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500 'Knuckles' the Fiat 500 1.4 Sport

Introduction

Finaly, after much waiting I went to pick up the new car today. Took over 1 hour to finally pay the vendor as the chip & pin machine was glitching!

Anyways, here goes! Its a 1.4 Sport in Pasdo Doble red. Originally on a 58 plate with only 22,000 miles! Paintwork is in really good conidition for a red car with very little swirling. Interior is a bit of a different story, there are a few marks here and then, I don't think the garage have cleaned inside properly, just ran a vacuum in the footwells. I'll probably spend a day cleaning the car 'properly' very soon! :yum:

Really impressed with the car so far, just as enjoyable as it was on test drive. Great on country roads and dual carriageways.I'm glad to be back behind the wheel of a Fiat. :)

Standard Features:
- Alloy Wheels
- Tinted rear windows
- Rear spoiler
- Front fog lights
- Sport button!
- Black/grey half leather interior
- Black plastics & steering wheel
- Red Dashboard insert
- Leather steering wheel with volume controls

Extras:
- White side stripes
- Colour coded side bump strips with Black Fiat 500 badges
- Rear parking sensors
- Alpine Stereo (from my last car) with fascia adaptor and steering wheel interface
- Abarth velour carpet mats and tax disc holder

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Hi SamDavis

Hope you enjoy, my OH is dying to have a red version of the 500 as she is not keen on her Electroclash Grey.(y) By the way like the Cherished Plate.
 
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Do they make the car go faster? :D

Love the colour (nope not biased at all ;) ) and the pics are great! Hope you have many more happy miles!

Good question! Not entirely sure but the Sport button seems to make it go faster! ;)

Thanks :) I really like the colour as well. I've noticed you've got a couple of 'Black' styling parts on your 500. Where did you order those from? The only web supplier I can find is in America.
 
My Sport button is on permanently.... Yeah, I know, it defeats the purpose of a fuel efficient car, but I love it! If it makes the car go faster I'm putting some decals on now!!

By the way, love the name of ur car. I battle with originality. The best I could do was Red Riding Hood so I decided on the classic name instead LOL!

I live in South Africa and bought it from 500Madness.com in the US. The first order I did was the gear knob, gear shif boot, new key cover and a red leather boot strap to replace the material one. That order was smooth and they shipped to me with no issues. I first placed the order and then phoned them.
I then wanted to get the chrome a-bar, bonnet bead and flags from them but they never got back to me. I ordered that from my local dealer.
Glad I got the first order as that is not in SA.

There is a video that shows you how to install and I got hubby to help. It was quick and easy. I think he wishes sometimes I was like a normal girl that goes shoe shopping on weekends!!

I did saw on some forum, could have been this one, that you can get from Black themselves. You must just brush up on your Italian. I just can't recall their direct site.
 
My Sport button is on permanently.... Yeah, I know, it defeats the purpose of a fuel efficient car, but I love it! If it makes the car go faster I'm putting some decals on now!!

By the way, love the name of ur car. I battle with originality. The best I could do was Red Riding Hood so I decided on the classic name instead LOL!

I live in South Africa and bought it from 500Madness.com in the US. The first order I did was the gear knob, gear shif boot, new key cover and a red leather boot strap to replace the material one. That order was smooth and they shipped to me with no issues. I first placed the order and then phoned them.
I then wanted to get the chrome a-bar, bonnet bead and flags from them but they never got back to me. I ordered that from my local dealer.
Glad I got the first order as that is not in SA.

There is a video that shows you how to install and I got hubby to help. It was quick and easy. I think he wishes sometimes I was like a normal girl that goes shoe shopping on weekends!!

I did saw on some forum, could have been this one, that you can get from Black themselves. You must just brush up on your Italian. I just can't recall their direct site.

I've found exactly the same with the sport button as well, all of a sudden it becomes amuch nicer car to drive. I wasn't sure about the decals but I'm glad I went for them in the end as they add a bit of definition to the shape of the car. (y)

I usually struggle a bit with car names; my last car, a silver Ford Fiesta was named Sylvester.. (as in silver-fiesta... yawn!)

Looks like I'll have to try 500Madness then, I can only find one other retailer selling 'Black' accesories, but they dont sell the parts I'm after!
 
Day 2: a bit of a clean

As the weather in Colchester was nice and overcast, I took the Fiat out of town to give it a 'real' clean.

The dealer to be fair had done a fairly good job of cleaning it, but it was a forecourt job and even a couple of hours after picking it up, it was looking dirty in places. Again, I don't think the dealer had touched the inside, as some of the plastics came up a different colour! The other thing I noticed was the dealer must of have absolutely drowned the wheels in tyre slick (rubber dressing) as my sponge went a very dark brown whilst cleaning the wheels.

Anyways the car exterior has been washed in AutoGlym shampoo and conditioner, the metal work was polished with AutoGlym super resin polish and glass polished with AutoGlym glass cleaner. The exhaust was cleaned with Autosol chrome cleaner, although the chrome finish on the bottom of the tailpipe had deteriorated.

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Then onto the interior. The dash insert was polished with AutoGlym glass cleaner, as it has less of a cutting effect than regular polish. All the plastic trim was cleaned with AutoGlym Vinyl and Rubber care, which brought up the colour and removed many of the stubborn marks and grazes. The leather was cleaned with Meguiars leather cleaner/conditioner, and the carpet was hoovered.

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Anyways, here's the money shots!

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The car is looking a lot better all around. Still a lot to do, but its enough for the winter months. :) I had a look through some of the history provided with the car in more detail today. It all supports the condition of the car.

The car has had two previous owners but a very low mileage; first was D Salmons the garage as a demonstrator. The next was a lady who I suspect was disabled. I found a 'rights and repsonsibilities of disabled badge holders' in the passenger seat, but that could just mean the previous owner was diabetic. However there are a few marks between the drivers door and cabin that could have been caused by someone getting in/out of the car into a wheelchair or with a walking stick. The car was regulalry serviced at D Salmons in Colchester, I'm not sure at the moment whether I will continue this trend... :chin:

Things to do with the car next:
- Order a touch up stick as there are a few nicks to the paint around the bottom of the car.
- There's a small whining noise from the interior fan/ac, so I've got to figure out if there is something in the system somewhere.
- Buy or make a shortened aerial.
- Replace the gear knob and gaitor as it looks pretty scruffy.
- Get a sub under the drivers seat. The front comps seem pretty good, better than the stock sound system that was in the Fez, but a bit of subtle bass improvement would be good!
- Possibly order some white checkers for the roof, the genuine Fiat ones obviously!

I've also been seduced by these. Won't happen for a while, but I'd better get saving!!
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SamDavis,

Looks like you have a great looking car to nurture. Slowly but surely you can add other bits and pieces as I have done on my TA Lounge.

As far as touch up goes, try Turtle Wax Colour Magic kit. It is a bottle of Polish for the colour of your car (Red) with a wax touch up stick (Like a lipstick also in Red.) Rub the wax stick into the blemish, allow to dry and lightly buff, followed by an application of the polish. After a couple of applications this should diminish any blemishes. I find this better than a touch up paint which can sometimes look obvious. Worth a try. Enjoy!!! (y)
 
I have got a model like that to match my car!
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SamDavis,

Looks like you have a great looking car to nurture. Slowly but surely you can add other bits and pieces as I have done on my TA Lounge.

As far as touch up goes, try Turtle Wax Colour Magic kit. It is a bottle of Polish for the colour of your car (Red) with a wax touch up stick (Like a lipstick also in Red.) Rub the wax stick into the blemish, allow to dry and lightly buff, followed by an application of the polish. After a couple of applications this should diminish any blemishes. I find this better than a touch up paint which can sometimes look obvious. Worth a try. Enjoy!!! (y)

I did my Abarth 500 in some of that colour magic yesterday, not sure how much it affected the paintwork but it did look a lot shinier than when I picked it up at the dealers last week, even though it had been valeted supposedly. I used the wax stick on a couple of scratches and it did fill them in a bit. Maybe repeated polishing with the colour magic will enhance its properties!
 
I have a '58 1.4 Sport in Pasadoble Red with full black leather and no stripes. Mine has only done 13,000 miles as it is only a weekend fun car.
Great machine and it always puts a smile on my face.

You will have a lot of fun with yours
 
Thanks :) Mine is also a '58 plate, I couldn't find a newer 1.4 and it sounds like Fiat are slowly withdrawing the 1.4 version of the 500. I think its a bit of a shame. :(

Anyways this one is also putting a smile on my face, everytime it goes out!
 
Update: Wax & Audio

Just a few updates...

Wax
Two weeks ago I spent a whole day working on the paintwork. In general its not bad for a 4 year old car, but there are a few impurities and swirls. Can't really do much about the swirls myself but I decided I could improve the appearance a bit for the time being. :)

So the car was washed with Auto-Glym shampoo and dried. I then applied Auto-Glym Paint Rennovator (not T Cut!!) to the paint work, then Auto-Glym polish, then Meguiars Carnuba Wax. Took a few hours but was well worth it. Looked fantastic in the flesh. Still quite swirly but a definite improvement. Gotta get it rotary polished next!

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I was told by the sales chap at the motor factors to wax the car again after a couple of weeks. As the weather was good today the car was washed and then waxed again.

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Audio
It was always in the back of my mind that the stock audio may not be that great. Its better than I thought it would be, certainly better than the stock setup in the Fiesta! But it wasn't that great with low frequencies. Didn't want to mess around with the door speakers (as they are riveted in) so I ordered one of these and fitted it last weekend.

http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/pio-tswx110a-pioneer-ts-wx110a.html

Wasn't too bad to fit, all things considered. Getting power from the engine bay was easy enough, snaking the wiring behind the dash was a nightmare as there is very little space! Decided to put it under the drivers seat. There is loads of room underneath the seat for it. I put some velcro underneath the sub and it hasn't moved. Sounds absolutely awesome for 70 watts. Ideal for a car this size and nice & practical too! My alpine stereo has built in hi pass filters for the stock speakers, so it all sounds spot on. (y)

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The main pain in the a##e with this sub was the stupid remote controller. :bang: I wasn't too keen on having one as I have a subwoofer level controller on my head unit, but it had to be hooked up for the sub to work. I didn't want it to be seen and there isn't any good cubby holes to put it in with out drilling holes. In the end I found a bit of metal above the front passenger footwell to mount it to with a wire tie. Difficult to spot, but easy enough to adjust. :)

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Other Stuff

The most important mods... A magic tree. Colour chosen to match the car, OCD or what!

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Oh and a keychain!
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The Mazda went to the Colchester Lions car show a few weeks back. As both cars were nice and clean it was great photo oppurtunity for them together afterwards. Probably the last time the Mazda will come out before next summer!

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