Service experience

[Fiat500USA]

How was your service experience?  Let us know!

[Giallo Edizione]

OK I'll jump in first.

I had a few minor adjustments and concerns that I wanted looked at. It took a few days to get it together since the Kelly FIAT dealer does not have a dedicated service dept yet. I ended up directed to their Kelly Chryser dealership a few miles away. The appointment was made for my convenience. When I got there they took the car right away and the manager took my case on personally. They loaned me a car for the day and my FIAT was all set by mid-afternoon. The important matters are resolved, minor stuff explained or to be monitored. New software upgrade installed as well.

I'll give them 5 stars for first test. Great service and attention. Manager is excellent. I will probably bring my 300CSRT8 there when it next needs servicing.

[sjmst]

Fiat500USA wrote

How was your service experience?  Let us know!

I have needed no service yet. My car is flawless!

[spindoc]

sjmst wrote

I have needed no service yet. My car is flawless!

Ditto!

[SeaDawg]

Giallo Edizione wrote

I'll give them 5 stars for first test. Great service and attention. Manager is excellent.

Sounds like Kelly is a real JEWEL!  I just hope the local dealer here in Central Florida will be as accomodating (once they open...).

[rossonero404]

Have not needed service yet, however i can attest for Kelly Fiat of Peabody, MA.  Salesman i dealt with was Sergio Maffeo (from Italy), extremely nice, not pushy, very knowledgeable.  All the staff was polite and professional.  Very fast transaction as well compared to spending all day at a dealer filling out paperwork, was in and out of there in a couple hours.  In general all Kelly dealerships are great, i've leased cars from them in the past and they are very easy to deal with.
Will be picking up my Prima on Tuesday!

[kzod]

What software upgrade is there?  New functionality?

[Giallo Edizione]

kzod wrote

What software upgrade is there?  New functionality?

  They told me it was a "driveability" matter. Which usually means engine management system tweak.

[sketch]

Well, I've had an interesting couple of days.

The car's been hard to start cold since the beginning, and the Check Engine light came on for half a day on my second day of ownership.  The owner's guide said both could be due to bad gas, so I chalked it up to that.  It seemed to get better after I filled the tank myself, but it would still take a few tries to start and run rough at the beginning of the day.

A few days later, the light came back on, and I discovered that the coolant level was low.  On Thursday, I headed down to the Ray Brandt Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep in Harvey only to be told that since their FIAT Studio is not yet opened, they legally cannot touch the car.  I convinced one of the guys there to top off the coolant reservoir for me.  I was taking a trip up to Virginia the next day, so I wanted to make sure everything would go swimmingly on the drive up.

Well, the car makes the ~850-mile trip up without any new kind of trouble, but I bought a gallon of Prestone in Chattanooga (after learning that their Chrysler dealership had recently gone belly-up!) just in case the situation got critical between there and Blacksburg and then frantically called one of my friends asking him to swing by the Chrysler dealership and buy some Mopar-brand coolant (better safe than sorry, I guess).  I made it okay, but I made sure to top it off the next morning, when the engine was cool.

Saturday night, I get a text from a friend who happened to be driving home from Talladega, saying he'd just driven by a FIAT dealer near Birmingham, "showroom and all!"  I changed my departure plans to allow for my arrival at said dealership first thing Monday morning, and that's what I did.

Boy, was it a sight to behold.



Cinquecentos of every color and complexion!  Two red Prima Ediziones, to boot!

I walked in and told them how much I loved my Prima Edizione and how great it was to see a real, working Studio, and asked them if their service department was up and running yet, since my check engine light was on.  One of the guys there referred me to Carrie Sweet (no kidding), the studio director.  She told me they hadn't had their lift installed yet, but they do have their FIAT-trained service guy working at Benchmark Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep just down the road.  She climbed in a Grigio demo car and led me there.



The dealer is a real class act.  The area where the service managers' desks are is separated from the service bay itself by a large glass wall with a glass door.  I asked if I could get something out of the car, and one of the employees said that was no problem and pointed out that there aren't any "No Admittance" signs anywhere—this turned out to be a very good thing.

I grabbed my iPad and sat around for a minute and then went back to the car to talk to the technician.  He said the check engine light had come on because of misfires on multiple cylinders, and showed me a technical service bulletin that matched those engine codes with an ECU flash upgrade (probably what they did with yours, Giallo) which should fix the issue.

He said he didn't think that was it, though, since the misfires had occurred on multiple cylinders, and so forth.  I told him that the car was also leaking coolant, so he put it on the lift and didn't really find much of anything coming out.  Half out of curiosity, he pulled the air box off and the spark plugs out, and we discovered that there was coolant in three of the four cylinders.



Diagnosis? Something is quite wrong with the head gasket; it may have been a faulty part, or it may have been installed incorrectly at the factory.  Woof.

As per the FIAT warranty, and after the manager of the entire dealer system ran down to the FIAT Studio for a bit to figure out how exactly all of this was to work (it's tough launching a new brand, I can tell), an Enterprise representative showed up with a big red Chrysler 300 to get me home in time for work (at 5pm the same day!).  She told me that there was a $10/day charge that Chrysler doesn't normally cover since I'm under 25 years old, but suggested that I check with FIAT on that since their rules might be different.



Instead of fiddling with my wallet and phone on the road to get Ms. Sweet's number out, I pulled back into the FIAT lot.  When I stepped out of the 300 (I call it the "Pimpmobile", because honestly, look at it), the first gentleman I'd spoken with that morning looked at me and said, "What the hell?"—I mean, it was just a check engine light, after all! :P

I explained what had happened to him and went inside to tell Carrie the same thing, and to ask about that rental fee.  She was very sympathetic and assured me that she'd ensure that FIAT would cover that cost as well.

tl;dr: Wonky head gasket.  Left the car in Alabama.

The gentleman (I didn't catch his name) who is in charge of the chain of dealerships called me this afternoon to inform me that FIAT is shipping me a brand-new engine and taking mine back for quality control, and so that—paraphrased—I could get what I paid for: a brand-new car.  It'll take 5-7 days for the engine to get there and 48 hours for them to install it and test it properly.

The whole process took about three hours, but there was a lot of back and forth simply trying to work out all the little kinks associated with running a dealership from two buildings and with launching a brand in a new country, which was understandable.  FIAT of Birmingham and Benchmark Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep are truly a class act, and I have full faith that they will handle everything as well as possible.  If I recall correctly, I think they're even planning to ship the car back to me when it's done!

Now the only thing I have to worry about is putting gasoline in that monstrous 300 for a week and a half... :P

[Alvon Elrod]

Great story!

Did the rental car come with . . . ahem . . . . ladies?

[ciddyguy]

sketch wrote

Well, I've had an interesting couple of days.

The car's been hard to start cold since the beginning, and the Check Engine light came on for half a day on my second day of ownership.  The owner's guide said both could be due to bad gas, so I chalked it up to that.  It seemed to get better after I filled the tank myself, but it would still take a few tries to start and run rough at the beginning of the day.

A few days later, the light came back on, and I discovered that the coolant level was low.  On Thursday, I headed down to the Ray Brandt Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep in Harvey only to be told that since their FIAT Studio is not yet opened, they legally cannot touch the car.  I convinced one of the guys there to top off the coolant reservoir for me.  I was taking a trip up to Virginia the next day, so I wanted to make sure everything would go swimmingly on the drive up.

Well, the car makes the ~850-mile trip up without any new kind of trouble, but I bought a gallon of Prestone in Chattanooga (after learning that their Chrysler dealership had recently gone belly-up!) just in case the situation got critical between there and Blacksburg and then frantically called one of my friends asking him to swing by the Chrysler dealership and buy some Mopar-brand coolant (better safe than sorry, I guess).  I made it okay, but I made sure to top it off the next morning, when the engine was cool.

Saturday night, I get a text from a friend who happened to be driving home from Talladega, saying he'd just driven by a FIAT dealer near Birmingham, "showroom and all!"  I changed my departure plans to allow for my arrival at said dealership first thing Monday morning, and that's what I did.

Boy, was it a sight to behold.



Cinquecentos of every color and complexion!  Two red Prima Ediziones, to boot!

I walked in and told them how much I loved my Prima Edizione and how great it was to see a real, working Studio, and asked them if their service department was up and running yet, since my check engine light was on.  One of the guys there referred me to Carrie Sweet (no kidding), the studio director.  She told me they hadn't had their lift installed yet, but they do have their FIAT-trained service guy working at Benchmark Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep just down the road.  She climbed in a Grigio demo car and led me there.



The dealer is a real class act.  The area where the service managers' desks are is separated from the service bay itself by a large glass wall with a glass door.  I asked if I could get something out of the car, and one of the employees said that was no problem and pointed out that there aren't any "No Admittance" signs anywhere—this turned out to be a very good thing.

I grabbed my iPad and sat around for a minute and then went back to the car to talk to the technician.  He said the check engine light had come on because of misfires on multiple cylinders, and showed me a technical service bulletin that matched those engine codes with an ECU flash upgrade (probably what they did with yours, Giallo) which should fix the issue.

He said he didn't think that was it, though, since the misfires had occurred on multiple cylinders, and so forth.  I told him that the car was also leaking coolant, so he put it on the lift and didn't really find much of anything coming out.  Half out of curiosity, he pulled the air box off and the spark plugs out, and we discovered that there was coolant in three of the four cylinders.



Diagnosis? Something is quite wrong with the head gasket; it may have been a faulty part, or it may have been installed incorrectly at the factory.  Woof.

As per the FIAT warranty, and after the manager of the entire dealer system ran down to the FIAT Studio for a bit to figure out how exactly all of this was to work (it's tough launching a new brand, I can tell), an Enterprise representative showed up with a big red Chrysler 300 to get me home in time for work (at 5pm the same day!).  She told me that there was a $10/day charge that Chrysler doesn't normally cover since I'm under 25 years old, but suggested that I check with FIAT on that since their rules might be different.



Instead of fiddling with my wallet and phone on the road to get Ms. Sweet's number out, I pulled back into the FIAT lot.  When I stepped out of the 300 (I call it the "Pimpmobile", because honestly, look at it), the first gentleman I'd spoken with that morning looked at me and said, "What the hell?"—I mean, it was just a check engine light, after all! :P

I explained what had happened to him and went inside to tell Carrie the same thing, and to ask about that rental fee.  She was very sympathetic and assured me that she'd ensure that FIAT would cover that cost as well.

tl;dr: Wonky head gasket.  Left the car in Alabama.

The gentleman (I didn't catch his name) who is in charge of the chain of dealerships called me this afternoon to inform me that FIAT is shipping me a brand-new engine and taking mine back for quality control, and so that—paraphrased—I could get what I paid for: a brand-new car.  It'll take 5-7 days for the engine to get there and 48 hours for them to install it and test it properly.

The whole process took about three hours, but there was a lot of back and forth simply trying to work out all the little kinks associated with running a dealership from two buildings and with launching a brand in a new country, which was understandable.  FIAT of Birmingham and Benchmark Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep are truly a class act, and I have full faith that they will handle everything as well as possible.  If I recall correctly, I think they're even planning to ship the car back to me when it's done!

Now the only thing I have to worry about is putting gasoline in that monstrous 300 for a week and a half... :P

Wow, great story Sketch!

My, my, either a faulty head gasket or a poorly installed one, hmmm... Glad to know the dealership you ended up at will take care of it and they DO sound like a class act indeed.

I like your attitude about all this and considering a new brand, a new model of said new brand and an entirely new dealer network barely up and running, glad it's all being taken care of!

Speaking of 300's this one looks to be the 2010 model, right? If so, I've never really liked that version of the car, too blingy/gansta for my taste and a couple of weeks ago while at my local Fiat dealer, I spotted the current model 300, an improvement that's for sure but still don't like the squashed greenhouse on top of a massive looking body, but an improvement none the less.

[Dennislee]

Yes, your patience and attitude is admiral. Sounds like the type dealer I hope to have in Oregon when they open in a few week

I feel, however, that Fiat could have gone one step further for you as one of the first 500; that is to offer a replacement car from the dealers inventory if you desired.
I know it would have not had the significance(?) of being first ,,,,,, but it should have been a choice.
Just my 2 cnts.
DennisLee

[SeaDawg]

sketch wrote

Well, I've had an interesting couple of days.

Now the only thing I have to worry about is putting gasoline in that monstrous 300 for a week and a half... :P

WOW!  You were lucky you didn't get stranded on the road.  It sounds like Fiat 'manned up' on this one.

As an aside, I think you are probably the youngest PE owner in this forum.

Are you going to cruise the main drag in New Orleans in the pimpmobile before you have to give it back?

[prima 109]

WOW!!!  
    Fiat's doing the right thing by replacing the engine sketch.  Kia did the same thing for my niece's husband's 2010 Soul with 2k on the clock.  the oil pump crapped out and because the engine ran for an unknown amount of time(was in winter, went out to warm up car and went back in house).  When he came back out the engine was knocking and the oil pressure light was on,  Shut off engine, checked oil(waa full), called Kia dealer, flatbedded said Soul to said dealer and viola new engine and one free car payment for his trobles.

[rossonero404]

Good to see they took card of you, very important to have customer satisifaction.  One thing I thought was interesting when I bought my car is that they offered a "Lifetime" warranty upgrade!  Nobody does that.

Has anyone noticed anything else that doesn't seem quite right?
I've noticed a slight burning smell, maybe clutch?  Not worried about it, just curious.

[Giallo Edizione]

rossonero404 wrote

Good to see they took card of you, very important to have customer satisifaction.  One thing I thought was interesting when I bought my car is that they offered a "Lifetime" warranty upgrade!  Nobody does that.

Has anyone noticed anything else that doesn't seem quite right?
I've noticed a slight burning smell, maybe clutch?  Not worried about it, just curious.

That's 99% likely the exhaust system burning off its surface materials.

[sjmst]

My dealer told me to bring it in for oil change at 3,000 miles. Anyone else doing this?

[prima 109]

i am going to have it done when I go to hae the block heater installed just because I'm driving 102 miles to dealer.

[Alvon Elrod]

I ordered the oil filter, and am changing my oil at 2000 miles.

Alvon

[Thad]

I plan to go to the dealer soon and have them do a free oil change. Has anyone had the oil changed yet? I'd love to watch someone get the filter housing out of there.