FIAT Complaints

For 2-3 days prior to incident, upon shifting up a gear and disengaging clutch, RPMs were higher than expected (noticeable revving sound when hitting gas pedal). Wednesday 12/08/21, the vehicle was not maintaining speed on the highway and engine was revving like it was in too low a gear. Vehicle stopped accelerating and lost speed while driving on highway forcing me to pull over and forcing a tractor trailer to swerve around me. Vehicle was disabled at that time. No warning lights were displayed on dashboard. Frederick Auto Repair in Frederick, MD says clutch needs to be replaced despite the vehicle only having ~53,300 miles. Initially thought it would be part of Safety Recall S34/16V-302 but this appears to be for a different model and my vehicle's VIN is not included.

The contact owns a 2012 Fiat 500. The contact stated that she was having difficulties refueling the vehicle as the gas pump would constantly stop pumping gas though the tank was not full. The vehicle was taken to an independent mechanic who diagnosed that the fuel tank sensor had failed, and the fuel tank needed to be replaced. The dealer was notified of the failure and advised the contact that it was a known failure however, she would be responsible for the cost of the repair since there was no recall related to the failure. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The approximate failure mileage was 67,000.

The contact owns a 2015 Fiat 500. The contact stated that the interior door handles on the driver’s and passenger’s side front doors fractured making it difficult to open the door from the inside or outside of the vehicle. The local dealer was notified of the failure. The manufacturer was not yet contacted. The VIN was not available. The failure mileage was 55,000. Consumer stated handles break too often causing allot of inconvenience and expense. Appointment to get both handles on the car fixed again for Jan 3, 2022.

Since the car was purchased, the electrical system seems to have an issue that no dealership has been able to diagnose or fix. The forward collision warning system will intermittently turn itself off upon starting or even while driving. The car also frequently blows passenger side lights. More recently at about 67,000 miles, the check engine and transmission warning lights came on while highway driving 2.5 hrs away from home. The car has been in and out of the shop at least 3 times over the past month and a half to try and fix the issue but they have been unable to determine what is wrong with it. They said they found metal in the transmission and therefore replaced the torque converter and valve body. However, the issue persists. A burning smell can now be detected when driving. Car is going into the shop for a 3rd time to try and fix it - leaving owner without a vehicle for another undetermined amount of time and many miles away from home (this time >500 miles away from home). The car supposedly passed all previous recalls - cooling fan, oil consumption, etc. All regular service/maintenance intervals have been kept by the owner.

Fiat made their 500e vehicles (electric) and sold them off as a tax relief. Unfortunately, many who have purchased this vehicles are experiencing similar issues. The car dies and the main battery is dead (not the small battery that you can replace/charge - the big one). Upon calling Fiat, they said it was covered under warranty - BUT- there is one part that is crucial to the install and the part costs $7,000. Our car is not worth 7k. We bought it for 10k four years ago and it has depreciated value. When we appealed with Fiat - they would not budge. We filed a claim for loss damages and it goes denied - twice. This is a known problem - many insurance companies and mechanics do not know how to process electric vehicles.

My 2017 Silver FIAT 500 pop has a defective miles odometer that flashes. The car was purchased from Tobin Fiat of Las Vegas on 8/21/2017. I test drove this car to my home for 3 days before buying it. On day 2 it starting flashing. I returned to the dealer, reported it and was told it would be repaired. I have over 40 Videos on my cel phone that prove its defective over a 4 year period. Most resent issues on, 10/30/21, 11/1/21, 11/10/21. All 3 parties have refused to fix, repair or replace what causes the flashing miles indicator in my car. They said it doesn't exist so there is nothing to fix. The car was sent to the Fiat dealership in Henderson for a few days and they said it didn't flash while there so Fiat, Chrysler and Tobin Fiat of Las Vegas saw it as a none issue or as a customer complaint about nothing.

The radio frequency hub has failed or shorted out from possibly water leaking into vehicle. This has caused the car to randomly stop while driving and other times to not start. The car completely stops locking the cars braking system and not allowing the doors to open. The car that has stopped working while Driving and has been stuck locations unable to start. Diagnostics said the car was fine until it has completely shorted out which has made the car unusable and no diagnostics can be run. When the car was brought into the last dealership they were familiar with this problem due to several other vehicles with the same problem being brought in. The mechanics states that this is a problem from water leaking into a part on the trunk hatch that is supposed to be sealed. There have been several cars repaired at the dealer and currently other cars currently waiting for a back ordered part to try to remedy this problem.

FIAT 500E VEHICLE BRAKING BEHAVIOR IS UNEXPECTEDLY HARD, SUDDEN, OR UNPREDICTABLE UNTIL THE USER USES AN OBD SCAN TOOL WITH APPROPRIATE DIAGNOSTIC SOFTWARE- AND INITIATES BRAKE CONTROLLER SENSOR RE-CALIBRATION. THIS OPTION IS FOUND UNDER THE DIAGNOSTIC MENU UNDER: ABS>RENENERATIVE BRAKE CONTROLLER>ACTIVE DIAGNOSTICS, AND THEN SELECTING THE PROCEDURE TO START (RBC SENSOR CALIBRATION). ONLINE FORUM USERS (PLEASE SEE LINK BELOW) ARE CURRENTLY USING 3RD PARTY SOFTWARE, AT THEIR OWN EXPENSE, TO CORRECT THE BRAKING DEFICIENCY (APPROXIMATELY $49). MY PERSONAL VEHICLE WAS PURCHASED USED AND WAS EXHIBITING SUDDEN AND UNEXPECTED BRAKING ISSUES AT APPROXIMATELY 8,500 MILES; THIS IS IN MY OPINION A VERY LOW NUMBER OF MILES TO BE EXPERIENCING REGENERATE BRAKING AND CONTROL ISSUES. PLEASE REFERENCE THE ONGOING DISCUSSION THREAD AT FIAT 500E ONLINE FORUMS: HTTPS://WWW.FIAT500OWNERS.COM/THREADS/FIX-GRABBY-BRAKES-FOR-70.149282/#POST-1292483

The Gear Shift Module is failing. It does not change gears from park to reverse or drive saying "gear unavailable". Service engine lite comes on and the red transmission symbol appears. I feel unsafe driving when this happens. I took it to a friend who is a mechanics and his diagnostic tool showed "P1CB1 gear shift activator 1 engage failure". This problem occurs with other customers complaints with this Fiat 500L model. I have to go to dealer and get this problem corrected because it is not safe to drive with the gears shift unresponding. I can image the bill I will be face with after all this.

The airbag warning light comes on intermittently with nothing on the passenger seat and a message that says "airbag service required" also appears intermittently. Dealership was unable to diagnose ("never seen this issue before"}, escalated to STAR (STAR case 101975980). STAR could not diagnose and requested that the tech perform a teardown to try to figure out what was wrong. The dealership wanted to do this at my expense ($360 just to perform the tear down. Actual repair cost unknown.) I do not feel that a customer should have to cover the cost for a manufacturer to find out what is wrong with their vehicle when the error is something that they are not familiar with and cannot diagnose and was not caused by the owner, especially when it is related to safety equipment and the proper functioning of that equipment.