patrick66
Well-Known Member
My older son has a '15 FIAT 500 Sport. Neat little car that he uses for commuting, and that's about it. Came out of the plant three years ago this month and has but 24K miles on it right now. Solid black, with leather, power sunroof, and all the options they throw at the Sport version...a notch down from an Abarth. I do digress...
Had some business in Dallas today, and I didn't feel like driving my loud-*** 13-mpg F250 down there...so I borrowed his car. High 30s is more my speed in the mileage department! The furthest this car has been is 60 miles one-way, while he's owned it. It was going to be on a 450-mile round trip today!
If you've ever really noticed the 500s, they are little cars. Really. Little! Surprisingly, they are competent cars. They have two driving modes - Normal and Sport - in which the shocks are set one of two ways, the trans shifts with a firmer feel, and the steering is not as light in the Sport mode. I was gonna be driving 75 - 85 mph, so Normal was fine. The car inside does not really "feel" small, as it's really spacious for the size. You can't see any of the outer body panels from the seat, like you can with nearly any other car. Very little road noise, but plenty of road feel. I rather quite like the little beast!
Now, had I driven the car at 65 or so, I'd probably had seen 40+ mpg. It is impossible to do that speed on I-35 without getting run over by everyone else, so I expected 75 to be the optimum speed. It was. So 33 - 36 mpg was more real-world. Lots of wind today! And this car feels that. This is absolutely the smallest car I'd ever driven on a road trip. Things you normally don't pay attention to, get your attention. Like, how big an Altima looks from inside a 500! Semis look like buildings! And people don't SEE you! That's the scary part. I used to be invisible at times in my old one-ton Cummins Dodge Club Cab; this is compounded by a factor of "Oh, F**k!!!"...
So, a 450-mile trip (included a side trip to Gas Monkey Garage to see what that was about!) and a rough trip average mileage of 34.9 mpg. Would I jump out and buy one? Maybe a Sport or an Abarth, but they'd be down a bit on cars I'd rush out and buy, if I had the cash to do so. Mileage is pretty good. I'd much rather have a new Challenger, a Wrangler four-door, or a 300. The Challenger and 300 are great road-trip cars, and an unmodified Jeep is plenty comfortable and competent. So that is my day's experience with a FIAT 500. Thought I'd share that, just because I could!
Had some business in Dallas today, and I didn't feel like driving my loud-*** 13-mpg F250 down there...so I borrowed his car. High 30s is more my speed in the mileage department! The furthest this car has been is 60 miles one-way, while he's owned it. It was going to be on a 450-mile round trip today!
If you've ever really noticed the 500s, they are little cars. Really. Little! Surprisingly, they are competent cars. They have two driving modes - Normal and Sport - in which the shocks are set one of two ways, the trans shifts with a firmer feel, and the steering is not as light in the Sport mode. I was gonna be driving 75 - 85 mph, so Normal was fine. The car inside does not really "feel" small, as it's really spacious for the size. You can't see any of the outer body panels from the seat, like you can with nearly any other car. Very little road noise, but plenty of road feel. I rather quite like the little beast!
Now, had I driven the car at 65 or so, I'd probably had seen 40+ mpg. It is impossible to do that speed on I-35 without getting run over by everyone else, so I expected 75 to be the optimum speed. It was. So 33 - 36 mpg was more real-world. Lots of wind today! And this car feels that. This is absolutely the smallest car I'd ever driven on a road trip. Things you normally don't pay attention to, get your attention. Like, how big an Altima looks from inside a 500! Semis look like buildings! And people don't SEE you! That's the scary part. I used to be invisible at times in my old one-ton Cummins Dodge Club Cab; this is compounded by a factor of "Oh, F**k!!!"...
So, a 450-mile trip (included a side trip to Gas Monkey Garage to see what that was about!) and a rough trip average mileage of 34.9 mpg. Would I jump out and buy one? Maybe a Sport or an Abarth, but they'd be down a bit on cars I'd rush out and buy, if I had the cash to do so. Mileage is pretty good. I'd much rather have a new Challenger, a Wrangler four-door, or a 300. The Challenger and 300 are great road-trip cars, and an unmodified Jeep is plenty comfortable and competent. So that is my day's experience with a FIAT 500. Thought I'd share that, just because I could!
