I'd booked a Budget "subcompact" class rental car for Stacy and I to use on our visit to Seattle in April 2012, fully expecting to get a Kia Rio or Hyundai Accent. The Budget counter agent started in on me right away: "How many are traveling with you? Do you have much luggage? I'm asking b/c our 'subcompact' class car would be a Fiat 500, which isn't very roomy". Actually...that'll be perfect, just what I wanted (and had no reason to expect!).

Really? Fiat 500 rental cars? Well, they had at least this one. As we went to collect it, it was the ONLY small'ish car present on a long row of Chrysler 300's, Dodge Chargers, and assorted SUVs & CUVs. Apparently they upsell, a LOT. Not to me: renting gnomemobiles is something of a passion/sickness, and I enjoy seeing what else is available in this class of car.

So here are some Fiat 500 observations, from driving a 13k miles-experienced example over 4 days in Seattle last weekend. We arrived about 9pm, dark and rainy (what a shock), and after counter paperwork located our easy-to-spot bright red Fiat. It's trunk absorbed our one large suitcase and my travel backpack, and we settled inside. The seats were very comfortable, especially after 4 hours from St. Louis on airline seats, but geez they're high off the floor! There's some relief for the driver (seat height adjuster), but not for the passenger. It's...odd.

Other controls weren't hard to figure out. Lights / wipers, mirror adjustments, HVAC, and we were good to go. It took a bit of concentration to leave my left foot on the rest, I'm not used to automatic transmissions, especially in this class of car. It's shifting was smooth/slick, and sensitive to throttle, giving up a lower gear when needed without fuss.

There's no escaping, though, that this car has 101hp out of 1.4L, just, to motivate it and the 400 or so lbs of humans and cargo. So...a speed demon, it isn't. Driving the I-5 to our hotel, it had little wind noise, but road noise was significant, particularly on the long sections of roadway that had been grooved/abraded to help with icing. It was...well, LOUD. Steering was direct and precise, the ride was pretty active/jiggly, reacting to most things, though I didn't sense anything "wrong", worn-out, or thumping. Just firmly sprung and not especially well-damped.

We used this car for getting around over the next four days, with up to three good-sized adults at a time. This car is narrow, compared to a MINI, so you're nearly shoulder-to-shoulder in the front seat (again, we're not small people, probably larger than average, YMMV). The back seat is only for spry adults, not so different from a MINI in that regard, and someone solo back there can put their legs on the unused seat and get fairly comfortable in that "lounging teenager" mode.

This car does have a "Sport" button; when pressed, it's similar to the MINI's with the steering becoming heavier/tighter, throttle response a bit more snappy, and the A/T hanging onto lower gears longer. It has a "sport shift / manual shift" mode/gate, and responded pretty well to up/down commands. It will shift back down to 1st on its own if you forget to do so at traffic lights, and will beep a protest if you ask for a gear "too high" at slower speeds (no third gear at 10mph, for example).

We drove US2 out to Stevens Pass and back with three adults aboard. Left in D, and with cruise control, we tired of the tortured-sounding downshifts to 4th on the steeper grades, and I just put it in 4th using the manual gate and left it there. It had no trouble advancing, pulling a steady 4200 rpm or so up these hills, I'm sure that might have been alarming to the small-car-inexperienced ("she's gonna blow!" Nah. Just a small engine, working hard, not out of the design limits at all).

So all-in-all, it made a decent rental car. We got the voice recognition / Bluetooth to work, made some calls, and it was very eager to read newly arriving text messages to us (no thanks, and it would take "no" for an answer). Sirius radio was nice to have, the heated seats worked swell (but not needed this time). The auto a/c was about like I had experienced in others: temps in the 50-60s are confusing, as it figures it doesn't need to do much to adjust the temperature, but occupants (like me) would enjoy a little air moving around (but get none). I was over-riding it quite a bit until it warmed up on Sunday to the 70's and it would dial up some A/C for us.

I wish I had seat time in a Justa with A/T, as that's the most direct comparison to a Fiat 500 Sport (in the USA). I don't know that my MCS, even leather-lined and all plush by comparison, has additional soundproofing and so forth. Comparing this Fiat to my MCS...there's no comparison, it's a different class of car. Where I've read that MINI was shooting for a "premium small car", it really shows in this type of comparison in terms of road noise, body/chassis stiffness, overall "feel".

That's not really a slam on the Fiat, none intended. What it felt most like was the Honda Fit / Toyota Yaris class of car (I've driven both of those), where everything is no heavier / stronger than it needs to be, everything is "just enough" to do the job. And, for those purposes, just fine. But there's not that solid-tank-like feeling I get from my MINI, which is far quieter and actually smoother riding, even with runflats and sport suspension. The MINI feels like it costs a lot more.

Which...it does. I built a Fiat like our rental on Fiat's USA site, then dialed up the equivalent MINI, an additional 4k or so compared to the Fiat (with similar features). Whether that's "worth it" to people is in the eye of the beholder, and if you're like me, you have these discussions all the time ("What? Your MINI was HOW much? Why, for that price you could get X, Y,Z which are larger/faster/get better mpg yada yada"). In this case, my opinion, back-to-back drives would reveal these cars FEEL very different, no comparison, no doubt what I'd prefer. OTOH, the Fiat delivers a decent feature set at its price level, with some Euro-style and flavor that's apart from the usual Japan Inc. / Korea Inc. norm for this class. So it should find a market, perhaps a niche one, and again that may be ok.

Some pricing / size comparisons:

Fiat 500
As configured price: 20,250
Fiat 500 Sport with A/T, Convenience & Sound Packages
Length: 139.6
Curb Weight: 2363
HP: 101 from 1.4L

MINI Cooper
As configured price: 24,700
MINI Cooper Hardtop with armrest, H/K sound, alarm system, Bluetooth & Ipod, A/T, Heated Seats, Fog Lamps
Length: 146.6
Curb Weight: 2535
HP: 121 from 1.6L

Edmonds Inside Line comparison test:
http://www.insideline.com/mini/coope...and-video.html

 

Wow! A Fiat rental. I'm impressed. I'll be flying out to Denver in September for my best friend's wedding so I'll have to hope that I get something similar. It'd be nice to have a rental that isn't in that icky size of being slightly larger than my MINI but not large enough to demand a definitive shift in driving, like our Suburban. My family's Civic drives me nuts because it's right in that size where I occasionally can forget, even though it's nothing like my MC, that I need to adjust my driving for it's larger proportions and pathetic maneuverability, braking, and acceleration. A Fiat, while loud, sounds like a perfect rental car to me!

Correction: perfect would be a MINI but I don't think that that will happen any time soon.

 

All I can say is, with a car that small you couldn't park in the lines... :-)

 

LOL, nice!

Yes, lapped over the line on the last spot of a row, my usual defense against any potential Mr. Bozo DoorDinger pulling in on the other side.

Which was worth doing, for some reason I got the 3rd degree when I turned this car back into Budget: "what about this, what about that?" minor ding/scrape, all of which looked weeks old, at least to me.

 

:-). Awesome!

 

Thanks for sharing. I used to travel a lot for work and I've driven dozens of cars. That's why I was so confident in selecting a Mini was it was time to purchase one. It just feels like something special. I would like the chance to rent a Fiat 500 if it comes up.

 

I've owned a Fiat 500 Sport for almost a year. I have a Roadster S on order. I will be keeping the Fiat. A few things about your review -- while I am in agreement with most of what you say, your analysis/comparison to the base Mini might be a bit biased. I took a few lengthy test drives before ordering my Mini. Just to get a feel for the Mini, I drove a base Mini with automatic, pretty much stripped down. I really don't think it drove or handled any better than the Fiat. Different, but not better or worse.

The big difference was price. I paid under $20,000 and got a very generous trade for my car. A comparably priced Mini would have been more that $25,000 (you forgot, the Fiat has leather/cloth sport seats that would add $1,250 to the Mini) and that is a lot of money.

Over on the Fiat forum, they do a lot of Mini bashing. I think that's stupid. My Fiat turns heads, I get loads of questions when I fill up and I really believe it is far superior to the Yaris and Echo that you class it with.

Bottom line -- Fiat gives you more bang for the buck while Mini gives you more and better choices. When it comes to reliability, time will tell. Fiat has gotten very good grades on the 500 in Europe and if the Mexican made version is equally reliable then that would give Fiat an edge over Mini, whose reputation is so-so.

A few last thoughts -- at 225+ lbs, 6' 2", I am very comfortable. I drove the Fiat from FL to NH and back, 3,200 miles in 11 days and no problems whatsoever. I've got 10,000 miles and it still looks, rides like new. When they let my Mini come home to me from the VDC I will drive it with pleasure and after a suitable breaking period I'll write a side by side review here and on the Fiat forum.