Picking up a 500 on Wednesday, mostly for the girlfriend so she can learn to drive and get around with our daughter. Overall, I like the car. It's the Dualogic gearbox with plenty of nice features, but I have a couple of questions if you'd be so kind as to indulge me.

- how reliable is the car (inc transmission)?
- is there anything I should look out for on collection?
- how big is the 1.2 hill issue?

Any advice on upgrades? I would like to fit a rear parking camera, and puddle lights. Any idea if this can be done?

Thanks in advanced.

Andy

Gearbox can be quite trouble some
Look for the dual logic thread on the forum
I'd advise anyone to check theoil level on the dual logic actuator as a regular item e.g every few month

Hi Chris, thanks for your response. I've just found the Dualogic thread, I'm a little concerned but it's got 6 months warranty left and I have extended for another 3 years. I'm hoping, having only 7k on the clock, reliability issues are in the distant future (Sentiments probably echoed by every Dualogic owner in the beginning).

Make sure your extended warranty covers the gearbox, you’d be supprised what is and isn’t covered sometimes on these things.

Also noting your intention to fit a reversing camera, completely pointless and unnecessary in the 500. It is so small you can practically press your nose up against the back window for reversing. I don’t think fiat do any sort of standard camera for the 500 because of its tiny size, so it would have to be aftermarket, which would most likely mean a change of radio, which on your 65 plate is an integral part of the cars computers, the car would lose quite a few functions if you changed the radio.

I’m not aware of any 500 cars fitted with puddle lights (maybe something really special like the Maserati edition, but even then probably not) so you’d need to come up with some aftermarket solution, most these days come on when you unlock the car or open the door to get out, then turn off when you lock it, you could botch something together but it wouldn’t look or feel standard and may make the car look a bit silly especially if you went for anything other than white light.
Both of these things would be modifications to the standard car and may completely invalidate any warranty extended or otherwise, which if you your are unlucky enough to have a gearbox problem in the future, may cost you a lot of money.

Thanks for replying Andy.

I have been through the warranty with the company and they have said that the gearbox and clutch are covered under the warranty, but I will be getting them to sign to confirm the warranty on collection tomorrow (I have the brochure).

I get the reversing camera point, it's more of nice feature to have than a necessity as it has rear parking sensors. The puddle lights are a nice touch I have on my car, and a white light would be the limit (no logos or anything). I will check the warranty point before I try to pick up a power feed.

In all likelihood, I will probably leave it alone and just wash and wax it. It looks a really smart little car hoping it provides a few years of worry free motoring for the GF.

andy3660 said:

Hi Chris, thanks for your response. I've just found the Dualogic thread, I'm a little concerned but it's got 6 months warranty left and I have extended for another 3 years. I'm hoping, having only 7k on the clock, reliability issues are in the distant future (Sentiments probably echoed by every Dualogic owner in the beginning).

Click to expand...

The dualogic thread doesn't in reality contain that many complaints in the grand scheme of things. Roughly 2 issues of faults or failure per page, since it started, thats 64! Fiat sell a lot of these cars.

Reconditioned units are now available from 2 ex Fiat engineers on eBay in the £400 region. Repairs are much cheaper in reality for this, than the VW DSG box

p6baseunit said:

The dualogic thread doesn't in reality contain that many complaints in the grand scheme of things. Roughly 2 issues of faults or failure per page, since it started, thats 64! Fiat sell a lot of these cars.

Reconditioned units are now available from 2 ex Fiat engineers on eBay in the £400 region. Repairs are much cheaper in reality for this, than the VW DSG box

Click to expand...

Pretty much. People on here love to overegg things and make them out to be worse than they are.