Greetings! I feel better already being here with you, as I am feeling bereft. Today I got news that my impeccably maintained 2013 Fiat 500 Sport needs a new engine. Please bestow your Fiat wisdom upon me. Cheers from the DC area of the USA.
500 Noob Needs Sympathy
- Thread starter mauna500
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500 Noob Needs Sympathy
Hello and welcome to the forum.
Condolences; this is not what you were expecting from an impeccably maintained car and I can understand your feeling bereft.
Most of us here are from Europe, so we're not familiar with the intricacies of either the car or the way the automobile market works in the USA, but I'd expect your options to be broadly similar.
Firstly, you've been unlucky; it's most unusual to need to replace an engine within the service life of a modern car, and the 500 is no different in this respect.
A new or factory reconditioned engine is likely to be expensive, possibly too expensive to justify putting into an 8 yr old car. However, there is generally a plentiful supply of used engines available from breakers for much more reasonable prices. Obviously if you can't replace it yourself, you need to find a service facility which can. The biggest problem in the USA is probably finding an independent garage sufficiently familiar with the car to take this on; it's relatively delicate work in a very confined space; this is very different from dropping a V8 into a more typical US car.
You've a number of options. If you have the skill, tools and facilitites to swap an engine, then sourcing a secondhand engine and fitting it yourself is probably the best one. If you haven't, then give serious thought to selling or trading the car 'as is'; this cuts your losses and passes this and whatever future problems there may be onto someone else; you can then buy another car and move on.
Taking it to a Fiat authorised dealer and having them fit a new engine will get you peace of mind and a warranty, but could easily cost significantly more than the market value of the car.
Getting it fixed by an independent repair facility will be cheaper, but if it doesn't work out, you've put more money into the car and will still be left with a problem.
In the UK, you might make more money by breaking the car and selling the parts than it was worth in the first place. @typecastboy, what would you do in this situation?
If you do keep the car, it's important to find out why the engine failed; if there's another underlying cause (coolant loss being the most likely), then this also needs to be dealt with, or any replacement engine will soon go the same way.
Condolences; this is not what you were expecting from an impeccably maintained car and I can understand your feeling bereft.
Most of us here are from Europe, so we're not familiar with the intricacies of either the car or the way the automobile market works in the USA, but I'd expect your options to be broadly similar.
Firstly, you've been unlucky; it's most unusual to need to replace an engine within the service life of a modern car, and the 500 is no different in this respect.
A new or factory reconditioned engine is likely to be expensive, possibly too expensive to justify putting into an 8 yr old car. However, there is generally a plentiful supply of used engines available from breakers for much more reasonable prices. Obviously if you can't replace it yourself, you need to find a service facility which can. The biggest problem in the USA is probably finding an independent garage sufficiently familiar with the car to take this on; it's relatively delicate work in a very confined space; this is very different from dropping a V8 into a more typical US car.
You've a number of options. If you have the skill, tools and facilitites to swap an engine, then sourcing a secondhand engine and fitting it yourself is probably the best one. If you haven't, then give serious thought to selling or trading the car 'as is'; this cuts your losses and passes this and whatever future problems there may be onto someone else; you can then buy another car and move on.
Taking it to a Fiat authorised dealer and having them fit a new engine will get you peace of mind and a warranty, but could easily cost significantly more than the market value of the car.
Getting it fixed by an independent repair facility will be cheaper, but if it doesn't work out, you've put more money into the car and will still be left with a problem.
In the UK, you might make more money by breaking the car and selling the parts than it was worth in the first place. @typecastboy, what would you do in this situation?
If you do keep the car, it's important to find out why the engine failed; if there's another underlying cause (coolant loss being the most likely), then this also needs to be dealt with, or any replacement engine will soon go the same way.
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I think I agree with JR. I'm sure there would be a good market in the US for used parts, depending on the colour of the car too but I think I would be tempted to break it up for parts. There are plenty of parts and sensors even on your broken engine that are saleable as well as wheels, seats, bumpers, hood, trunk etc etc etc. Assuming the gearbox is OK even that. The catalytic converter obviously has a value too.
From a monetary point of view, cut your losses, break it up and you may find you will even get quite a bit more for it in parts that you can if you sold it "as is".
From a monetary point of view, cut your losses, break it up and you may find you will even get quite a bit more for it in parts that you can if you sold it "as is".
Very sound advice JRK. As a general comment I'd say that "big jobs" like this are well worth doing if you have the skills and facility to do it yourself and, as JR so rightly points out, rectify any subsequent problems that ensue - It's very important to be sure why the old engine failed. Employing someone else to do it for you can turn out very expensive due to unexpected problems encountered after work has been started.
Having visited the US many times with daughter having lived in southern Maryland and my sister still living out in the "sticks" west of Boston my perception is that garage costs are considerably "steeper" than over here in "Blighty". I think your safest option is probably to "cut and run"?
Having visited the US many times with daughter having lived in southern Maryland and my sister still living out in the "sticks" west of Boston my perception is that garage costs are considerably "steeper" than over here in "Blighty". I think your safest option is probably to "cut and run"?
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You could of course source an engine from Europe and ship it out if you can find a specialist to fit it and sort out the reprogramming this is probably by far the best way. UK seems to be the easiest place to source second hand engines and very low mileage examples come up regularly for sensible money. The others comments are very sound. My 2013 Bravo decided its gearbox had had enough two years back, and it was till pretty much as new other than this. I sold it on straight away before it failed completely. I really sympathise with your position. This really shouldn't have happened, but sometimes it just does.
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There's certainly a plentiful supply of decent 1.2 engines here at very reasonable prices (some have even been given away for free), but that isn't going to help the OP. As I understand things, the 1.4 engine fitted into US 500's is too different from anything Fiat use in Europe to make this a realistic option.
Also the risk of buying a piece of junk with no realistic way of resolving any issues is, to my mind, just too great to make this worth considering. Even if you could find someone here who'd be prepared to ship it to the US (and shipping won't be cheap), how can you be sure they're not just going to send you the worst engine they've got?
Going down the route of fitting a secondhand engine is likely only feasible if you can source one that's reasonably local; the US is a BIG country.
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