Anyone noticed that the reverse gear of the A500 is a bit underpowered? My driveway is a bit uphill and i'm having a hard time reversing out of it. I feel like i'm labouring the car and we all know that this is bad especially on cold starts

Yes everyone says this. I'm not sure what's wrong with the A500's reverse, if you reverse at high speed it makes a god awful secondary grinding noise too (which some dealers didn't realise was a characteristic of the car and changed my gearbox as a result, when actually nothing was wrong with it!) You'll notice that the revs are limited to 2500 RPM in reverse too. Go on floor it, it won't go above 2500!

I'm not sure, but I reckon the rear brakes are activated a little bit via the hill hold when you put it in reverse. Not a lot, but enough to make the car work.

hot_fiat said:

I'm not sure, but I reckon the rear brakes are activated a little bit via the hill hold when you put it in reverse. Not a lot, but enough to make the car work.

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The hill holder only holds the car for around a second whilst you find the bite on the clutch (saves stretching the handbrake cable) so i doubt it's that. I have heard others say that reversing is awkward, even on slight slopes. Trick is to be aggressive, lots of power (limited anyway) and don't be gentle with the clutch. Works for me

I don't mind about the speed of the reverse gear but about the power. I thought that something was wrong with my car. Even on small slopes it's struggling