I had a FIAT 500 rental for the last month, since I was out West for work. Took it through a mountain pass (Berthoud) topping out at about 11k ft yesterday, and by about 8000 ft, I could smell burning transmission oil. I was mostly doing the climb in 3rd and 4th gears, running at between 3000-5000 rpm; redline is 6500 or so. Having never owned an automatic car, is transmission overheating normal for that sort of drive? In other news, the car had about 20k miles on it, and the brakes were already shimmying during extended braking, even though I was careful to use lower gears when descending from the mountains.

500 is a fun little car to drive, but I'm less impressed with the quality than I was last month.