BBC Watchdog. Fiat 500 that has no poke to climb a hill.

[samj2013]

I really find it hard to believe that it won't go up hill.

 

In the video the presenter drove one up a 10% gradient.

 

It looked like she approached in 3rd gear and at no point did I see her change down... the car got slower and slower until it stalled... Surely if she'd have changed down to 2nd and get the engine revving a bit!!!

 

My other vehicle is a 1980s mobile home. It weighs over 2.5 tonnes... and that's before 2 adults, full tank of water, luggage, food, beer (of course!) etc etc... it had 72ps when new and although it is by no means fast it will make it up hills... like any vehicle though it does require some planning and to be in the right gear at the right time. A few revs help too!

 

Phil

My thoughts exactly, change bloody gear!!! She was just sat in the bloody thing not revving at all, well of course it's not going to get up the hill being driven like that!

[fabiamk2SE]

My thoughts exactly, change bloody gear!!! She was just sat in the bloody thing not revving at all, well of course it's not going to get up the hill being driven like that!

Somebody should show her how to get up the hill.

I'll thrash the **** out of it for her if she n show her how to get up a hill lol.

[camelspyyder]

My 60hp punto used to do a 450 mile trip in 6 hr 40 every Sunday night,(A66, A9, A95 - all hilly) lack of poke in a 1.2 Fiat - Nah.

 

Mind you on the same commute my AX 14 diesel really struggled up the A66 westbound (often down to 3rd at 40mph all the way).  I think that had lost quite a few of its factory 53bhp by 170,000 miles

[bealine]

For Watchdog to pick up on this, the Fiat must be extraordinarily bad!   When my wife test drove one, we took it out on the A33 dual carriageway towards Basingstoke and as she pulled out to overtake a slow truck and a Jaguar was bearing down on us at a fair old lick, I yelled at her from the back seat "Fercrisesakes, Drop Her Down a Cog and Floor It!"    

 

White faced and ashen, she stuttered "I'm in second and my foot is flat to the floor - it's gutless!"   She pulled into the nearest layby, let the salesman drive us back to the showroom and that was it - we're through with Fiat.   The new Ford Ka is very similar and so is the "new" VW Polo.   I do not have a problem with low-powered cars, but to have a completely gutless car is positively dangerous.

[matt_theforce]

Its not just small engined cars though, this also affects larger engined petrols too, SWMBO's Rav4 for example, coming from Silkstone Common to Hoylandswaine has a hill 10% average incline, it starts in a 40mph limit and changes to a 60mph limit, if you leave it in 5th gear up the whole hill the speed will vary from 40mph at the bottom/50-55mph in the middle as it levels out a little and then down to 40mph at the top after the last steep section, however, if you change down to 4th gear it can just about maintain 50mph all the way up from when it changes to a 60mph limit at the bottom, or if you use 3rd gear on the steeper sections it will continue to accelerate past 60mph (even on the steeper sections).

 

N/A petrols just don't have the torque that a turbo'd car has & need to be driven differently.  Whilst I've not driven a FIAT500, people have to remember that there isn't such a thing as a perfect car for every situation, One of our customers has a base model company FIAT500 and she uses it to commute all around Yorkshire for her job (a big step down from her top of the range Passat tdi), yet she has never complained about how bad it is on the hills, she has just accepted that it won't be as quick up the hills as a different car.

[JohnMcL7]

 

I think they are Euro 5 in the Citigo/Up!/Mii

 

Talking of the Mk3 Fabia with the 59bhp engine, I think some people have forgotten the Mk1 Fabia was sold with a 1.2 6V engine with only 54 bhp. or the 1.4 MPI with 60bhp or 68bhp and i would be surprised if the Mk3 is a heavier car then the Mk1.

 

So i think it is still "progress" compared to the previous mk's of Fabia

 

The Octavia mk1 had a giddy 68bhp with the SDI engine although I guess it still had a decent amount of torque.

 

Cars of the recent past did well with low bhp because they weren't loaded with 600Kg of safety equipment,electrical toys and nice inefficient low profiles

 

Dachia seem to be making a business of simple cars maybe we'll see a bit of a bandwagon of cheap light simple cars that can manage on ickle little hp figures.

 

I had a ****ty 1989 Mk2 Astra 4 speed with a massive 75 raging horses can't find the figures now but it would do 0-60 in about 13s and manage about 45-50mpg. But it had nothing to weigh it down and skinny little 155 tyres. Other than safety not much has moved on, cars have more stuff but performance and mpg hasn't shifted all that much really.

 

I don't think new cars are that heavy though, my main experience of a low powered car was a Rover 1.1S with a 1.1litre engine producing 59bhp with no air-con, no airbags, no side impact bars and bodywork thin enough to make tinfoil look substantial all of which tipped the scales at around 840kg.  The lowest power Fiat 500 produces 60bhp and is a similar weight at 865kg, I doubt it's much of a stretch that the Fiat is more aerodynamic than the Metro as the latter as little more than a box on wheels.

 

There are lots of complaints on the fiat forum. Some from experienced drivers so I doubt it's all the driver's fault.

 

What are the complaints based on, I guess it's not a simple as the bhp output?

 

John

[rwbaldwin]

Well, I've just driven one about 15 minutes ago that the owner says has the problem. Four people in the car - steep hill start - no problem. 1st gear to around 3200 and then into 2nd.

We then did another lap with the owner driving.

She tried to take the hill in 3rd and bogged down. With everyone in the car shouting "change down", she finally changed into second but it was too late and she stopped. She pulled away fine in 1st but then changed to 2nd at around 2500, bogged down and declared "see, there is a problem".

Lap number 2 with owner the driving and me 'instructing'.

As she started to bog down, she went for more throttle. I told her to change down, which she did and we made up the hill without a problem (except that she said that the "engine was going too fast" at a little over 3000rpm).

It's the driver's fault - not the car. I will say, the gear changes need to be made as soon as the car starts to bog down and this is at a higher than expected rpm.

[Llanigraham]

I've just spent 3 days driving a 1.2 Corsa and found that if you didn't keep the revs up it very quickly bogged down. 

[Aspman]

Did the old 8v engines have more torque?

 

Just wondering if that might be part of the reason for rose tinted specs

Edited 13 November, 2014 by Aspman

[KenONeill]

Did the old 8v engines have more torque?

 

Just wondering if that might be part of the reason for rose tinted specs

I think they had better specific torque at low revs, even if they didn't have a higher headline torque figure. 

[grr666]

Well, I've just driven one about 15 minutes ago that the owner says has the problem. Four people in the car - steep hill start - no problem. 1st gear to around 3200 and then into 2nd.

We then did another lap with the owner driving.

She tried to take the hill in 3rd and bogged down. With everyone in the car shouting "change down", she finally changed into second but it was too late and she stopped. She pulled away fine in 1st but then changed to 2nd at around 2500, bogged down and declared "see, there is a problem".

Lap number 2 with owner the driving and me 'instructing'.

As she started to bog down, she went for more throttle. I told her to change down, which she did and we made up the hill without a problem (except that she said that the "engine was going too fast" at a little over 3000rpm).

It's the driver's fault - not the car. I will say, the gear changes need to be made as soon as the car starts to bog down and this is at a higher than expected rpm.

Another she eh? Fancy that....

 

And confirming what I said back in post 17.

My mrs was the same until I re educated her. Our 500 is called daisy

One of the first times I drove it with her riding shotgun I started to give it a bit of a thrashing and she

said 'What are you doing??? You'll hurt Daisy.... '   I replied, 'Daisy is about to become my bltch...'

But by demonstrating how to keep up momentum of revs, she now drives hers properly.

We did the highlands in it last year, it never caused us a problem.  

I suspect the problem isn't Fiat turning out crap cars it's more that the DSA is turning out crap drivers.

Or more specifically their crap instructors/examiners are..

Just after she had PASSED her test, I distinctly remember my wife asking me what the rev counter was for...    

How she had gotten to a full licence without being shown that is beyond me.

Once I taught her she never botched up a hill start again. Unbelieveable!!!!

The reason they don't like to rev past 3000 is because then they cant hear the iphone on speaker that they 

are chatting on 'hands free' (But still in their hand..... ) My mrs uses the excellent inbuilt blue and me 

system in her 500. But I've seen plenty (of women) that don't. 

[TeflonTom]

Is there actually a lower limit set for the power to weight ratio for cars for the type approval? Surely there must be some sort of gradient testing done for braking too?

In reality how much power is needed to go up a hill? On the railway if there is a steep gradient they use another locomotive to push from behind to give some extra tractive power

[Aspman]

Is there actually a lower limit set for the power to weight ratio for cars for the type approval? Surely there must be some sort of gradient testing done for braking too?

In reality how much power is needed to go up a hill? On the railway if there is a steep gradient they use another locomotive to push from behind to give some extra tractive power

 

It's all about the gearing. You could pull 50T up a 1:1 by hand if you had the right gearing.

 

Archimedes - Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.

[KenONeill]

Another she eh? Fancy that....

 

And confirming what I said back in post 17.

My mrs was the same until I re educated her. Our 500 is called daisy

One of the first times I drove it with her riding shotgun I started to give it a bit of a thrashing and she

said 'What are you doing??? You'll hurt Daisy.... '   I replied, 'Daisy is about to become my bltch...'

But by demonstrating how to keep up momentum of revs, she now drives hers properly.

We did the highlands in it last year, it never caused us a problem.  

I suspect the problem isn't Fiat turning out crap cars it's more that the DSA is turning out crap drivers.

Or more specifically their crap instructors/examiners are..

Just after she had PASSED her test, I distinctly remember my wife asking me what the rev counter was for...    

How she had gotten to a full licence without being shown that is beyond me.

Once I taught her she never botched up a hill start again. Unbelieveable!!!!

The reason they don't like to rev past 3000 is because then they cant hear the iphone on speaker that they 

are chatting on 'hands free' (But still in their hand..... ) My mrs uses the excellent inbuilt blue and me 

system in her 500. But I've seen plenty (of women) that don't. 

Em, rev counters aren't part of the syllabus because BIG HINT not every car has one. 

[blueR36]

My daughter has a 10 plate 500 pop. She had a Ford Ka mk1 before that,  (which was 1.6) I find the 500 nippy ( Ive an R36) loads of 20% hills round here and neither of us have had a problem with hills and performs better than the Ka did. They should ride a bike, you soon learn about gears and into the correct one then with steep hills 

[Ootohere]

You would be a perfect test driver to go and try a '2014 Euro 6 Fiat 500 1.2' to see how it compares.

[cl coupe]

The rolling road test showed that the tiny bit of power the car had was taking a number of seconds to kick in due to ECU map.

Driver error maybe, but there is something wrong with the delivery of power.

My old 1.2 8v punto was rapid for a 1.2 (the current one i believe is the same engine) but new euro 6 seems to be throttling power to hit mpg and co2 targets.

You don't spend 10k on a new car with a 1.2 over a 6k 1.0 and have the 6k pull up and down hills without having to change completely the way you used to drive in your old car that had the same or less power.

Just my 2p

Edited 13 November, 2014 by cl coupe

[Ootohere]

The thing is that many learn to drive now in Instructors cars that behave quite well. are nippy and economic,

& then buy something totally different.

 

Some pretty nice Driving Instructor & Driving School cars out and about,

Audi A1,  Fords, even Skoda Rapid, Golf GTI's,  Fabia vRS Twinchargers. etc

 

?

Do BSM still use Fiat 500's.  & would they use these as Driving School Cars?

[P6bJOHN]

It's a small engine Fiat, it's designed to be driven like it was stolen, just like an Italian twist and go scooter. Two throttle settings, parked and flat out.

[Ootohere]

We will see what BBC 'Watchdog' brings tonight,  & what it is that can cost 'White Van owners thousands'.

 

Is it maybe Speeding & Parking tickets, because they use them like Italian Twist and go Scooters.

2 settings, parked and flat out!

[rwbaldwin]

...The rolling road test showed that the tiny bit of power the car had was taking a number of seconds to kick in due to ECU map...

If they were reproducing the condition of the car going uphill IN THE WRONG GEAR, then it's not surprising it bogged down on the rolling road too.

[camelspyyder]

It's a small engine Fiat, it's designed to be driven like it was stolen, just like an Italian twist and go scooter. Two throttle settings, parked and flat out.

I totally agree, thrashed a 1.2 8v for 110,000 miles of mostly trouble free motoring.

 

It never had any low down torque so it lived between 3000 and 6000

Edited 13 November, 2014 by camelspyyder

[skomaz]

The thing is that many learn to drive now in Instructors cars that behave quite well. are nippy and economic,

& then buy something totally different.

 

Some pretty nice Driving Instructor & Driving School cars out and about,

Audi A1,  Fords, even Skoda Rapid, Golf GTI's,  Fabia vRS Twinchargers. etc

 

?

Do BSM still use Fiat 500's.  & would they use these as Driving School Cars?

 

That’s actually a good point – most of the instructors cars I’ve seen recently have been decent spec cars with larger engines / turbo’d or Diesels.  I think this is because they are ‘easy’ to drive and not as stallable???   If this is correct / commonplace then most new drivers won’t have had the joy of a small engine NA car so won’t have a clue about driving them and the need to give the engine it’s head to make progress.  These days instruction seems to be as much about economical ‘into top gear as fast as possible’ driving as actually learning to drive properly…

[fabiamk2SE]

The thing is that many learn to drive now in Instructors cars that behave quite well. are nippy and economic,

True that mate. Most of the learner cars around here are diesels.

Theres a 1.6 cr tdi fabia learner car around here. Most the others are diesel fiesta n corsa's n stuff.

[fabiamk2SE]

Double post.

Sorry guys.