14 years of the "New" Fiat 500 // TwinAir review
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- Опубликовано: 24 сен 2021
- A look at the Fiat 500. Introduced way back in 2007, this car is still being made today (2021). But it is any good?
A full review of a 2012 Fiat 500 TwinAir 0.9L (875 cc). Performance, handling, economy, practicality, styling and more.
The TwinAir engine introduced in 2011 certainly added to the character of the 500, with its tiny capacity and two cylinder layout.
This review covers cars sold in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.
#fiat500 #fiat500twinair
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I drove my twin air to Spain(1200km)and I got 4,8l/100km between 100 and 110km/h,5,2l when doing 120km/h.with only 35l fuel tank it gives you a pretty decent range if not an amazing range. I love to listen to the cat alike sound that the engines make,proper old school 2 cylinder fiat sound.this engine is an absolute piece of Italian engeeniering that anyone have been able to copy.when services are respected and well done,pretty reliable too.mine has 125km and running smoothly.but like you say,this engine doesn't want to be driven slowly,put foot down and a smile automatically appears on your face.oh,and with 92co2 emissions(car is 10yrs old now!) don't have any problems with the global warming gestapo.😄
That's great fuel economy Sam! The engine really does sound like a cat 😁 and you're right that there's no other engine out there like it. Glad you like the car and thanks for the mega comment :)
I have virtually the same car as this, same year, same colour and 37,00 miles on the clock. It is very nippy when you floor the accelerator and sounds great, you can feel the turbo kick in. I have had mine 5 years no problems. Feels great on country roads thanks for your film👍
Awesome, glad you like it.
I am in complete shock to know that this amazing car is rolling on a 2 cylinder engine!!!!I
For some crazy reason I always thought I was driving a 4 cilynder engine.. it does not feel weak to be a 2 cilynder engine!!! this is truly a jewell!
Cool isn't it, and something different. Not many 2 cylinder cars out there.
I actually checked why my had 4 sparkplugs and i thinkg i have the 4 cylinder one inestead of the 2 cylinder one...@@JJonCars
how the fuck did you not know your car had a 2 cylinder engine, you dopehead
Currently in Turkey in fiat 500 pop 2017.
Haven driven here from UK.
Brilliant car in my opinion, burns no oil & am getting just over 60 mpg cruising @50/60 mph.. this is the 1.2 8v engine.
Wow, what a drive! Well done little 500.
I had a lift in a Fiat 500 recently and was surprised at how solid and well made it felt. I’d always assumed they would be quite noisy and feel cheap and ‘tinny’ but that wasn’t the case. Watching your vid confirmed that I shouldn’t judge a book….
Definitely, I had similar thoughts before I first drove one. Thanks for watching!
I wanted to testdrive a 500 once just for fun. I was surprised, just like you. That great little 500 went home with me. Love it
I have the cult 105 Twinair and iv had it from new 8 years now and I love it over the 8 years iv only had to buy 4 tyres and that’s it apart from fuel and servicing not even a bulb blown love it and puts a smile on your face which not many cars can do
Wow, mega reliable! That's great - not something I'd expect to have heard about Fiat if I'm honest. Sounds like you look after the car :)
Way way back in the early 1970's, my first job was working in a travel agency and I had the pleasure (?) to drive one of the company cars - a mustard yellow Fiat 500 - and also the company home to airport service VW microbus - both rather quirky cars to drive! I dread to think how good a rating they would get from health & safety nowadays!
Amazing Fred! And mustard yellow, what a period colour. I'd love to drive an old one. I imagine they would crumple like tin foil 😄
Great video! Fun and informative
Thanks! And thanks for watching :)
A nice relaxed review. Liked and subscribed. I’m picking up a 2019 panda cross twin air tomorrow. It’s the engine that does it for me. Learned to drive in a Citroen Dyane, that might have something to do with it.
Thanks Kerry. Citroen Dyane, what a car! I'm sure the 2 cylinder sound will bring back some memories :)
There wasn’t anywhere enough arm waving for you to be a believable Italian 😂 They’re great cars aren’t they - especially the twin air. The gearboxes are quite unreliable though, I’ve had the bearings go on quite a few. You should try the 500e, I was really impressed.
😂
I've seen some of your videos on the old and new 500e - electric motor in a 500 sounds like a perfect pairing to be honest!
@@JJonCars it really is. It’s perfect for the car
Which gearboxes are unreliable? The auto?
@@twistedsanity623 Five speed manual. Mine sounded dreadful before it reached 2000km…
@@paultinwell5557 is the 6speed better? Im about to buy a panda 4x4 with the 6speed manual.
Was torn between Abarth and 500 s. Went for the twin air for the mix of practicality, softer ride and fun. Good car, sounds awesome ✨.
I’m like looking at getting a twinair early next year and I found this video very helpful:)
That's great to hear! Good luck in your car hunting next year :)
When looking for one of you go for a twin air check it has been serviced properly, really important with the funny engine. Also check the outer sills they often have damage due to being jacked up incorrectly and check the radiator bottle they often leak around one of the pipes and mine has also started to fail on the seam of the bottle. I bodged the seam with super glue and have added a couple of cable ties around the leaky tube on mine, don't be tempted to use crocodile clips as they can crush the part of the bottle the pipe slides on to. You can pick them up quite cheap I spent £3k to get one with 48,000 miles.
@@alanjames5660 cheers Alan, that's some good info :)
@@alanjames5660 thanks for the info dude
I still have one from 2016 (new) and it truly is AWESOME.
The ONLY thing is the duel logic transmission. It is certainly OK but not perfect.
I do rate it 9.75 out of 10.
Cute little cars with plenty of character and Italian style!
I have the same twinair engine in my Fiat Panda 4x4, great little economical engine with plenty of power when you need it, that growl as you accelerate is very grin inducing.
I wouldn't be too concerned with the reduced ncap rating, they're just measuring the same car that got 5 stars with a different set of safety standards, same with my Panda, which used to be 4 or 5 stars and is now zero l!! The crash videos speak for themselves, the shell remains intact and occupants are protected by multiple airbags etc
I recognised the roads you were driving along, been around that area many times!
Appreciated the drone scenes, I also fly a drone.😎👍
Yeah they sound so good!
You're right - the body shell is as tough/rigid as it ever was, the airbags are the same. It's all the extra sensors and crash avoidance stuff that they mark it against now, which can be helpful but as you say, you shouldn't feel unsafe in the car.
Drones are good fun, just a shame it always seems to be the wrong weather for them (wind or rain haha)
@@christga100 I had the same concerns, prior to choosing which engine to go for!
All I can say is test drive the Twinair, it'll surprise you.
On the economy side, it'll never do the claimed mpg, what car can?
But it will do a respectful mid 50s mpg without much effort.
Forget the Eco mode, it just saps the power and you end up using more throttle.
When you consider it costs just £30 a year to tax and servicing costs half of a traditional 4 cylinder engine, that's cheap motoring.
I get 54mpg regular on a long run, that was loaded up on a camping holiday, a good mix of town, A and B roads.
Round town it's easy to get mid 40's mpg but if you clog it everywhere and rev it all the way through each gear, then expect as low as mid 30's
@@christga100 It's a really quirky engine, once you get used to driving it you quickly forget it's only a 2 cylinder 875cc engine!
It's a very nippy little car, very agile, you can make good progress, the 6 speed box helps to keep the engine revving at the optimum sweet spot.
6th is a bit tall for round town but perfect on A roads or a motorway, it never feels sluggish.
It actually developes more power and torgue than the 4 cylinder 1.2
It seems to have more low down grunt than it should and the little turbo helps boost mid to top end power, so overtaking is not an issue.
Even loaded up on our camping trip I had no issues overtaking slower traffic.
I had a Fiat Stilo with the 1.2 out of both I much prefer the Twinair.
But you either love them or hate them, opinions are very divided.
Just make sure it's been cared for, with plenty of oil changes, they are very fussy about oil.
Brilliant Jack!
Thanks! :)
I'm from Canada, but I have a 500 Abarth 2013 and it's been so amazing to me. I wanna import one of these for fun and get something right hand drive
I've had mine for 3 years
Have the 105 sport.
Agree with your summary.
Nippy sub 9 secs but all the issues of a small car.either way still fun... but i prefer driving my vxr.... 😉
I have a 2014. TwinAir S with 105 BHP. Having 145k km on the clock, still looks like new. I'm 5'7" and sitting behind myself is ok, enough room for the knees without touching the front seat. I love the original engine sound, although I've chunked out the midway muffler/resonator, and put a Abarth twin exhaust at the back, which makes it sound like a real Abarth should, but it lost most of that Fiat 126p-ish sound that it had before. You can manage around 6l/100km around town, and around 4.5 on B roads, if you are careful. But the problem is - you don't want to be. You want to rev it above 3700 rpm, to get that full power and torque, because that's where it feels fast. Anything below that feels very sluggish, although if you just look in the mirror or around you, you will see that you're not going all that slow at all, although it feels like you do. It almost has no power bellow 2.5k rpm, then it kind of wants to pull just a bit more, at 3.5k it kind of starts to get going, and at 3.7 k rpm it really explodes, and pulls up to 5.3 or so, of it's 5.7 red line. It's a narrow power range, so you need to work the gearshift to keep it on boil, if you want any kind of sporty drive, and you have to push the pedal like 2 seconds before you actually want the power to kick in, because of the turbo lag. But then you are looking at 7 to 9l/100km on average, around 9 on the motorway at 140km/h.
It's a beautiful car, and I would not have it with any other engine. One could only wish for a larger 2 cylinder engine, with more power.
Ah, and the brakes. Not sure if it's not the pads that are creating this problem, but in general they do grab ok for what they are, but braking from motorway speeds, when that semi suddenly pulls into your lane, or you brake for that short motorway exit ramp, the brakes are just not there, you're pushing the pedal and nothing much happens no matter how hard you push it. Feels like they just fade, but without any previous heat build-up at all.
While the gearshift is very light and pleasant, clutch pedal is anything but. It's way to hard for what it is, and it's really a shame that it was not offered with Dualogic gearbox, or even better - the MTA, because driving it around town is a real pain. At least for got used to the robotised manuals, or dsg's.
At it's price, it out to have much nicer plastics inside. While they don't look all that bad, if you touch them, especially with your fingernails, eew awful...
Overall, a great car. Cheap to run, fun to drive.
Awesome, great review - do you want my job? 😁
It really is an unusual engine, I don't remember driving anything else with such a big difference in power and torque at a certain RPM, not even Honda VTEC or my old turbo Subaru WRX 😂
You're right, I remember the clutch is quite hard and not suited to the experience of the rest of the car!
The design is incredible. But it is even more incredible how many of those they sold, for a struggling Italian car industry this is great. They should learn from this and save Alfa once and for all.
Agreed!
Cracking little cars, I'm guessing that they were freezing on the TG Cool Wall 😂
Haha! had almost forgotten about the cool wall. All depended on what Clarkson thought of a car though I think he actually likes the 500 now, but at the time I think it was James May talking about how it gave him "the fizz" 😂 Thanks for watching Matt!
Looking to buy one of these with 72000 miles on the clock , is this a better bet than the 1.2 four cylinder?
Nice review. You missed the hidden storage compartment under the passenger seat cushion…
Cheers. Oops :)
Great review! Do you ever plan to review some french cars?
Thanks! Would quite like to do a 208 😉
@@JJonCars that would be great. I've been wanting one of those for a while. Do a red one if you can
Own a 2012. Love it 135K miles
That's a decent amount of miles!
I've got an American 2012 FIAT Sport. I've had it since '20 from a used car lot. I'm single. I took out the backseat all together. Ain't no one going to be riding back there anyway & it opens up quite a bit of cargo room with the seat gone. I've what's considered a higher mileage car (137,xxx miles) but it runs fine.
Little Fiat 500 van!
Great video! quick question: how tall Are you?
Thanks! I'm 184cm, or just over 6ft
I have one of these with a mix of roads 46mpg is reasonable and yes no glove box but you forgot the passenger seat storage accessed by sliding and tipping the seat of the passenger seat. Absolute hoot to drive really cheap to insure and run not as fun as my Abarth though.
46 mpg, that's decent. Perhaps I needed to give it a longer test for fuel economy - but that engine doesn't want to be driven economically haha. I bet the Abarth is a blast! :)
I recently got a 2013 500 Lounge edition 1.2 and it feels a lot quicker than 69bhp very good city car mines in a Ferrari Yellow with Italian flags on each side , I was told not to get a Twin Air as they go wrong and the Diesel is even more unreliable , the 1.2 is the best as it uses the so called Fire engine which Fiat has used since the 1980s
What song did you use in the background love to know?
Opening scene:
Stellar Wind by Unicorn Heads
Piano music:
No.4 Piano Journey by Esther Abrami
Boot looks pretty big for the size of the car and if you drop back seats.
Yeah they're not that bad for a tiny car
It's a headache why Fiat didn't use the TwinAir with the mild hybrid. They would complement eachother easily.
The Twin Air would be optimal for a more substantial hybrid or plugin Hybrid.
It would be an interesting combo for sure
I love my fiat 500 twin air 105. People say, is it supposed to sound like that? Is it broken? 😂. All fiat 500s are fun to drive but the twin air is the best.
Haha yes, they have a 'unique' sound
I had the twinair S 500 with the 105bhp engine but software issue or something made it run with less power after a few weeks so I traded it in. Lost a lot of money but I expect a brand new car to not have problems like that, and didnt have the time or energy to go back to the dealer with it. Fiat dropped that 105 version for some odd reason hmmmmm. Better off with the Abarth 595 which I got two years later. Very solid cars though, well made and last a long time. Fiat got it right with that.
Just another detail that doesn’t seem to be mentioned in any of the reviews I have watched. You don’t have to pay any road tax for this model!!
Good point! That is decent. Funny that in 2025 electric cars will be paying tax, but not this petrol Fiat :)
Really quirky car but the MPG is shocking - my Civic 1.4 i-vtec averages nearly 46 in the same cycle
Yep, funny how it was supposed to be clever economical 2 cylinder design, but all it really did was make a nice noise :)
The Fiat 500 is that rare thing, a small car with a proper grown-up style, very attractive looking for a vehicle of its size unlike Japanese cars of the same ilk which look like noddy cars made for children
Cutest car ever!!! Soon we start our 50000km European tour in a 53 year old Fiat 500R, check it out!!
I am a new fan i baught a 500 arbarth i am having it fully alarmed and other security measures as i no the boy racers took a liking to them 😢
entirely too many 500's were made in this horribly drab color...love the twinair
Too many cars in general in this colour now I'd say! I had a new Astra on lease a few years ago and all I could pick was that grey, or black.
@@JJonCars Even Black is an improvement on this depressing color
My 13 year old 1.1 FOUR cylinder 8v non VVT panda can get 50 mpg, yet the 0.9 TWO cylinder twin air WITH VVT gets in real world terms an average of 42 mpg, how did that happen?
Mention twinair and its always followed by poor MPG
sounds good tho
@@bonkeydollocks1879 ha well, you are right, they don't seem very economical which is funny given that was supposed to be the advantage of them 🤷
@@JJonCars yea I think the manufacturers concentrate on emissions to meet strict targets more than mpg
I'm still torn between the twin air for my next car or something with the ecoboost in it but the ecoboost is even worse on economy and they have a tenancy to blow up 😬
I get 50mpg when I drive carefully in my Panda, but mine is the slow (and quite pointless when there's the 1.2 Fire) non-turbo 65hp version so maybe that's the reason?
@@mastermaltese8731 you got the non turbo twin air? By having just two cylinders you would have thought it could do better
I've just got 50mpg out of my 1.1 old panda with an engine that dates back to 1985, the fire engine, there must be a limit regardless of engine
Drinks petrol, that fuel economy is rediculous poor
Hardly a "review".
How come?