General Ride height differences between 500s

[mj2k]

I've been a passenger in quite a long road trip over the past couple of days, and aside from noticing an awful lot of 500s around, especially south of the M25, I noticed something weird.

Although they were all standard 500s (Abarths you'd expect to be a bit different) there seemed to be a wide range of ride heights when we went past all these 500s - some seemed to be sitting really low like an Abarth on lowering springs, others seemed to be sitting at a 'normal' height with I'd guess 5cm between wheelarch and wheel, and others seemed to be sitting really high like a Panda 4x4

I think it's quite unlikely vast numbers of owners have been chopping and changing their springs / shocks with other models and most of them only had 1 or 2 people in them so it wasn't down to being fully loaded, so what could have been causing the wide difference in how far off the road they were?

Do the springs settle quite a bit, is there a difference between series', or are different springs / shocks fitted depending on if it's e.g. a 1.2, 1.4 or twinair? Sports might be a bit lower anyway I'd guess.

 

[Baglady1990]

I have no idea obviously there will be a few folks out there who will have lowered their 500s and a few if not more arbarth owners!

I wonder if the sport has a lower stance that say the lounge or pop?
I know my Gucci sits on the higher more “normal” side even though my suspension is koni it’s obviously designed on the OEM spec
And not adjusted coil overs

Personally the higher the better there’s so many pot holes & speed bumps in my area if fear my car tripping & flipping if it were lowered!

 

[mj2k]

I have no idea obviously there will be a few folks out there who will have lowered their 500s and a few if not more arbarth owners!

I wonder if the sport has a lower stance that say the lounge or pop?
I know my Gucci sits on the higher more “normal” side even though my suspension is koni it’s obviously designed on the OEM spec
And not adjusted coil overs

Personally the higher the better there’s so many pot holes & speed bumps in my area if fear my car tripping & flipping if it were lowered!

I reckon the Sport must sit lower, but I'm pretty sure all the lower ones weren't Sports since they're not that common, around 8000 sports in this country vs approx 20k Abarths and and approx 400k of all other Fiat 500 models. Only about 500 Guccis and 350 GQs in all that lot though according to howmanyleft.co.uk

 

[jrkitching]

I reckon the Sport must sit lower

I'm not so sure; my understanding is that the sport is just a trim level and is mechanically identical to the Lounge/Pop models.

Ride height at the rear is hugely load dependent and you may just be observing how much fuel these cars have in their tanks. Shocks won't affect ride height at all; for any given weight & balance, it's determined by the springs.

 

[mj2k]

I'm not so sure; my understanding is that the sport is just a trim level and is mechanically identical to the Lounge/Pop models.

Ride height at the rear is hugely load dependent and you may just be observing how much fuel these cars have in their tanks. Shocks won't affect ride height at all; for any given weight & balance, it's determined by the springs.

True, though if the shocks have been swapped it's more likely new springs will have been fitted too, either new OEM (which will increase ride height 'til they're a bit worn) or Eibach lowering springs (which of course make it sit lower).

Hmm, you could be right on the fuel level, that'd affect weight over the rear axle a lot and would be invisible unless you're peering at the fuel gauge using a pair of binoculars (and generally people don't like it if you peer at them through binoculars for some reason) And I guess rear ride height is the first thing you notice coming from behind, so those that were sitting either way too low or way too high would have attracted my attention more.

 

[Baglady1990]

Yeah I like to check every now and then to see how rare my car is getting another Gucci was broken last month I saw the interior on eBay … wasn’t there for long either!!
All that aside I love logging into my AA app and seeing my car as listed … fiat 500 BY GUCCI I go all tingly inside

 

[Baglady1990]

Yeah and some people even cut down their own springs not advisable to say the least!

 

[mj2k]

Yeah I like to check every now and then to see how rare my car is getting another Gucci was broken last month I saw the interior on eBay … wasn’t there for long either!!
All that aside I love logging into my AA app and seeing my car as listed … fiat 500 BY GUCCI I go all tingly inside

I know there's some margin of error with howmanyleft (if the info's not completed the DVLA will put one down as just a plain old Fiat 500) but it gave me a shock just how rare they are, your chances of seeing an Abarth are about 1 in 20, 1 in 50 for a Sport and 1 in 800 for a Gucci (even less for a GQ)!

Not the very rarest though - there are only 12 surviving Abarth 695 Maseratis in the UK, meaning on average you'll only see one out of every 33,000 Fiat 500s you pass