My new Fiat 500

[Doohickie]

The Elantra is still in the family; my son's driving it after the death of is old Tracer. But it's no longer *my* car.

So I got me a Fiat 500 Sport on Saturday. Today I got the windows tinted, and here's the result.


Fiat 500 Sport by [email protected], on Flickr


Fiat 500 Sport by [email protected], on Flickr


Fiat 500 Sport by [email protected], on Flickr

Before my Elantra, I had a Ford Aspire (reskinned Festiva). The 500 is very reminiscent of that car, but it's better in every way- more power, better handling, better creature comforts, and a great stereo. Basically, it's like driving a very quick go-cart. Lots of fun.

[songee623]

any plans for mods?

[Doohickie]

Other than the window tint, no, not really. I'll be putting a hitch receiver on it for a bike rack, but no other plans. I really, really like it right out of the box. It's a Sport model, so it has the tight suspension. Plus there's a Sport mode. To get good fuel economy, they build a bit of lag into the throttle (and tune the electric assist on the steering for a softer feel). When you engage Sport mode, it removes the throttle lag and tightens up the steering and the car really jumps. I was chirping it in 2nd and 3rd without really trying.

[Doohickie]

My garage is a mess, but at least I can park my Fiat in it!



IMG_1010.jpg

[Doohickie]

I got probably about a quarter of the remaining crap out of the garage tonight- took more boxes and cardboard junk to the recycling dumpster, dropped off some clothes at Goodwill, took some stuff to the storage unit.

Meanwhile, the hitch receiver I ordered for my bike rack came in today. I'm disappointed in the shoddy packing job they did; lots of finish damage.

[hyunelan2]

You'd probably be best served covering whole receiver in line-x or rhinoliner or something. With those paint chips, it doesn't really look like a good powdercoat job, and you're going to be fighting rust on the hitch in no time. Same think happened with the receiver on my Santa Fe.

If you do put a coating on it, tape off the receiver insert area - so that the opening stays the same size. Coat it with grease to provide a rust barrier.

[Doohickie]

Yeah, cosmetically I'm not too worried about it, and living in Texas, rust isn't really that much of an issue (any coating should be fine, although I like your idea). However, those are the attach points for the hitch receiver, and while they're probably fine, I wonder whether there was any undue stress on the welds that may result in premature failure of the part. I don't want my bicycle falling off in the middle of the freeway.

[hyunelan2]

I don't think you have to worry about the wight of a [several] bicycle[s] causing the welds to break. If it were to the point where that minor amount of weight could do anything - you'd be able to manipulate it by hand.

[Doohickie]

I think you're probably right, but if the box was dropped from a high enough height to cause that damage, there's some chance that it induced some damage in the welds that would be latent but cause a premature failure. Unlikely, but... well let's see what the seller says.

[Doohickie]

I contacted the seller and they gave me a partial refund, "to cover the cost of the repaint."

On inspection, I'm not worried about the construction. The welds are solid. So I touched it up tonight and I'll get it on when the weather warms up a bit.

[Doohickie]

It took forever to get the hitch receiver on; I finally removed the whole bumper fascia and it was easy. Looks pretty good.



It's a fun car to drive. I wasn't thinking about buying a car and was still diggin' the Elantra, but the 500 is a totally different ride. And on my current tank I'm getting almost 41 mpg.



And now that my wife can get her car into the garage, she's happy, too.

[avantegt]

Why did you opt for a rear mounted rack instead of a roof rack?

Check out what Road Race Engineering has to offer, they a bunch of fiat 500 parts.

[Doohickie]

Aerodynamics, and the danger of pulling into the garage with bikes on top (I've known too many people who did that). I think RRM is a sponsor on one of the Fiat forums.

[hyunelan2]

Yeah, roof-mounted racks = asking for disaster. Garages, parking structures, drive-thru, ATM, so many options for destroying thousands of dollars of bicycles on the roof.

I sat in the 500 and 500L at the autoshow last week. The 500L feels like a narrow bus/minivan, totally different than the 500. I like the 500 cockpit, but overall would be more inclined to go the Cooper route for a small FWD.

[Doohickie]

The Cooper is about 25-30% higher cost for the comparable model.

[Doohickie]

6 years on and the Fiat is running great.

[mkjh]

That's some kind of bump in this thread. Glad to hear you are enjoying your Fiat. I am still enjoying my 2002 and 2006 Elantras.

[Elantra2005]

Sorry to be the one that saying that but that car in one of my most hatred cars of most . lol

[Ugzz]

lol. Looking back at the old pics, I see your plot. You bought a fiat so you only had to clean out 1/4 of the garage to fit it in. That's not working hard, that's working smart.
Glad you still loving it. Somewhere on here I posted that I bought an ST many years back. I should go bump my thread too lol