Long-term test. Abarth 500 impresses

As a constant reader of Autoblog Español, I must reproduce a brief of what has been their long-term test with an Abarth 500. The guys from that blog have always done a great job when it is about telling auto news or, in this case, making an extreme test of a car. Yesterday they released what seems to be final results of 90.000 km with the powerful 500, which took them more than 2 years. One of their main goals, as they say, was to clarify how right or not were the rumors about reliability of Italian cars. As it is well-known Fiat Group cars, except for Ferrari and Maserati, suffer from a serious illness: the lack of trust by most European consumers. For some problems in the past related to quality, most of Italian cars are still fighting against that common idea that most of them have problems and are not reliable. But according to the guys from Autoblog it is more a myth than a reality, just as it is considered in the UK, where the Abarth 500 is among the best rated cars in terms of depreciation.

First of all, they fell in love with this car from the beginning, no matter it was neither the fastest nor the cheapest. However “it has a character and personality, and above all, you can fall in love with the way it moves and sounds“. Its fuel consumption average is about 7.8 liters/100 km, which means that is “a car with low fuel consumption taking into account how fast it goes on the road, and allow us to have fun without burning money“. In terms of quality, they are just impressed with the “phenomenal” way it ages. After 90.000 km there is not even one single weird noise of the materials in the dashboard. There was only one tiny sound in the sunroof which stopped after a quick maintenance. All plastic and leather components are extremely well-preserved and they seem to be less old. Only outside, due to some scratch and inside, the gear box, the car demonstrates it has been driven for almost 100.000 km. They did also have tiny problems with one of the headlights which stopped working only after some hours of use. According to Autoblog guys, the major problem they had, was when the starting system broke just before 50.000 km: “after being replaced by warranty, we can’t complain anymore about the mechanics of the car, which we consider more than reliable. From all cars we’ve tested so far, this is the one with less quantity of problems, and that’s a good thing for the small Italian produced in Tychy… Italian reliability topic has shown that, at least with this car, is just undeserved fame“. They recommend it for those who love the 500 and looking for a small and fun-to-drive car, which is unbeatable when it is about the perfect combination of fun-design-passion.

“The Abarth 500 is one of the few cars I don’t get bored with” says Guillermo Alfonsin, one Autoblog writers. Its engine with its 135 hp “has made me smiled”. Compared to high performance cars or more complete ones “I just took 5 minutes to want it. And every time I parked it in the garage, I could not resist to look back to see its shape of ‘sporty shoe’ that I have always loved“.

The unit tested was an Abarth 500 1.4 135 hp, 5-Speed manual. Taken from Autoblog Español, Prueba de larga duración: 90.000 km con el Abarth 500