Used 2014 FIAT 500L Consumer Reviews
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On our 2nd 500L and my 5th FIAT total
roiscuba, 10/20/2014
2014 FIAT 500L Lounge 4dr Wagon (1.4L 4cyl Turbo 6AM)
13 of 13 people found this review helpful
This has got to be one of the most underrated cars on the market today. When you strip away the funky exterior (to American tastes) it's a great car, especially in a market segment that has essentially been abandoned. We bought our 1st 500L (Trekking w/manual trans) back in February. Loved the car. Only had minor annoyances (armrest and hand brake operation) that we would have found in any car. Loved it for day to day driving, loved it on the freeway. Used it to haul our 2 Great Danes around with us. When my wife wrecked the car and the insurance company totaled it, we immediately went to another 500L (fully loaded Lounge) without hesitation, because my wife was not hurt at all.
Surprised at how much I like this car
clj1959, 08/31/2014
2014 FIAT 500L Easy 4dr Wagon (1.4L 4cyl Turbo 6AM)
20 of 21 people found this review helpful
I downsized to a 500L Easy with a sunroof and automatic from a VW Tiguan. At first I thought "what have I done?" but after a couple of months, and now that I'm accustomed to the quirky transmission, I totally love this car. It's very peppy and incredibly easy to maneuver. I have a 25 mile freeway commute and the 500L handles it with aplomb, and the excellent visibility is a big plus when changing lanes. Another big plus is how unique it is. I'm very happy.
Glad I Waited for Six Months to Review
scrappy60, 03/29/2014
2014 FIAT 500L Trekking 4dr Wagon (1.4L 4cyl Turbo 6AM)
20 of 21 people found this review helpful
I bought a Fiat 500L Trekking in September 2013. To be honest, it took me quite awhile to get used to its rather quirky transmission -- and I have a manual!! The issue was the six gears and the need for a quick shift between first and second. But now that I have gotten used to how and when to shift, I am very happy with my purchase. This vehicle has all the features of the pricier Honda CRV at about 5K less -- and it looks better and handles better on the road. Last month I took it on a 800 miles road trip and it was so enjoyable to drive. The gas mileage is also far better than I expected -- I am getting over 29 miles per gallon (combined highway/city).
Overall ok, now that we learned more
Jeremy Stewart, 01/29/2016
updated 02/06/2018
2014 FIAT 500L Trekking 4dr Wagon (1.4L 4cyl Turbo 6AM)
12 of 12 people found this review helpful
Overall this has been a decent car for us. We've taken a number of long-ish trips (3-8 hours in the car), and we've never had an issue. It's a comfortable ride (I'm 5'10, my wife 5'4 and we both fit comfortably in front or in back. We now have a son who is almost 1 and he's spent his entire life thus far riding in this car. With the car seat in the middle, it's a little cramped in the back, but nothing bad. The trunk doesn't fit the jogger stroller very well, well just enough for the stroller and nothing else. It will fit in the front seat (upside down), but it makes reaching the shifter a bit awkward. We really should have gotten a larger car, but my wife LOVED the unique look of the car and the fact that you just don't see many of them around. The Navigation is acceptable, though I wish it had real time traffic updates and I wish the head unit had CarPlay (by Apple) support, it would make things noticeably easier for us, but after a few software updates the bluetooth connects to Siri and now we don't have the terrible default voice recognition software. Plugging your iPhone into the USB port gets you a few different experiences, but the bluetooth pairing has been pretty good now. The only thing I haven't liked about the car is the transmission, and probably more about the lack of education about it. When we bought the car, we were told about the different transmission, but never how it meant we had to treat the car differently than any other automatic. A few months after buying the car, a drive through Starbucks opened up near our house to which my wife has become a regular at. Sometimes she's had to wait in line quite a while and she'd sit in drive with her foot on the brake. After a few minutes she'd notice a smell. It smelled like burning coolant or something sweet like that. She tried to figure out the cause, but couldn't. Every time we took it to dealer they could never replicate it. Another time she actually had some smoke coming out from under her car. After some serious google-fu, I was able to track it down to the fact we should put the car in neutral when at a stop for "a while". There's no documentation that says what "a while" is or anything, so now so long as it's not a stop sign we put it into neutral (stop light, drive through, or stop & go traffic). We wish the dealer was more forth coming with this information when buying the car, in fact my wife may have actually changed her mind on the car with that information at hand, but all said she loves the car, just wishes it was a LITTLE bit bigger in the trunk. Update: 2/4/2017 - we've added another child to our lives and this makes the car feel even smaller. A double stroller will fit in the trunk but it takes some Tetris skills. There's no fitting an adult in the back with the 2 car seats. Maybe a super thin adult. When it comes down to it, when we are done with the payments this car will go to me and my wife will get a larger car to drive the kids around in. We should have gotten a larger car from day 1 unfortunately. If this car were larger it would be great. Repair wise it's been pretty trouble free, which is good considering our local dealer stopped servicing FIATs and we now have to go 30 miles to get dealer warranties. Update 2/6/2018 - December 2017 the car had transmission issues with a lack of power. Could force it into lower gears via manual selection and go but it was tough moving from a stop. Took it to the local dealer (who never stopped servicing fiats even though they told me they were going to) and had them look at it. They thought it was one thing. 2 weeks later they still had it and it wasn’t fixed so they had to replace the entire transmission. That fixed it. But a new transmission at 30k miles is ridiculous. It was outside the warranty but we had our extended warranty which covers it for 10yrs or 100k miles, so out of pocket for us was $100. Would have been roughly $10k without the warranty according to the service rep. I can’t with good conscience recommend this car. I know with the 2014 or 2015 model they redesigned the transmission (pretty much standard instead of some double dry clutch monstrosity), and maybe that will improve the reliability of the car for those models.
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great little/big car
Joseph Fiamoncini, 04/04/2016
updated 05/01/2017
2014 FIAT 500L Trekking 4dr Wagon (1.4L 4cyl Turbo 6AM)
18 of 19 people found this review helpful
Easy to park due to small size yet very roomy inside, peppy engine when paired with the manual transmission, good cargo space, fold down rear seats are not flat unless you use the cover from the storage area in the raised slot to better align the floor of the storage area with the folded seats, stadium style rear seats so that you can easily converse with rear passengers and they can see the road and front seat rider, handles well in corners, can be choppy on poor road surfaces, generally get 28-30 MPG on mixed city/highway driving, both I and my wife own 500L trekkings which together have a combined mileage of 59,000 miles, so far no breakdowns at all and only one recall for airbags, we also opted for the lifetime warranties on both cars, it does have some features that may have led early buyers to think it has gremlins, when making turns the fog light on that side turns on which is great in the dark on sharp turns as it lights up the shoulder of the road for you, when we first bought the car we thought that was a electrical problem but it turns put the dealer had only just learned that it was a feature (which can be disabled from the touch screen controls), the dealer had actually been replacing units in an effort to fix what was not a problem, the GPS needs updated maps which we were told was due to the maps themselves that were being supplied for the system this is not really a major problem for the vast majority of the time the maps have been dead on, the biggest problem has been the owners manual itself, the index was compiled for a different manual entirely as the referenced page numbers don't actually take you to the information that you are trying to look up, also the information in the manual is very weak in useful content, the brakes can be grabby and take experience with the vehicle to learn how to modulate them (they still catch me off guard once in a while) but when needed they seem to stop the car quickly and in a relatively short distance, the air conditioning works well but does affect the gas mileage, the car did get good IIHS crash ratings which was a factor in our decision to purchase them, all in all a competent and reliable vehicle thus far, my other car is a 2007 mazdaspeed 3 so I know about and use quick cars that can handle and brake well; @@@@@@@@ 4/29/2017,,update- we are over 90,000 miles between the two cars, no issues, premium gas will get a little more pep, might be useful here in Florida with heavy air conditioner use but I don't bother, however this does not equate to an increase in gas mileage, don't be afraid to drop down multiple gears on the stick shift to get moving quickly as the top 3 gears are all overdrive ratios, initial pullout needs some revs, wonder if a lighter fly wheel would allow a quicker spin up on the first 1500 RPM's, that is getting a little more technical, Hey, FIAT engineers are you listening. Gas mileage remains around 28, a majority of in town stop and go will drop that to 23-24 MPG. Car does need several thousand miles of break in to get best acceleration(noticeable difference), hmm sounds like a lot of older American iron block cars.
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