Lots of used 500's sat dormant, for what reason?

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Thu 30 Jul 2015 13:48
Lots of used 500's sat dormant, for what reason? - MrBrown

I'm currently looking at buying a Fiat 500L as a mid-size family car.

What I find puzzling is that there are an awful lot that appear to have been sat for the last nine months or so. All of the examples appear to be about 18 months old, have between 15 and 20K miles on them, and the tax is showing as due since between October and December 2014. Just about all of them are at Fiat dealers.

I understand that these could be off of PCP leases etc, but why are they sat so long, and are so numerous? There appear to be a lot of 'WM63' registrations on them...

Edited by MrBrown on 30/07/2015 at 13:49

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Thu 30 Jul 2015 14:10
Lots of used 500's sat dormant, for what reason? - Falkirk Bairn

Lots of FIATs come into UK via Avonmouth - WM reg is Bristol area

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Thu 30 Jul 2015 14:12
Lots of used 500's sat dormant, for what reason? - daveyjp

500L is still a relatively new model. These were probably initial production run models.

Some will have been demos, some may well have found their way into hire fleets - Enterprise in particular. The WM suggest they are Fiat HQ cars which were registered in Bristol - importation docks.

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Thu 30 Jul 2015 15:01
Lots of used 500's sat dormant, for what reason? - KenC

Last year this make/model car was subject to a lot of BAD publicity, namely that it was incapable of being driven up steep gradients.

It was a STAR on BBC Watchdog, Fiat UK tried to cuff off Ann Robinson but eventually backtracked and owned up to the problem.

That type of publicity is never a good idea.

Google the subject and you will find it, I think the subject has previoulsy been covererd in this forum

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Thu 30 Jul 2015 16:35
Lots of used 500's sat dormant, for what reason? - MrBrown

Thanks for the replies. I'm actually looking at the 500L with the 1.6 diesel engine. My other car is a 1.2 Panda (2014) and I'm very pleased with it.

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Thu 30 Jul 2015 23:22
Lots of used 500's sat dormant, for what reason? - Happy Blue!

I drove one with the diesel engine last summer with a famil y of five plus luggage. An excellent car and I had but one complaint - the power range was quite limited so drivng up (steep and windy) hills you were either in second gear with the engine revving its head off or in third and crawling up if you were lucky, there was no happy medium.

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Fri 31 Jul 2015 05:35
Lots of used 500's sat dormant, for what reason? - gordonbennet

Maybe it's the result of oversupply, again and using all means necessary to manage used values for obvious reasons.

They might be ex renters and it was often the case in the past that cars coming off rental fleets would stand for up to 12 months in order to manage the market.

Edited by gordonbennet on 31/07/2015 at 05:36

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Fri 31 Jul 2015 12:23
Lots of used 500's sat dormant, for what reason? - daveyjp

BSM took on the 500 when it was first launched, but it was deemed too small in the rear for examiners so was deemed unsuitable for the job.

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Fri 31 Jul 2015 11:31
Lots of used 500's sat dormant, for what reason? - John Boy

Last year this make/model car was subject to a lot of BAD publicity, namely that it was incapable of being driven up steep gradients...

... I think the subject has previoulsy been covererd in this forum

www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=106830

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