About five years ago, I bought my buddy’s 2014 Abarth 500. It’s the GQ Edition, so it’s got just about every doo-dad they had for the 500 at the time. Convertable — well, “cabriolet”, it’s got heated seats, satellite radio/CD/and bluetooth for the phone. Leather seats and they’re comfortable. It handles incredibly well, taking twisties like a motorcycle. I did get rid of the low-profile tires for slightly taller ones, taking the bite out of its ride. It is, simply, the most comfortable, best handling car I’ve owned. It’s light and the turbo 1.4 MultiAir gives her, in the Abarth tune, about 160ish horsepower. It’s done very well in dusting everything from a WRX or Alfa Guilla, to a RAM 1500 that was intent on trying to race me for some reason. The main reason is the car is light — 2300ish pounds. Gas milage is about 30mpg around town, but jumps to 33 mpg in sport mode. Turn the stability control “half” off and the clutch response is much, much better than in standard road mode (where it’s pretty awful). Turn it all the way off and it’s a go-kart.
It’s been a reliable, excellent little car for much of that. I had an issue with a blown exhaust valve on cylinder one last year that required a rebuild, but since then she’s been solid, once more. Even with the cylinder down, the damned thing still ran. Once fixed, I ran into a problem that 2014 model Abarths have — the catalytic converter is only listed up to 2013. No one wants to order one for you and install it. So I bought a 200 cell cat from TMC in Northern Ireland. It does make the O2 sensor throw a code intermittently, but it runs without issue.
A family issue came up back in Pennsylvania a few months back, so what better time to give the car a real shakedown during the daughter’s spring break. We added a side trip to Florida to visit more family because what could possibly go wrong with an 11 year old Fiat with 80,000 miles on it during a 5000 mile road trip?
(Here she is in Texas, before the bugs hit.)
We took off from Albuquerque early on a Thursday to miss the massive wind storms that would hit the next day in Texas and Oklahoma, and drove 15 hours to Tennessee without issue. Gas mileage was 37-40 mpg. Once we got below 2000 ft. the check engine code for the rear O2 sensor cleared.
The next day, we were on the road in the late morning for the last leg to Pennsylvania. We dodged a couple of serious wrecks in Tennessee — where apparently everyone thinks it’s NASCAR on the road — and saw a drop in MPG to bout 30-32 through the Smokey Mountains. We hit Pennsylvania by nine in the evening and threw a code and had the engine shudder a bit. The number four piston was coding. When I started her, it ran a bit rough but still got us 2 hours into our destination. Total distance, 2100ish miles
The spark plugs had cooked, with the number 4 having blown off the electrode hook. I got the plugs changed and had the car sounded. No issues. It drove fine for the next few days, and then we started our leg to Tallahassee — about a 1000 miles. All good until Charlotte — where between it and Columbia, the interstate turned into a parking lot for two hours. Same code. Shit. We still had five hours to drive. The car, despite this, wasn’t running especially rough, loud, but gas mileage dropped to 28ish mpg. Despite all this, it got us to our destination.
Another shop and it was what I suspected, the plugs had mostly killed the number 4 coil. One coil pack later, we were back on the road the next day. The final run home to Albuquerque saw no codes (other than the P0440 because I hadn’t closed the gas cap properly during a fuel stop) and she ran flawlessly with a steady elevation change to 6000 ft. for the pass into town. At about 4000’, the rear O2 sensor alerted again. But with two 12 hour days on the return leg, the car got us in safely.
Coils and plugs — fairly standard wear and tear, especially at her mileage. Despite this failures, the car never stopped running (well, even) and got us where we needed to go. We were averaging 12 hour days in the car when we were traveling between destinations and absolutely not speeding, at all — nuh, uh! — yet until the last day, I didn’t really feel any physical fatigue from sitting in the car. The daughter felt fine with her seat reclined and sleeping. The A/C blew cold the whole trip. No other issues.
Not too bad. So, the lessons I learned: 1) 5000 miles is a long way to drive in 11 days. 2) Other than general wear issues, the Abarth 500 is a pretty damned reliable car. 3) When stuck on little Georgia back roads because Apple Maps decided we needed to go on a scenic tour of nowhere, this car can rip up a winding backwoods road like it thinks it’s a Ferrari. (It’s not….)
You can find these things pretty cheap now. They’re definitely worth it for a cheap, fun ride.
The Black Campbell 