Automatics and mountain roads
 

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.

My experience in UT was to keep it out of OD, and just drive it as normal.

No choice between OD and D, only between D and manual. The thing was hunting like a half-starved Masai in D, not to mention jerking when downshifting.

Why the hell didn't Fiat bring the dual-clutch manual to the US instead of putting in a happy-crappy Aisin 6-speed box? I may also add that I had problems starting the car sometimes. Either the starter would crunch once the engine started, or catch for a second then freewheel rather than turning the engine. Fortunately, this didn't get worse.

Sounds like the car was a pos to me.

Yeah, it's disappointing that Fiat's quality is still pretty poor, because they import an interesting, relatively economical product that I'd seriously consider buying if this rental experience didn't sour me. The little thing was a BLAST to drive, even for a 1200 mi each-way trip. This is one car that I'd think about leasing, since if it died a year after the lease was up, it would be Not My Problem(tm).

Transmission issues are fixable by ordering a real manual, but starting issues and brakes simply should not happen with such low mileage. Even in a rental. Also, interior materials seemed flimsy, borne out by further research:
http://www.fiat500owners.com/forum/10-fiat-500-appearance-body/5021-armrest-failure-point-discovered.html

When we went up Big Bear/Lake Arrowhead we brought the Subaru Forester along. It has an automatic gearbox which you can shift manually when the shifter is moved sideways from D (sport mode). I used this up and down the mountain roads and did not feel any difficulty with the transmission.

We did the same when we recently visited the steep hills of San Francisco, and it worked wonderfully. Only comment I have is I wish the transmission would lock in position (if I was in gear and facing up a steep hill, releasing the brake would let the car slide backwards slightly). So I use the hand brake to hold the car, then step slightly on the gas as I release the handbrake. This gets it going. My 300D did not have this problem when we visited a while back too.

Shouldn't be overheating on Berthoud Pass. Our 77 300D NA would be in 2nd gear on that climb.

To be clear, the motor did not overheat -- temperature stayed at the middle of the gauge. Not sure if the transmission was actually overheating (didn't go into limp mode or anything like that) or if something else was going on. But I did clearly smell burning trans oil, which can't be a good sign. I was also probably doing the climb (a little bit) faster than the 300D would have done it :)

We experienced the same hunting problem heading up into sequoia with a 500 rental. Automatic heats way up on mountains, however, using the manual gear select it did fine, and cooled down while scaling the grade far better. I went from hating it to loving it, as the manual gear control on that automatic is simple enough that you can pick a gear and basically redline if you desire just like a real manual.

Overheating automatics on grades is not that unusual, I've done that a few times on a bunch of different products where you can smell it when the transmission is constantly shifting. Really what does it is all the shifting and hunting building major heat, especially if the speed you are going on the grade is right between a couple gear ranges, so the transmission is constantly hunting, too low in one, too high in another, with the operator alternately flooring it and backing off as the hunting continues, perpetuating the hunting.

Better to manually pick a gear and stay in it, cools right down up or down grade

(even better to have a real transmission, assuming all four limbs intact. Or a dual-clutch box, or CVT. A torque converter auto doesn't do a small car like this justice :) I test-drove the Abarth version of the 500 with a real stick, and it was pretty awesome like a little roller-skate.) But agreed that the manual gear selection on the FIAT is better than most cars. Had a Camry automanual where the numbered ranges still shifted autotragically, but limited the top gear. i.e. "4" allowed for gear 1 through 4, rather than keeping it in 4th until the engine either lugged or redlined.

my wifes focus does pretty well through the mountains. never had an issue other than the 4 banger being underpowered. my work van is an auto and it does just fine. that said, i still much prefer a manual.
when i bought my f250 superduty i lucked out and was able to pick one up with a 6speed manual. now that thing has zero issues in the mountains with a trailer on the back hauling a 3/4 ton truck.:D

New Fiat 500? Nein, danke. Old Mercedes Benz? Ja, bitte.
 

The MBCA Sacramento section's First Sunday Drive today featured 18 different Mercedes Benzes today for a "canyon carving" cruise through the ups and downs and twisties today.

I took out my '91 560SEC out of hibernation for this event (I try to exercise it every week or two) and this old car, with almost 198k on its original transmission, (serviced at regularly mandated intervals from new) performed flawlessly.

All it took to handle the mountain driving (3+ hours of it) was paying attention to the tach and locking it into 3rd gear as necessary on the ups and downs and shifting the selector into D when the road straightened out.


~~~

Though while traversing the Autobahn last June/July I did notice the little Fiats were wildly popular in Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria, even dealerships for them abounded. Many buyers preferred cabrio models.

The only reasons I can think of is fuel economy (benzene (gas) costs the equivalent of $9.00 a US gallon - and likely the selling price for the 500 is pretty cheap- I would guess.

Also the vehicle inspection programmes in Europe are mostly real draconian (in Germany chrome wheels are illegal!) and body damage and rust will get the car removed from the roads.

So very few vehicles are kept more than 4-5 years old, and are then replaced. This I suspect is why most - almost all - cars seen are new and cheap. And I mean that in the literal and perjorative sense.

Though the "Deutsche Schnellstrasse" is ruled by medium to large Audi, Mercedes Benz and BMW cars (A4, A6, C,E,S klasse, and 3,5 and 7 series. Few Porsches though.)

The Aisin torque-converter autotragic is a US-market special, the Euro version gets a dual-clutch auto-manual as their two-pedal option. So the Fiats seen in mountainous parts of Europe aren't comparable in that regard.

The starter problem sounds like its a rental car that has been punished.

-John

I agree with the idea that judging a car's drivetrain by driving a rental car is pretty unreliable, since renters tend to abuse the cars and mechanical servicing is pretty much non-existent by the rental company.