General Reliability and maintenance

[lillapoyka]

I've been looking at the 500 and have a couple of questions about the reliability and maintenance. I had a mini cooper that I got rid of because once it was out of warranty I could find very few people who would work on it. That meant that I had to take it to the BMW/Mini dealer to service it. That was quite expensive.

How is the 500. I believe it has a Chrysler engine. So has anybody had any problems finding a non dealer mechanic to work on it and do the costs seem fairly ok?

Thanks for any responses to my questions. By the way, I live in about 35minutes north of Tampa,Florida.

 

[ahmett]

I've been looking at the 500 and have a couple of questions about the reliability and maintenance. I had a mini cooper that I got rid of because once it was out of warranty I could find very few people who would work on it. That meant that I had to take it to the BMW/Mini dealer to service it. That was quite expensive.

How is the 500. I believe it has a Chrysler engine. So has anybody had any problems finding a non dealer mechanic to work on it and do the costs seem fairly ok?

Thanks for any responses to my questions. By the way, I live in about 35minutes north of Tampa,Florida.

Infinitly cheaper than the Mini Cooper to service. The 1.4 US engine would be reliable and spare parts very cheap to fix. Out of curiosity, what kind of warranty do they give over in the USA for this car? In Europe its a 2 year manufacturer warranty.

Technically any decent mechanic with access to spare parts which you can now get universally online can fix this car. The same applies to the Mini, but BMW parts are really expensive, so even if you take it to an independent, it will likely be much more expensive to fix out of warranty than the Fiat. The fiat is also a simpler car, so less things to go wrong!

 

[lillapoyka]

the mini had a 3 year/36,000 mile warranty when I bought mine in 2004. I couldn't even find a mechanic nearby that would change the oil. What a pain. once out of warranty the closest person I could find was about 40 miles away city traffic. Finally, as much as I loved it I had to get rid of it. Ended up with a Kia Soul which I'm more than happy with.

My other car a Hundai Elantra was totaled a while back so my wife and I are in the market for another vehicle.

 

[RobinPJ]

That seems very odd. I'm no mechanic but surely there is nothing so unique about a Mini's engine that a competent mechanic couldn't deal with it? Or did they lack the necessary software?

Are Mini's so rare in Florida?

 

[ahmett]

the mini had a 3 year/36,000 mile warranty when I bought mine in 2004. I couldn't even find a mechanic nearby that would change the oil. What a pain. once out of warranty the closest person I could find was about 40 miles away city traffic. Finally, as much as I loved it I had to get rid of it. Ended up with a Kia Soul which I'm more than happy with.

My other car a Hundai Elantra was totaled a while back so my wife and I are in the market for another vehicle.

Then i recommend the Fiat. You already have a 'bigger' car if you need the space with the Kia and the Fiat 500 fits 2 people and some luggage more than comfortably.

 

[loveshandbags]

I've been looking at the 500 and have a couple of questions about the reliability and maintenance. I had a mini cooper that I got rid of because once it was out of warranty I could find very few people who would work on it. That meant that I had to take it to the BMW/Mini dealer to service it. That was quite expensive.

How is the 500. I believe it has a Chrysler engine. So has anybody had any problems finding a non dealer mechanic to work on it and do the costs seem fairly ok?

Thanks for any responses to my questions. By the way, I live in about 35minutes north of Tampa,Florida.

Welcome to the Forum lillapoyka.

The engine on the 500 in North American is a multi-air engine with the block of a tried and tested block from the FIRE stable. It should prove very reliable and is used on the Fiat Punto and the Alfa MiTos in Naturally aspirated and turbo charged form. It's a FIAT engine.
Manual gearbox seem robust and in the NA models they should prove reliable. Don't know anything about the Automatic gearbox which does not appear to come from the Fiat stable and could well be a Chrysler box.
Your 500 is an 'all new' model with additional suspension travel and from reports on the New Panda in the European model it uses your setup and is reported to 'ride well'. Economy on the manual model is reported as being favourable.

Is your MINI the Cooper S with the supercharger ? Some mechanics have had their 'moments' working on them.

IIRC the warranty in the US / North America is 4 years.

 

[lillapoyka]

a lot of mechanics in my area said that the MINI required special BMW tools.

 

[RobinPJ]

a lot of mechanics in my area said that the MINI required special BMW tools.

Are you sure they didn't say that you had to be a special kind of tool to drive one?









[Joking.]

 

[stevenvillatoro]

Out of curiosity, what kind of warranty do they give over in the USA for this car? In Europe its a 2 year manufacturer warranty.

Unless I overlooked something, it seems no one has answered your question yet about the U.S. warranty.

All U.S. Fiats have as standard: a four-year 50K mile complete warranty, a four-year unlimited mile roadside assistance program, and a 12-year unlimited mile corrosion warranty.

Our warranties tend to be stronger across all brands, and a short warranty nowadays is a big sales deterrent, showing lack of brand confidence.