It’s often said that Fiat stands for Fix It Again Tony, and a certain Redditor has experienced the adage on his own skin. In a thread titled “Day 1 of owning a Fiat, already dead,” the owner of a 500C with 90,000 miles on the clock reports that the PCM gave up the ghost for no apparent reason.
Anthony Richard uploaded a video of the dashboard on his YouTube channel, showing the instrument cluster lighting up like a Christmas Tree half a minute after turning on the engine. Just about every error possible is highlighted by the 500C, and the owner jokes to himself that “it wouldn’t be Italian if it didn’t break down.” Thing is, there are two things we have to talk about.
First and foremost, who would even consider buying a 500C after others have thrashed it for 90,000 miles? That’s a lot for a Fiat, let alone the 500s with U.S.-specific software that are known to fail more often than Euro models. Secondly, let’s hear the opinion of a Level 3 Fiat technician.
“I’m betting that you have multiple loss of communication U codes setting,” he replied in the Reddit thread. “It’s almost always a BCM problem,” and if you were wondering, “the joke is made that BCMs should be shipped in six-packs because they are junk.” When a Fiat tech says so, you can bet your bottom dollar that Fiats are loathed even by the people working on them.
Used or brand new, can you imagine Scotty Kilmer commenting on this situation? Jokes aside, the owner does mention he’s glad about having the inspiration to buy “a year of warranty. So damn fun to drive, though.”
Another Redditor commented that his 500 Sport from the 2014 model year had the PCM bail out on him at 90,000 kilometers (56,000 miles). “It was due to water build-up and heat causing the silicone that holds the PCM together to come unsealed. Sold that piece of junk not long after that.”
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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