Sounds like a classic case of Friday car. Ie thrown together late on a Friday when the factory staff want to go home.
One of my old cars has 14k of warranty work in the first 12 months of ownership. Mercedes were a nightmare to deal with so I can empathise with the frustration. Shame a Abarth didn't support you...... Try emailing them a link to this thread !?!?!?!

14k of warantee work? cheaper to give you a new car.

On a Mercedes...

I had a Mini.  The steering pump is a well known fault.  One evening it decided to burn out the entire electrics in the car (whilst it was parked in my garage).


The dealers wanted £1600 to fix it.  I told them to keep the car and I wont be picking it up.  I also pointed out that their known fault caused the problem.  3 hours later they agreed to pay the bill. 

Has anyone had a good first three years with their 500???  what are the percentages???

To counter Pauls demoralising story of woe. I've had mine for a little over 3 years, done 38K in it (a lot of track miles too).  Other than replacing consumables (tyres, brakes & fluids when needed) the car has only had 2 niggles.

1) Rear brakes binding / squealing. Checked by Abarth, cleaned and a new set of pads installed (by me) and issue solved.
2) Cosmetic trim (wing mirror mounting) begining to fade / turn brown.  Didn't happen till Year 3 of warranty, FIAT / Abarth didn't want to know so it's for me to resolve.

Other than the above the car has been faultless and a joy to own.  I definately think that Pauls car was a Friday car (I had the same with a saxo made on Millenium Eve that just fell to bits!!).

Don't invinte lloyd to the house warming!

As for niggles - 34k in and not a problem. Paul has been unlucky. The A500 is like any other car it's all down to luck! Get one - enjoy one - hope for the best!

Wow made my end of term report look like a post-it note.

If I was abarth I would give you a car for welsh road durability testing as it would clearly up-their-game quality-wise if they were willing to act on it..

Your local Abarth dealer disappeared eh?

Can't imagine why

Gotta love the internet forums for keeping things real with real customer experiences - thanks for sharing

but i would have lost over £4,000 in less than a year!!! The review has left me waiting for even more to go wrong with the car......

You probably lost £3k as soon as you drove it out of the showroom. If you bought second hand - Caveat Emptor

My car had just under 1300 miles on the clock in June, and when i went over 70mph i could hear a whistling noise coming from somewhere.  The faster I went, the louder the whistling got. 

Dropped it back at the dealer, they said they couldn't offer me a courtesy car as i was going away for a week and they couldn't let me have the car for that long.  As it turns out they ended up keeping my car for almost 2 weeks.  Luckily I was out of the country for work during that period, but ended up having to make costly arrangements to get to the airport and back.

During the time I was away they called me to tell me that they were going to need to take the dashboard out of the car as the fault was actually to do with the heater system.  I let them know that I was concerned that once the dash had been out the car would never be the same again, i.e rattles and creaks.

So anyway, i've been and picked it up today and there is damage to the A pillar trim where the dashboard has obviously been levered in or out, they've used almost half a tank of fuel sorting out the problem, and they've put a load of miles on the car in the time they've had it.

Not sure that it's my responsibility to finance the fuel that they need to use to sort out an issue under warranty, and my concerns about the damage to the plastic trim are justified.  With this kind of mileage on the car I expected it back in "as new" condition.

They have also had to refer some paint issues on the front bumper where it meets the wings to Fiat so they can have the car back in again and get the bumper resprayed.

Not happy to say the least, awaiting on a reply to a letter of complaint from the dealer at the moment.  Won't reveal which dealer it is until after I get a resolution to my issues.