Hello all, first post.
In addition to the X, I own and daily drive a new Fiat 500 1.4 and have done for almost 3 years. I ordered her 2 weeks before they were officially on sale in England and have enjoyed everyone of my 60,568 miles so far.
To give you a feel for reliability I've had one issue with a hydraulic clutch seal in the first week of ownership. The dealer came and collected, apologised profusely and had it back to me the very next day. Since then I've had a microswitch under the tailgate handle go and that's it.
That said, the UK dealer network is notorious for being awful. There are more tales of woe and misery on the net than there are happy ones where Fiat's dealer network is concerned. You guys might get lucky and have a better experience.
I don't know what the deal is with roadside assistance in the US but over here Fiat gives you a years breakdown recovery free with the purchase and a discount on subsequent years.
To put these comments into perspective, I'm not your typical girly 500 driver either. My baby has done somewhere in the region of 75 laps of the Nurburgring on various occasions wearing a variety of rubber from Toyo R888's through to Continental Contisports. She's also been all four wheels off the ground round Adenauer Forst but that's a story for another thread. She's also hammered relentlessly around Bedford Autodrome, Brands Hatch, Mallory Park and Silverstone. She's also done 2 days at Spa Italia last year being chucked over ripple strips and sideways past tons of exotica around Spa-Francorchamps. She got us to the snow in Les Gets on the French/Swiss border last year perfectly fine. She's been to France, Italy and Belgium on long road trips and never missed a beat, even on scary, dodgy Belgian petrol.
I drive her every day on an 80 mile round trip commute, half highway half city and I'm not shy about giving her the beans, regularly see 90mph on the highway portion. I'm averaging 32mpg at the moment. That's down a little on what I used to get because I've fit a Quaife ATB limited slip diff to the gearbox. That exercise has cost me 4mpg but the trade off in handling is worth it. She slingshots out of corners and puts her power down in a much more useable way now. A 911 driver I took for a passenger lap was white as a sheet at the corner entry and exit speeds. His exact comment was 'if we did that in my car we'd be picking engine out of our arse right now'.
I'll freely admit that the warranty isn't great compared to the Korean dullsmobiles you can buy. But think about this. Every morning you're going to open your door and see a 500 in the drive. A little excitable ball of Italian enthusiasm just begging you to rev her like mad. Is that worth some spannering when the warranty runs out? So far, the answer is yes.
