "snaps" loose, in bigger and heavier cars this happens well beyond the point of acceptable understeer, but light and short cars "snap" easier and more brutal.

The reason I said this in the other topic was because of the low-res "eco" tyre trend on new cars, which is simply dangerous on these short, light, FWD cars.

Isabelle
Click to expand...

Jeez everyone is an expert. Based on something a garage said and a test drive. Where's all this "snaps loose" nonsense come from!

If you do something dumb i.e.deliberately lifting off mid corner without knowing what that does then yes expect it to go light at the back. Maybe the asr will recover it, maybe not. And everyone loves this nonsense about "controlling rwd on the throttle". Have you done that, have you practiced it loads, have you tried it in numerous different cars and conditions, with and without electronic intervention? If not you'll be headed through the nearest hedge backwards (hopefully that's as bad as it gets).
 
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