Now the all singing Trekking 500L is available.
This is from Diesel Car, but all engines are available.


http://www.dieselcaronline.co.uk/news/orders-open-on-fiat-500l-trekking

I can see they have gone all out to turn a boring run of the mill 500L into a mud plugging turnip stomping off road beast especially for outdoor pursuits by errr.... ummm..... raising the suspension a bit......

Oh but it does have rugged bumpers so grrrrr....

they are sure to have their main competitor in this market quaking in their backflipping boots

still looks fugly, will be be a long slow trek and now needs lowered

come on Fiat where are the exciting sport models?

My buddy who sells them has one. It looks better than the vanilla 500l, but it's £20k
Nice on the inside. Great seats

I must go and take a look.

20k is one hell of a lot of money for something with 105bhp though.

Well, I've had a look. Bright shiny yellow and quite fantastic. The part leather interior, in a sort of soft terracotta colour, with a piano black dash looks great. And the hole by the USB port now seems to be lined with a soft grippy plastic, so my phone would probably stay put

I'd have one of I could afford it. And yes, £20K for the 1.6 Diesel. But it looks worth it and it is a far nicer place to sit in than any of the opposition I have looked at.

Re the £20k figure, I guess it depends which model you go for.

Apparently the entry level 1.4 500L Trekking is £17,095 on the road. The standard free colour is New Age Cream with grey, brown and cream interior. On the face of it seems an OK price.

Waaaaaay out of my price league for a new car, but not bad!

But I'd never buy the base 1.4; not gutsy enough.

I think the one I looked at was fully specced bar the glass roof, which I wouldn't want anyway. But I have no idea how the base spec and the top one is differentiated.

I picked up a brochure so I'll take a look tomorrow.

And way out of my price league too

Ulpian said:

But I'd never buy the base 1.4; not gutsy enough.

I think the one I looked at was fully specced bar the glass roof, which I wouldn't want anyway. But I have no idea how the base spec and the top one is differentiated.

I picked up a brochure so I'll take a look tomorrow.

And way out of my price league too

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Have you test driven the 1.4 in the 500L? If so please let me know what you thought of it, you can add to my thread from yesterday!

No, I haven't driven any 500L, but I know that 95bhp and poor torque isn't enough to haul a relatively heavy car properly. I watched a review using this engine and the driver hated it.

Even the 105 Twinair and Diesel aren't exactly generous in their power and both engines can easily give 120, which is what the 500L needs.

It gets the 1.4 turbo giving 160bhp in the US, and this is more appropriate!

One British tester of the Trekking in Milan, driving the 1.6 Diesel, commented that the unforgiving Milanese traffic honked at him because he wasn't getting away from the lights fast enough. So the 1.4 - no way.

I have the 1.6 Diesel in my Doblo and I can attest that it isn't quick away from the lights, although in the mid range it's gutsy enough.

As I've often said, Fiat tends to under-engine its cars, and the new 500L is no exception.

I get what you are saying, but if you haven't actually driven one then I don't think you can write it off just yet

Look, I agree it probably won't set the world alight. And I think I remember the review you were on about on YouTube. But you will often see people complaining that the 1.2 8v in the 500 and Panda is too slow and underpowered.

In my opinion, I have never found that to be the case; once you understand where the sweet spots are with the engine and get your gear changes right then it's a really lovely engine and great fun too.

The 1.4 16v in the 500L might be a completely different beast, but if it is anything like the 1.2 in the 500/Panda then it might well be OK.

I get what you are saying, but if you haven't actually driven one then I don't think you can write it off just yet

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Well I have written it off I'm afraid. And it doesn't even have the virtue of economy, doubtless because it is constantly working so hard, and performance figures are poor too.

The 500 is a different car so I'm not going to make a comparison, except to say that I have driven the Panda TA and I found it to be an absolute hoot. But then the Panda is a different car too, and the turbo makes a big difference. But I concede that the 1.2 is enough in the Panda and 500 and doesn't cause annoyance in either of these small cars.

PS. I've just found this, from an Autocar test of the long 500L...

"...with 1.4-litre turbo petrol and 1.6 Multijet diesels, both giving 118bhp, to come towards the end of the year."

So there we are, Fiat is introducing adequately powerful engines later. Good.

Ulpian said:

PS. I've just found this, from an Autocar test of the long 500L...

"...with 1.4-litre turbo petrol and 1.6 Multijet diesels, both giving 118bhp, to come towards the end of the year."

So there we are, Fiat is introducing adequately powerful engines later. Good.

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This was in the review of the 500L MPW (basically the extra long 500L) version. It didn't extend to say whether the standard 5 seater 500L would get the extra power too.

They did say that the MPW version wouldn't have the base 1.4 16v engine, so I wonder if it means the smaller version will have the lower powered engines and if you want more power you jump up to the MPW, particularly as the increase is only a few hundred pounds if you opt not to add the extra seats.

I personally would want to try the TwinAir & 1.6 Multijet but someone on here does have the 1.4 petrol & found it perfectly adequate, so it might not be too bad afterall. That said, 95bhp in a car that size is not for me I'm afraid.

This was in the review of the 500L MPW (basically the extra long 500L) version. It didn't extend to say whether the standard 5 seater 500L would get the extra power too.

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I can't believe they would only offer the MPW (horrible name) with the better engines. It's not impossible, but I think it would be foolish of them.

They did say that the MPW version wouldn't have the base 1.4 16v engine, so I wonder if it means the smaller version will have the lower powered engines and if you want more power you jump up to the MPW, particularly as the increase is only a few hundred pounds if you opt not to add the extra seats.

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Same reply. There are already a plethora of engines, two Diesels, one very weak (the 1.3) and two petrols, again one weak (the 1.4) so I would hope there would be rationalisation. Although I concede that to muck about with drivetrains so soon after launch would make for great complication. But I see no point in offering so many colour/trim choices if the customer can't also have the engine he wants.

I personally would want to try the TwinAir & 1.6 Multijet but someone on here does have the 1.4 petrol & found it perfectly adequate, so it might not be too bad afterall. That said, 95bhp in a car that size is not for me I'm afraid.

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The performance, according to the brochure I have, is not wonderful, although better than the 1.3 Diesel , but the consumption is not very good and I think it wouldn't suit me either. However, for pootling about it probably is adequate.

The people making these decisions could well be the same as those who've decided to run Alfa Romeo as a 2 model brand for the last 18 months at least, so I don't think whether something being foolish or not in our eyes will even register with them

I'd like to think the bigger engines are offered across the models too, but in this case I wonder why they've chosen to offer the MPW (agreed, ridiculous name) with 5 seats for an alleged £800 premium or 7 seats for a further £700 premium. My thinking is that it might be so that people wanting more power get the bigger version without the extra seats, and those wanting more seating add the extra seats, either with or without bigger engines.

Might be just me, but I can't see why else anyone would pay a premium for the uglier looking MPW if they weren't adding extra seats unless they were getting a power increase to sweeten the deal

I think the whole plethora of engines, sizes, trims and extras finally only serves to confuse everybody. Fiat has always been adept at this and I'm not sure that in the end it doesn't just cause some people to say stuff it, I'll get a Ford/Citroen/VW/Skoda or whatever, as at least I can understand the choices and get more or less what suits.

I know what you mean by teasing the customer into buying the bigger car, but that wouldn't work for me, in fact it would upset me not to be able to have the gutsier motors in the shorter car, and I'll bet I'm not alone.

And yes, Alfa has been limping along with two models, neither of which has the performance that the name conjures up, meanwhile all the opposition has similar sized cars offering better performance. The result of course is that Alfa has been losing sales across the whole of Europe.

Always jam tomorrow with Fiat I'm afraid...

Saw my first 500L Trekking on the road yesterday

It was a yellow 13 plate in the Headington area of Oxford. Thought maybe it was a demonstrator as it was a local registration, but there were no stickers all over it & a full family on board, several miles from the nearest dealership, so I think it's fairly unlikely.

I put the reg into the vehicle license website when I got home & confirmed it was a 1.6 Multijet. Looked good. Possibly better than the regular 500L, and the exclusive yellow paintjob really suited it.

Here's hoping there's plenty more where that came from :slayer:

My friend picked me up last night in his trekking 500l.
Must say I was really impressed with it. The interior is very nice, high quality.
The radio/multimedia system is good. Wish they'd done something like that in the Panda.
It was the 1.6 multijet. Very quiet, from inside I couldn't tell it was diesel.
The ride was good and it popped along. Very spacious in there.

My friend had just been to a theme park on Monday approx 90 miles each way and he said it was lovely on the motorway. Better then his wifes new Kia Sportage by quite a bit.

I hope Fiat do well with it, 1st impressions left me thinking what a great family car.

It is a very good car, and I am beginning to see a fair few 500s on the roads. I saw two driving yesterday, and another one parked. I don't think they were the same cars or ones I had seen before either.

They have great presence on the road, looking big, handsome and solid, and a bit different. In a line of 'just cars' the 500 really does make a statement, a good one too

I have a different and less power hungry outlook on this, and find the base 1.4 quite interesting.

Our Idea has the same engine matched upto a 6sp box and never seemed to be lacking power. That includes big runs down to Italy fully laden. I know the 500l is a bit bigger and heavier but not far off. Having spent 6 years living in northern Italy i can pretty much guarantee it is the journos driving and not any new fiat products aceleration figures that caused the horn blowing.

Of the other engines, obviously the 1.6td is the pick for most things other than its expensive, slow to warm up in the winter and after a few years with my missus pootling around will be coughing up its own dpf and egr.

The 1.3tdwhich i liked alot in our Panda will be working a bit hard on anything but local runs and be a bit thirsty for it.

The twinair may be great but considering my old 1.4 just gave 46mpg on a run from yorkshire to somerset with all the family in at 75mph give or take a bit for traffic, i really cant see what it offers. Especially as a few 12hr days across europe at 85mph laden to the roof may age it a bit too quickly for my liking. Never mind convince me to take my 5series to reduce the cost of fuel on the trip.