500 My TA Lounge in Volare Blue.

Currently on 4400 miles (I know, ridiculously low in 16 months - but this will start increasing now I'm using the car for work).

Running brilliantly, still, and the paintwork comes up great when I clean it, so I'm very happy. In March I bought some steel wheels, and today I had some Continental TS800s fitted, and it looks great. Amazing how soft the ride is with light wheels and high profile tyres!



Filthy in this pic - but looks so cute and innocent on those little wheels - quite 'under wheeled' compared to the alloys it came with.

Great looking Car!! they are fun cars to drive! happy motoring!!

Well, it's still going strong; I've just got back from a thousand mile trip to and from the Nordschleife (along with a bit of a short tour of the Eifel region). I was going to take another car I'd just finished working on, but that sold rather more quickly than I expected, so the 500 did the duty:

My good lady did the photography on Bergwerk corner:





And mid Karrussel:



Fantastic little car, still..

I forgot to add, the average fuel consumption for the entire 1000 mile trip was 42.6, which included a few Vmax sessions on the 'bahn (112mph on the GPS!), the Nordschleife, and all town driving.

Those nay sayers would probably say that's awful, but I think it's pretty decent as the car wasn't hanging around, and felt entirely natural cruising at 'restricted' bahn speeds of 130kph, as well as any de-restricted sections.

That's not too bad. I think I did 47 on my first European road trip and about 49 on the last one, but of course I wasn't going as quickly.

And now the Bilstein B14 kit is on:

I never did put a better pic of the car on B14s did I? Well, here:



The harshness of the dampers from brand new has eased off, and they feel very secure and safe, but with just enough ride quality to get away with it on the incredibly bad London roads. But then the way the car handles makes up for it - it corners flat, and feels great!

I always regretted not getting the leather seats for the car when it was new, but wasn't enamoured with spending £700 for them, so was delighted when I found a set on eBay with door cards for a lot less! And with some dismantling, I have the only Fiat 500 with under seat storage on the passenger side





Just the door cards to swap over - but I want to soundproof the doors properly, so that'll get done at the same time..

I put my 16's on yesterday and I have to say, I need some Billies, the ride quality is terrible after having the 14" steelies on for 7 or 8 months. Leather is a must in a 500 IMHO!


How many miles does yours have on it? Mines just popped over 58k miles yesterday.

14,800 and something - did a service a few weeks back; cost me £150 in parts and an hour or so, much better than the ridiculous price quoted by the dealer for what they consider a 'big' service. (i.e. two spark plugs, air/oil/pollen filters and an oil change)

I bought a copy of MES and reset the service counter, as well as doing an 'Oil change' process which you should do on a TA (basically resets the UniAir adaption values in the engine management because the oil viscosity has changed). It runs delightfully - one day I'll get around to fabricating a better exhaust manifold for a turbo from a 105hp TA, as the car comfortably out handles the engine.

bgunn said:

Just the door cards to swap over - but I want to soundproof the doors properly, so that'll get done at the same time..

Click to expand...

I suggest swaping out the speaker while you're in there too. The grey seat runner covers would look a lot better painted/ covered to match the cream

UFI said:

I suggest swaping out the speaker while you're in there too. The grey seat runner covers would look a lot better painted/ covered to match the cream

Click to expand...

Speakers, yes. I'm thinking I might get the Interscope gear and put it in the car, I have the sub that belongs under the drivers seat, and can source the rest bit by bit.

I know what you're saying about the plastic trim, but it ties in with the rest of the grey (handbrake console etc) so going cream might look out of place unless I did the rest.

My favourite colour - good choice!

bgunn said:

cost me £150 in parts and an hour or so, much better than the ridiculous price quoted by the dealer for what they consider a 'big' service. (i.e. two spark plugs, air/oil/pollen filters and an oil change).

Click to expand...

Am I reading this correctly? Is that £150 just in parts?

MN500 said:

Am I reading this correctly? Is that £150 just in parts?

Click to expand...

Including brake fluid, more oil than for just once service, amongst other things. Sorry, didn't make that clear.

bgunn said:

Speakers, yes. I'm thinking I might get the Interscope gear and put it in the car, I have the sub that belongs under the drivers seat, and can source the rest bit by bit.

I know what you're saying about the plastic trim, but it ties in with the rest of the grey (handbrake console etc) so going cream might look out of place unless I did the rest.

Click to expand...

Does Interscope upgrade the speakers, I thought it was just an amplified sub? If you're interested in weight, Polk Audio MM series speakers saved about 500 grams (pair) over the stock same sized 5 1/4" OEs in my Jeep. They have less bass (compared to the Jeep OE) but if you have a sub that won't be a concern.

The normally grey/black seat releases have been coloured ivory on your seats, which to me makes the runner covers stand out. But I guess you have to draw the line somewhere, although the pillar trim comes off fairly easily so it wouldn't be too hard to spray it all to match.

UFI said:

Does Interscope upgrade the speakers, I thought it was just an amplified sub?

Click to expand...

Yes, it does upgrade the speakers and it amplifies them too.

scout500 said:

Yes, it does upgrade the speakers and it amplifies them too.

Click to expand...

There are three major components in the Interscope upgrade option, the speakers, the pillar tweeters have interscope stamped on them, the subwoofer, under the driver's seat and a separate amplifier located in the rear inner wing area IIRC.

UFI said:

Does Interscope upgrade the speakers, I thought it was just an amplified sub? If you're interested in weight, Polk Audio MM series speakers saved about 500 grams (pair) over the stock same sized 5 1/4" OEs in my Jeep. They have less bass (compared to the Jeep OE) but if you have a sub that won't be a concern.

Click to expand...

As the others have said, there is an amp/DSP unit mounted in the rear 1/4, as well higher rated speakers (poly coned rather than paper also), and uprated tweeters at the front.

UFI said:

The normally grey/black seat releases have been coloured ivory on your seats, which to me makes the runner covers stand out. But I guess you have to draw the line somewhere, although the pillar trim comes off fairly easily so it wouldn't be too hard to spray it all to match.

Click to expand...

The seat releases were always ivory on my car, as it has ivory ambience. But they didn't stand out because the top panels of the grey cloth (pop) seats were ivory too.

bgunn said:

I never did put a better pic of the car on B14s did I? Well, here:

The harshness of the dampers from brand new has eased off, and they feel very secure and safe, but with just enough ride quality to get away with it on the incredibly bad London roads. But then the way the car handles makes up for it - it corners flat, and feels great!

I always regretted not getting the leather seats for the car when it was new, but wasn't enamoured with spending £700 for them, so was delighted when I found a set on eBay with door cards for a lot less! And with some dismantling, I have the only Fiat 500 with under seat storage on the passenger side

Just the door cards to swap over - but I want to soundproof the doors properly, so that'll get done at the same time..

Click to expand...

Loving the new seats bgunn : )
Yours looks about as low as mine (on eibach sportline springs)

Now time to finish the job:

The leather insert on the 'new' door cards were in perfect condition. The plastic was in less than perfect condition - either the previous owner was a clumsy fool, or they were handled in a less than gentle way. Either way, I wouldn't be happy with them in my car, so I hatched a plan:



By careful use of a soldering iron, I could detach each of the plastic welded 'rivets' that hold the inner panel in, do the same on my (perfect) door card and then swap the innards.

My resolve to properly soundproof the doors has been increased, too - the absorption/waterproof sheet on the inner skin is flimsy in the extreme - so something better needs to be done to that when the interscope speakers go in. I'll do that in nice weather though, as there's nothing worse than doing that job in the cold - your hands get cut to ribbons usually, and you usually bleed more profusely when cold! The whole car needs a good going over in this department, so look forward to that next year..

After I'd done both sides and put the cards back on, I gave the interior a good clean out - vacuuming the seams of the seats out properly before giving everything a good leather feed.



The finished product. Really happy with this.