Fiat 500L review - Reliability and Safety

The Fiat 500L has a five-star Euro NCAP crash test rating and comes with a decent tally of safety features as standard. They include driver, passenger, side and window airbags, plus tyre pressure monitoring and hill-hold. You can also add Fiat’s City brake control low-speed collision mitigation system for £250 if it’s not fitted as standard equipment at your trim level.

The engines and many of the other mechanicals in the 500L are widely used in other Fiat models (such as the standard 500, Panda and Punto), so should prove reliable.

12

However, while the 500L didn’t feature in our Driver Power 2015 survey, the regular 500 just failed to finish in the top 100 of the survey’s 200 cars – which gives some cause for concern. It was ranked a few places further down the rankings for build quality too.

Fiat’s dealers ranked 24th out of 32 manufacturers, so if you do need to visit one unexpectedly you may find it a little harder to attain satisfaction compared to better performing brands.

Warranty

Like other Fiats, the 500L comes with a three-year/100,000-mile warranty. In the first two years cover is provided regardless of mileage, but the cap comes into play in year three. This is similar to cover provided by most rivals, although VW caps mileage at 60,000 and Kia provides 7 years of warranty cover.

Servicing

There’s no network-wide fixed price servicing scheme advertised for the Fiat 500L, but you should expect to pay around £135 for a minor service and £250 for the full service. This appears to be a little less competitive than some of the plans available from rival manufacturers but Fiat does allow 18,000 miles between services (or annual checks).