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Technical “Downgrading” to Pop steel wheels possible?

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Technical “Downgrading” to Pop steel wheels possible?

I had a 500 Lounge with 16" alloys, and my wife now has a 500C Lounge with 15" alloys. The ride in her car is certainly better than it was in mine, and it has improved further by fitting a set of Nexen all season tyres. I was surprised by how much difference this made. They have the snowflake symbol so are legal as winter tyres.

The standard 5" screen on my wife's car does not offer sat nav or phone mirroring, but the car is nearly 5 years old.

I would agree with the above about going for a test drive, the Lounge spec has all you want and you may find the ride ok.
 
My Nokian WR D4 winter tyres are also more comfortable than my summer tyres (Michelin Energy), maybe in part because they don’t have a strip of rim-protection rubber. Identical size (155/65R14).

Gina500 said:
On the tyres, my experience is that noise levels are massively influenced by profile, more than any other factor. […] 14 or 15" - I just would not bother, it wil not make much of a difference.
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Do those sentences not contradict each other?

The Pop-spec Fiat 500 comes with 14-inch wheels with 175/65 tyres. The Lounge has 15-inch wheels with 185/55 tyres. That’s a nominal sidewall height of 113.75 mm versus 101.75 mm, a significant difference. And when you hit a pothole, the rim can’t get closer to the ground than two layers of tyre – subtracted from those heights – so the difference in available pneumatic spring length is bigger still.

The 16-inch wheels have 195/45 tyres, i.e. 87.75 mm sidewall height. Ouch.

jrkitching said:
the wheel bolts
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Screws if we’re being pedantic, no?

TrevC said:
The standard 5" screen on my wife's car does not offer sat nav or phone mirroring
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So what is that 5-inch screen for?
 
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The 5" screen is a touch screen that gives you control of the radio, bluetooth and various other infotainment functions. We had a similar vintage 500X which had an identical looking screen, but included sat-nav.
If you get the choice, I would go for a phone mirroring option. I find Android Auto in the car I drive now very good, and you can use the satnav app of your choice, with fully updated maps, traffic info etc.
I certainly agree with lower profile tyres being noisier and firmer, but I think the 15" fitted as standard to the Lounge are a good compromise.
 
Just checked the configurator. Lounge trim here gets you manual a/c (which will include a pollen filter) and a 7" screen with Carplay and Android Auto. Satnav costs extra, but with a smartphone I wouldn't bother. No option for steel wheels, or smaller than 15".
You may be able to do a deal on the wheels. A friend recently bought a pre-registered Citroen, and got the dealer to swap the 17" alloys for 16" ones from a lower spec car.
 
Gina500 said:
By profile I meant the patterns that they cut out on the perimeter, not the height to width ratio. :D
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Got it. Tread pattern certainly makes a difference to noise. So does tread width, and each additional inch of wheel size for the Fiat 500 adds 10 mm of nominal tyre width (175 to 185 to 195 mm).

TrevC said:
but I think the 15" fitted as standard to the Lounge are a good compromise.
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That assumes there’s any advantage to the larger wheels and wider, lower-profile tyres. For me there wouldn’t be. But point taken. My concern is that not one but both of my C1 front wheels (steel) have dents from pothole damage. That’s with 155/65 tyres = 100.75 mm sidewall height.
 
Alloys and lower profile tyres on this type of car are for aesthetic reasons. People buy the 500 for its looks - a Panda gives similar mechanical bits in a more practical body, for less money.
If you want steel wheels, manual air conditioning and phone mirroring, check out the Dacia Sandero. In the UK, the Comfort trim is fitted with all the above, and costs £9k, as opposed to over £12k for a 500 Pop. For another £750 you can extend the warranty to 7 years!
 
The Dacia Sandero (and more so the Logan here in France) is an interesting vehicle.

But of course I like the look of the Fiat 500 – both its attractive design and the fact it will stay attractive forever, since it is simple and well proportioned rather than merely stylish at this moment as most fussily designed cars are in 2020. That matters if you want to keep a car for 10+ years.

I’m also looking for a properly small car after a nightmarish rental of a BMW 1 Series F40 in Italy a few weeks ago. That experience showed me that I am allergic to today’s bloated and highly automated vehicles.

And finally, I’m looking for a car with good aerodynamics because I will use it extensively outside the city. The Fiat 500 might not look very slippery, but its WLTP fuel consumption figures and claimed drag coefficient show otherwise.

Still, I don’t find big wheels necessarily attractive. This may be partly because I know they don’t work as well – form follows function – but I also find it pretty arbitrary to declare bigger wheels better looking. Good looks are about proportion. Big wheels are a status symbol, of course, but you’ve probably figured out I don’t care about that.

Thanks for the discussion, all.
 
Samuel D said:
But of course I like the look of the Fiat 500 – both its attractive design and the fact it will stay attractive forever, since it is simple and well proportioned rather than merely stylish at this moment as most fussily designed cars are in 2020. That matters if you want to keep a car for 10+ years.



Big wheels are a status symbol, of course, but you’ve probably figured out I don’t care about that.
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Isn’t that a contradiction, you want a car that looks good and is stylish but you don’t care about the appearance of big wheels and deem them a status symbol, playing devils advocate but that’s basically what you just said.

You don’t need big wheels to look good but you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks steel wheels with it without plastic wheel trims look better....
 
Andy, I had similar thoughts, I think plain steelies look horrid, but then I am a bit of a sucker for fancy wheels - I just try to hold myself back from extreme low profile for comfort and many other reasons.
However, we all have different likes and dislikes, and I respect that. There are some really nice covers for 500 steel wheels. I haven't followed the link above but I'm guessing they are an example.
I'm pretty sure a dealer wanting a sale would swap Lounge and Pop wheels over. The cost of the Lounge wouldn't reduce, and the Pop would be made more attractive to most buyers eyes.
 
Plastic wheel trims do look a bit rubbish, though I’ve coped for ten years.

I think the 500 – which is bigger than its shape suggests – probably looks best proportioned with 15-inch wheels. (The Abarth looks like a cartoon car with its wheels.) But I’m unwilling to give up the better performance of the 14-inch wheels with higher profile tyres, for the metrics that concern me.

Small correction to AndyRKett’s summary: I don’t want a stylish or fashionable car but a timelessly attractive one. For my own aesthetic pleasure, or maybe others’, but not as a display of my wealth/masculinity/environmental friendliness/brand awareness/fashion sense/taste.
 
This is getting all very subjective, if you want 15 inch wheels and you want a lounge then why not ask the dealer about 15 inch alloys it’s not like fiat don’t make them....

Realistically speaking the 500 was designed to have 16 inch wheels normally right from the beginning and from a proportion stand point smaller wheels on the 500 always looked a bit odd, the design of cars often is around having bigger wheels these days, I think it was the BMW 3 series of the early 2000s (maybe 2004?) that was designed to have big wheels, looked awesome if you bought an M3 with 19 inch wheels but for everything else, standard middle of the road cars looked like someone had fitted skate board wheels. I’m not sure how long you can continue this conversation if you want something specific go get what you want. Personally I’d just buy the car and use it, it genuinely wouldn’t bother me what wheels are on it, only that if I were spending €15k on a new car I’d then not want to deliberately make it look ugly with steel wheels and plastic trims. Then argue it’s wanted to be “attractive”

As I’ve said repeatedly the suspension on my cars fitted with 18inch wheels is very good and I don’t notice any noise or any other problems with the ride quality.
 
AndyRKett said:
This is getting all very subjective, if you want 15 inch wheels and you want a lounge then why not ask the dealer about 15 inch alloys it’s not like fiat don’t make them....

Realistically speaking the 500 was designed to have 16 inch wheels normally right from the beginning and from a proportion stand point smaller wheels on the 500 always looked a bit odd, the design of cars often is around having bigger wheels these days, I think it was the BMW 3 series of the early 2000s (maybe 2004?) that was designed to have big wheels, looked awesome if you bought an M3 with 19 inch wheels but for everything else, standard middle of the road cars looked like someone had fitted skate board wheels. I’m not sure how long you can continue this conversation if you want something specific go get what you want. Personally I’d just buy the car and use it, it genuinely wouldn’t bother me what wheels are on it, only that if I were spending €15k on a new car I’d then not want to deliberately make it look ugly with steel wheels and plastic trims. Then argue it’s wanted to be “attractive”

As I’ve said repeatedly the suspension on my cars fitted with 18inch wheels is very good and I don’t notice any noise or any other problems with the ride quality.
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Don't most 500shave 15" alloy's wheel's as standard
 
as I said I’m not sure how much more there is to discuss here, if that’s what you want go ask the fiat dealer.

As I’ve said before the difference between 14” and 15” wheels would certainly be splitting hairs if the only concern is ride quality, but If that’s what you desperately want then the fiat dealer is the next place to go, though my understanding at the moment is that’s probably not really feasible in France especially Paris at the moment.

And to repeat again the 500 was never meant to be “perfectly proportioned” with 14” steel wheels, it will definitely look like someone has fitted castors.
 
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AGH1965 said:
Please Andy, some people simply have a different opinion!



I bet you would enjoy square wheels.
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Well done with a sensible and constructive response ?

Seriously though it will make a negligible difference in actual comfort to have 14” wheels instead of 15” of course I am aware that people will profess their skills and abilities to tell the difference, but in all honesty it’s a mass produced car made on the cheap in Poland, it’s not a Rolls Royce with hydro pneumatic suspension. If you want super duper comfort that only an inch difference in wheel size will satisfy, probably don’t start with a fiat 500. Maybe go for a air suspension range rover or s-class merc with big leather heated seats and a massage function.

I changed my Punto the other way 14 inch steel wheels to 15 inch alloys and there was no change to the comfort.
 
AndyRKett said:
Well done with a sensible and constructive response ?
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Probably I was misunderstood...

But seriously, I doubt if Samuel has ever driven a 500. Coming from a C1 especially the suspension of a 500 may be very disappointing. Why bother to discuss about trim levels and wheel sizes influencing comfort if you might dislike the 500's suspension completely?
 
AGH1965 said:
Coming from a C1 especially the suspension of a 500 may be very disappointing.
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The C1 doesn’t have sophisticated suspension. It has simple, low-maintenance suspension … that in my car now needs to be maintained anyway. It’s not as plush as the body roll suggests. (Still better than a rental BMW F40 I had for a week, although the bassy thud of the BMW over bumps might con some observers.)

If you’re on rubber-band tyres too, maybe that’s why you think the 500’s ride is harsh?

I drove a friend’s Fiat 500 in early 2008, one of the first I’d seen on the road, and remember almost nothing of the experience. At that point I had no intention of buying one. To me the C1 was truer to the original 500 concept than the new Fiat. The second-gen C1 is still a good car.
 
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