Used Fiat 500 2008-2025 review

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Fiat's 500 is reliable, ubiquitous and available from less than £1000

Chapter 1: Introduction
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Back in the mid-2000s, Fiat was on the brink of extinction as a result of dwindling sales and a model line-up that lacked any real appeal. Fiat’s boss at the time, Luca de Meo, played a masterstroke: he called on design legend Frank Stephenson, who was behind BMW’s similarly conceived Mini revival, to pen a new 500.

The result? Fiat’s salvation. The 500 turned the tide for the ailing marque, which sold more than three million examples of the car between 2008 and 2025. No wonder de Meo’s went down the retro route again, when he was CEO of the Renault Group.

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First shown in 2007, 50 years after the launch of the Cinquecento that inspired it, the 500 has proved a hit for Fiat
Steve Cropley
Editor-in-chief

The cheeky 500 was unique for not only its looks but also the endless customisation Fiat offered. Trawl through the classifieds and you will find examples finished in baby blue, mustard yellow and lipstick red. When it was new, Fiat said it could be specified in more than 549,000 different combinations, with liveries and decals available on top as options.

Pop was the entry-level trim and came with central locking, electric windows and door mirrors, as well as MP3 connectivity. Mid-spec Pop Star added air-con but we think top-spec Lounge makes the best used buy, thanks to its alloy wheels, glass sunroof and split rear seats.

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It was a shame that the 500 didn’t really have the go to back up its show. The 99bhp 1.4-litre petrol (sourced from the Fiat Panda 100hp) was a little sedate and could manage only a 10.3sec sprint to 62mph. It seemed pretty content at motorway speeds, but you did have to work the engine quite hard, with peak power coming in at 6000rpm. We would have liked a little more urgency when pulling into fast-moving traffic.

While you could have an automatic gearbox, the clunky SMG automated manual Fiat offered was poor, but the manual is plenty slick enough.

If you are buying an older model, the 68bhp 1.2-litre petrol will appeal for its £35 annual road tax, as will the 68mpg promised by the 1.3-litre diesel Multijet.

But the unusual two-cylinder Twinair brings the most character – and free road tax. It brought aural rewards too, with the thrummy engine making it more enjoyable to rev out to its 6000rpm redline. Fun to drive it may be, but we were a little disappointed by its real-world economy of around 40mpg – some way off the 68mpg promised by Fiat. More pleasing is the 55mpg you can eke out of the mild-hybrid 1.0-litre powertrain in the real world, though you will pay more for the privilege, given it wasn’t launched until 2020.

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The early 500 couldn’t quite match the Mini on the ride and handling front, but revisions to its suspension as part of a facelift in 2015 improved things. Alongside the tweaks to its underpinnings, the 500 gained new bumpers, headlights, taillights and a restyled front grille, which make it worth paying a little extra for a slightly newer used example – plus you get the later Uconnect infotainment screen and soft-touch cabin trim.

The Twinair gained a boost in power to 104bhp and the 1.2-litre four-cylinder was tweaked to dip below 100g/km CO2 and comply with Euro 6 regulations.

Nearly two decades is a long shelf life for a car, but the 500 hasn’t changed all that much during its time in production. You could even go so far as to say it’s approaching the same desirability and iconic status as the 1950s original, though you’ll be glad for the slightly more modern accoutrements on those rainy winter commutes.

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RELIABILITY

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Is the Fiat 500 reliable?

The Fiat 500 is generally mid-pack for reliability. It is not considered a segment leader like a Toyota Aygo or Suzuki Swift, but it's no disaster, either. It's good in the areas that matter most, like the engine and electrics, but has several common, often minor, issues like trim rattles. There are some other things to watch out for:

Engine: The radiator coolant reservoir can crack and deprive the engine of coolant. Keep an eye out for any sign of fluids under the car and replace if you spot any leaks. A faulty coil pack can cause a misfire or make the engine difficult to start. These cost around £80-£100 to replace. With any prospective purchase, make sure you start the car from cold and take it on a long test drive. If you get a whiff of petrol while driving, this could be an early sign of faulty injector seals, which will need to be replaced.

Exhaust: The flexi pipe that connects the main part of the exhaust to the manifold can corrode and then crack, especially around the seals. Check if the exhaust is blowing or if it’s unusually loud. The clamps that hold the exhaust onto the car can corrode and, in the worst cases, the exhaust can fall off. You will need new clamps to reattach it to the underside of the car.

Gearbox: Some diesel models suffer from clutch vibration between 2500-3000rpm. A faulty clutch master cylinder supply pipe is the usual culprit and a replacement should solve the issue.

Body: Door handles are a common bugbear due to the hinges breaking. Swapping the hinge will solve the issue but it’s a tricky job because you will probably need to remove the door card.

Suspension: Front suspension bushes can fail and will need to be replaced. This can be an expensive repair because the bumper needs to be removed to access the bushes.

An owner's view

Chris Elston: "My 500, Florence, is much more than just a car: she’s part of the family. I’d wanted a 500 for a while, as they’re so full of charm and character, and two years ago the opportunity arose. Every drive is a pleasure and I quite often find myself just driving with no destination in mind, or taking the long way around. Beyond regular servicing and maintenance, I’ve not had any scares with large repair bills. It’s been very reliable, but even if something untoward were to happen, I’d not hesitate to sort it because I wouldn’t want to be without it.” 

Also worth knowing

Fiat has rolled out 30 special-edition 500s, partnering with fashion houses and other car brands. These include unique versions such as the 500 for Ferrari, the 500 Pink and the 500 by Gucci, which was customised by fashion designer Frida Giannini and featured a striped beltline, Gucci badging and red and green striped upholstery. 

DESIGN & STYLING

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fiat 500c hybrid review 2024 02 panning side

 

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Initially, design is what sells the car. The proportions of the original have been replicated here, which is an achievement in itself, given that the original was a two-seater with an air-cooled engine in the back, and this is a four-seater with a water-cooled engine, mounted more conventionally in the front.

The 500 is obviously a successor to the 1957 car, but not slavishly so. The original didn’t, for instance, have secondary lights below the round headlights like the modern car. It didn’t have to contend with Euro NCAP crash tests, either (the Fiat 500 is a three-star NCAP-rated car by the current standards).

Lines down the car's bonnet are reminiscent of the original Cinquecento, although back in the day it was just a chrome rubbing strip down the lid’s middle. Manufacturing techniques back then wouldn’t have allowed such crisp folds as this. The 2015 facelift gave the 500 more prominent headlights and rear lights, but didn't ultimately alter the small Fiat's cheeky allure.

INTERIOR

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fiat 500c hybrid review 2024 08 dash

Apart from the gear lever, and a few updates of the multimedia system, the 500’s interior didn't change much during its lifetime.

In some ways, it still strikes you as quite a neat bit of packaging. For outright space, you do feel quite tightly squeezed in at the wheel by the big, rudder-like driver’s door as it closes, in front of a tight pedal box and a steering column with no reach adjustment at all. But headroom isn’t so tight; the front seats adjust to let you trade off cushion inclination against base height quite cleverly; and visibility is good in most directions.

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I love the idea of a cabriolet supermini, but suspect I couldn't live with one for long. The 500's boot is small enough as it is; and yet the 500C makes you wait a few seconds to open it if the roof is all the way back, and then gives you a letterbox-like loading aperture.
Matt Saunders
Road test editor

The exception to that rule, in the case of the 500C cabriolet version at least, comes when you motor the cloth hood all the way back, when it gathers up in a slightly ugly bunch behind the rear seats (usable for smaller kids only), and obscures a big chunk of the view in your rearview mirror. You also get a less accessible and generally useful boot in the case of the 500C - so it really is worth questioning how much you want that tousled fringe.

The 500’s design gave engineers a bigger challenge in making room for rear passengers than those up front. The 1957 car's roof curved towards the rear to intentionally reduce space behind the front seats, to help differentiate it from the four-seat 600. Even later 500s had rear seats that were only fit for children.

It is only 3.5 metres long but was designed as a full four-seater from the off; so you sit low in the 500's back pair of chairs, on thin but dense padding, and both headroom and legroom are tight. Further rear, beneath a very small parcel shelf there is a 185-litre boot.

The cabin's material quality, which passed muster for a small car with premium intentions a decade or more ago, stands up less well to scrutiny now. This is partly because Fiat discontinued the car's old richer trim levels. 

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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fiat 500c hybrid review 2024 18 engine

How much performance does a city car like the Fiat 500 need? In our view, there should be enough low-down eagerness to nip assertively through traffic, and sufficient reserves to keep up with the flow on the occasional trip further afield.

In those respects, Fiat’s mild hybrid engine has certainly made the 500 a better car to drive than it ever was with two cylinders. Much as the old TwinAir motor was easy to like in principle, it was also quite rough-running and laggy, and hard to coax really good efficiency from; whereas this three-pot is smoother, more flexible - and quite a bit more frugal.

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Keep an eye on energy flow in and out of that pint-sized hybrid system and you’ll notice that it only really seems to assist the engine as it pulls between about 2000- and 3000 revs; and in doing so, while you don’t really feel it working, it does seem to boost drivability a bit. 

So it doesn’t make the motor any keener to get to peak power, nor make this car feel anything other than quite short-geared and very modestly powerful when you find yourself in a hurry. Which, we should remember, is how cars this size typically feel. Keeping the car moving in quicker flows of traffic keeps both feet, and your left arm, occupied; you do plenty of downshifting to make progress on the motorway; and the hybrid system can do little to make easy work of steeper gradients.

Mechanical refinement is quite tremulous at times. While the car's 1.0-litre engine isn't as rough as the old TwinAir, you can certainly feel it vibrating through the car when it's revving hard - while rougher surfaces can make both the chassis and steering column vibrate a little. In terms of refinement at the very least, there are now much plusher, smoother prospects than a Fiat 500.

RIDE & HANDLING

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fiat 500c hybrid review 2024 19 action

Judged by modern supermini class standards, it still handles moderately well, making hay with its short wheelbase and keeping decent control of its body when cornering; though it doesn't ride as well as the most polished small cars in the class.

You tend to feel the 500’s short wheelbase as it pitches and bounces a little over crests and into troughs. The ride has that small-wheeled feel so typical of city cars of decades ago, so it tends to pick up on ridges and bumps that other cars would glide over: a little as if it were on castor wheels.

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There's nothing complicated about the 500's take on driver appeal. It's just a small, light car with a decent grip level, that you can take by the scruff for a few corners really simply.
Matt Saunders
Road test editor

The suspension is typically quiet, but can get noisy and a little hollow-sounding over rougher roads, when the impacts and vibrations are often felt through the car's body structure and steering column. Newer superminis generally feel as if they have superiors integrity to them.

Fiat's electric power steering is still not much of a communicator, but at least its artificial resistance feels more real than it used to, and without too much of the straight-ahead deadness that EPAS systems used to suffer with. Switch to City mode and the steering feels only semi-connected, but the effort required is certainly low.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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fiat 500c hybrid review 2024 01 cornering front

Fuel consumption never used to be a strong suit of the Fiat 500: the old 1.2-litre engine might nudge close to 50mpg, but the smaller TwinAir seldom edged past 45- in real-world use.

So Fiat's 1.0-litre hybridised engine might finally be the solution that potential used owners have hoped for. It'll return economy in the low-50s without any particular effort, and can be persuaded beyond 60mpg in certain circumstances.

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Unlike many convertibles where extra weight is an issue, Fiat claims near-identical economy and emissions figures for the 500C as the hard-top car. Insurance groups are competitive, and although a three-year warranty is average now, the 500 has a good reliability record.

VERDICT

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The 500 is charming and has a fun factor still; a bit like an impromptu ride in a shopping trolley beyond the supermarket aisles. And the style it exudes on the outside is still carried through to its cabin in some ways - even if most small cars now offer considerably better practicality, and in the 500C cabriolet there are even larger practicality compromises with which to contend than in the hatchback.

In a market increasingly hostile to small cars, though, this one remains a singular, likeable thing - and worth rooting for. If you know what you're getting yourself into, this could be a great used buy. 

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Get out of a mid-spec Dacia Sandero and into this, and I don’t think you’d feel like you were sitting in the more upmarket car.
Matt Saunders
Road test editor

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Sam Phillips

Sam Phillips
Title: Staff Writer

Sam joined the Autocar team in summer 2024 and has been a contributor since 2021. He is tasked with writing used reviews and first drives as well as updating top 10s and evergreen content on the Autocar website. 

He previously led sister-title Move Electric, which covers the entire spectrum of electric vehicles, from cars to boats – and even trucks. He is an expert in new car news, used cars, electric cars, microbility, classic cars and motorsport. 

Sam graduated from Nottingham Trent University in 2021 with a BA in Journalism. In his final year he produced an in-depth feature on the automotive industry’s transition to electric cars and interviewed a number of leading experts to assess our readiness for the impending ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars.

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders Autocar
Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Tesla Roadster, Ariel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren Senna, Renault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.