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Post by racingteatray on Aug 26, 2019 10:32:52 GMT
These are somewhat ubiquitous as rental cars in Italy so in a way it was odd to have never been given one up until now, but at gone midnight on a Friday night at Bologna airport, I was handed the keys to a very well-used (62,000kms) 500L in manual 1.3JTD flavour and some sort of upmarket trim level. Not my first choice, but when I had rocked up to the Preferred desk to collect my “Renault Clio or similar”, the Avis girl had smiled winningly and announced that I’d been allocated a Smart.... Not a good shout at the best of times and especially at 12.30am for someone with a 180km nighttime motorway schlepp ahead of them. Anyway when I told her that, she looked a bit horrified and agreed that a Smart wasn’t ideal. Leaving with me with the 500L as apparently the only other car she had left available, so on the basis that beggars can’t be choosers, I took it. A far cry from last year’s Mini Cooper but never mind. Here it is:    |
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Post by ChrisM on Aug 26, 2019 11:04:42 GMT
So, what was it like to drive ??
Am about to write up my rental car episode....
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Post by racingteatray on Aug 26, 2019 11:18:23 GMT
It wasn’t that bad. Sure it’s very ugly, and the glitzy trimmings on this one simply put me in mind of the phrase “putting lipstick on a pig”, but it’s very capacious without feeling huge on the road and actually drove perfectly well - typically Italian in that it responds well to a good thrashing. Fuller write-up to follow.
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Post by racingteatray on Aug 26, 2019 20:09:59 GMT
So what else can I say about the 500L? Well, I’ve worked out that the model was a “Cross-look” designed to be a sort of Countryman-esque model, which apparently explains why it was on mud&snow tyres and had a rough terrain dial. And the colour was “Heavy Metal Grey”.
I can also say it was comfortably a better drive than our Sicilian Captur. Much more confidence-inspiring road-holding and handling - definitely better than I expected (if still ultimately no great shakes), plus 95 turbodiesel horsies make much lighter work of a 500L than 90 Turbo petrol nags makes of a Captur, giving it better punch than the bald figures suggest. It responded well to a good work-out of the well-positioned and quite slick 5-spd box and felt quite agile around town, being unexpectedly one of those cars you could somewhat duck and dive in, one hand twirling the wheel and the other working the gearbox to keep the torque percolating.
It was not the quietest cruiser - a combination of the tyres and the aerodynamics at a guess but otherwise barrelled up the autostrada quite happily and confidently at speeds the Captur simply couldn’t muster.
What else to say? Brakes were strong, ride wasn’t fantastic, steering light, good visibility.
The interior is a strong point. Ok so the fit and finish isn’t going to give Audi pause for thought, but it is nicely and attractively laid out and the ergonomics (in terms of usage) are fairly intuitive. For example it took we a while to work out that the volume buttons were on the back of the steering wheel but once found, that turned out to be much easier to use than having them on the front. The view forwards is unusual thanks to the sort of double A-pillar arrangement but very airy. Plus there’s bucketloads of space front, rear and aft, and the rear seats slide. This was the standard wheelbase version. The 7-seater must be vast. It was also pretty well-equipped with a built-in sat nav, dual climate control, one shot windows all-round, parking sensors, an actually quite decent set of speakers and sundry other FG.
Lastly economy. As noted, earlier this year Avis gave us a 500X fitted with a 150bhp version of Fiat’s latest Firefly petrol, which fitted with an auto box, drank fuel like Oliver Reed. This 500L diesel was rather more parsimonious. We did about 770kms and that cost me €70 in fuel at about €1.5/litre. That works out at an average of 43mpg, which isn’t bad all things considered.
So, a pig in lipstick for sure, but like many wilfully ugly things, actually oddly charming. And the one we had seemed to have a revised rear bumper arrangement (a bumlift?) that was slightly less gormless than the original version. Also, as ever, when you drive a car, you suddenly notice others of the same sort, and my wife and I noticed that the 500L has clearly been a big success at least in Italy for Fiat because there were loads of them around. I can see why, whereas before I couldn’t.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2019 7:54:45 GMT
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Post by Roadsterstu on Aug 27, 2019 8:11:00 GMT
Whereas the 500X is reasonably well proportioned, the 500L definitely is not. Still, at least it wasn't a Smart!
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Post by racingteatray on Aug 27, 2019 9:16:15 GMT
Well quite. On the plus side, it would have been a Forfour, so vaguely more practical, but on the downside the keyfob quite clearly said it was the 70bhp model, which has a 0-60 time of 17 seconds and according to a review I read in Car, “needs flogging to make progress”. So the idea of thrashing down the autostrada for an hour and a half in the small hours of the morning had absolutely no appeal whatsoever. Plus, there was no way the luggage was going to fit unless I folded the back seats.
Apparently whatever car had originally been earmarked for me hadn’t been brought back in time, hence the offer of a smart which they tried to claim was an upgrade on the basis it had an automatic gearbox...
And the 500L was the only other key she had left spare in the box. 62k kms, plus happily pre-dented and scratched to such an extent that when we brought it back the man from Avis didn’t even bother inspecting it (and I never take out the full cover).
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Aug 27, 2019 9:53:32 GMT
Well quite. On the plus side, it would have been a Forfour, so vaguely more practical, but on the downside the keyfob quite clearly said it was the 70bhp model, which has a 0-60 time of 17 seconds and according to a review I read in Car, “needs flogging to make progress”. So the idea of thrashing down the autostrada for an hour and a half in the small hours of the morning had absolutely no appeal whatsoever. Plus, there was no way the luggage was going to fit unless I folded the back seats. Apparently whatever car had originally been earmarked for me hadn’t been brought back in time, hence the offer of a smart which they tried to claim was an upgrade on the basis it had an automatic gearbox... And the 500L was the only other key she had left spare in the box. 62k kms, plus happily pre-dented and scratched to such an extent that when we brought it back the man from Avis didn’t even bother inspecting it (and I never take out the full cover). I'm getting hints of the Italian version of Peter Kay's Car Share here.. 
Apparently the 500L was picked for the show as the great depth of the dashboard made placing a camera much easier. |
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Post by racingteatray on Aug 27, 2019 10:51:34 GMT
That shows you the styling changes at the front from the earlier version too...
It did have a very deep windscreen.
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Post by Martin on Aug 27, 2019 11:39:49 GMT
I didn’t think it would be possible to make the original 500L look worse, but they managed it.
Sounds decent enough and fit for purpose as a short term rental car, definitely better than the alternative.
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Post by PG on Aug 27, 2019 12:48:20 GMT
Maybe Fiat need to use that as an advertising tag line? "500L - way better than a Smart forfour".
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Post by ChrisM on Aug 27, 2019 12:54:39 GMT
It shouldn't have carried the "500" in its model name (IMHO); something unrelated would have been better.... FIAT Hippo, FIAT Toad, something more appropriate to its looks
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Post by racingteatray on Aug 27, 2019 18:27:49 GMT
Multipla would have done.
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Post by Stuntman on Aug 27, 2019 19:29:22 GMT
Put it down to experience, and well done for finding some positives about it. And who wouldn't warm to any car painted in Heavy Metal Grey? Possibly the best thing about the entire car!
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