Fiat 500 Abarth Test Drive

[Chris]

Looking for a new car for the wifey and test drove a new Fiat 500 Abarth. I didn't really know what to expect, but was REALLY impressed by this little car. Good pickup from the turbo 4-banger and the exhaust has all sorts of wonderful pops and growls on the overrun.

The fit and finish and level of trim was also really impressive. I think we may have one of these join the stable soon. Just need to sell her Jetta now first!

[GINCH]

Re: Fiat 500 Abarth Test Drive

Chris,

A buddy of mine bought one of these brand new and its been nothing short of a piece of ****. Apparently its in the shop all the time. He says he loves the way it drives but the fix it again tony reference has been used many times over! Use caution my friend!

[Remedys]

Re: Fiat 500 Abarth Test Drive

Fiesta ST?

[Danaldson]

Re: Fiat 500 Abarth Test Drive

i also really liked these and was planning on buying one for myself before the a4. Sadly i did not fit.

[Chris]

Re: Fiat 500 Abarth Test Drive

Chris,

A buddy of mine bought one of these brand new and its been nothing short of a piece of ****. Apparently its in the shop all the time. He says he loves the way it drives but the fix it again tony reference has been used many times over! Use caution my friend!

Good to know! What model year was his? The 2015's come with a 5-year warranty so that gives me some comfort, but if it's going to be a nightmare otherwise, may have to reconsider. I think if we were to get one we'd probably only hang on to it for a few years (car ADD runs strong in our family).

[Circa1990]

Re: Fiat 500 Abarth Test Drive

I test drove one of these. Pretty fun but merging in it terrified me.

[GINCH]

Re: Fiat 500 Abarth Test Drive

Good to know! What model year was his? The 2015's come with a 5-year warranty so that gives me some comfort, but if it's going to be a nightmare otherwise, may have to reconsider. I think if we were to get one we'd probably only hang on to it for a few years (car ADD runs strong in our family).

I think his was the first year they were available. They might be better now!

[witchcraftz]

Re: Fiat 500 Abarth Test Drive

We also bought one of these, a 500 sport first gen. We had a lot of time in the garage too, in fact probably only drove it for 6 months out of the 1.5 years we owned it.
I think we had a lemon though since we rented a couple of these from Enterprise for road trips and they ran beautifully.

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: Fiat 500 Abarth Test Drive

Well I had a 500 Sport when they were first out, and it was relatively problem free until my sunroof broke and had the first problem of it's kind in Canada but I think time is a benefit for these cars as things should be improving, as it was a brand new product.

Personally if I was in Calgary still I think I would have gone for an Abarth by now too, but the two things that concern me are value (depreciation seems pretty high on these cars) so consider leasing and also dealing with Chrysler dealerships was not nearly as good of an experience as my Euro times, but the oil changes were super cheap!

[Chris]

Re: Fiat 500 Abarth Test Drive

Thanks for the feedback, fellas!

I agree on the Chrysler dealership experience. It was brutal compared to what I've experienced from the Euro brands. When I asked the sales guy for a price sheet so I could see the breakdown, he flat out refused and stated that they won't share any pricing until we are in "paper negotiations". Seemed like an out-dated sales tactic and really soured things, but I finally got him to share the price sheet (although I wasn't' allowed to take it with me).

Depreciation is pretty high, but is offset a bit by the fact that we get a pretty big discount due to my wife working for CP Rail (they have some sort of deal with certain brands) and a $3K rebate on top of that. Financing is also at 0% up to 72 months (crazy!) so all told it seems like a pretty good deal. (But point me to this thread 4 years from now when we're looking to sell it, though hahaha!)

[VwSweetHeart]

Re: Fiat 500 Abarth Test Drive

Always liked the look of these cars. I have no personal experience with them but, if you're not dead set on a Fiat, why not look at a Mini Cooper? Still a small and fun car and haven't heard of crazy problems like the Fiats have.

[Chris]

Re: Fiat 500 Abarth Test Drive

We checked out Minis as well, and really like them, but I think they're really over-priced. The Paceman that we looked at would be $13K more expensive than the Abarth. But otherwise they're pretty rad cars, too!

[witchcraftz]

Re: Fiat 500 Abarth Test Drive

I'd like to add to my previous note:

We did 1.4 years out of 1.5 of repairs at the downtown Vancouver Fiat dealership.
They did fix a few cosmetic things: broken piece of plastic and side skirts peeling off (1st gen problem from side skirt manufacturer)
But for the electronic issues we were having I kept having this feeling that despite the invoices and papers they were doing nothing but resetting (aka taking the battery off for an hour or so) the ECU.

This suspicion was confirmed to me when at the very end we took it into a Chrysler dealership where the Repair guys said nothing had been done, they wiped the ECU and transmission programming, uploaded the newest version, replaced some faulty modules and everything worked great!
I think the Fiat dealership repairs guys were padding their pockets, I reported this to Fiat of NA but never heard back what (if anything) they did.

This was all very aggravating but they did honor the warranty and we paid nothing.

We sold the car shortly after it was fixed because we needed something bigger. If it wasn't for my distrust of the local Fiat dealerships now I might buy another, I'm especially liking the 500x!

When shopping around we also tested a Mini Cooper that a friend owns but just couldn't get over that the display info is in the middle of the car.