Business Car Manager: Editor’s Blog
ONE year on already – and time for our Fiat 500 to go in for its first service.
My wife and co-director, Alison, runs the car and is absolutely delighted with it. The little Fiat has bags of retro charm, makes you smile when you drive it, and has a great standard spec.
More to the point, we also got a great deal on the PCP (personal contract purchase), paying less than £140 a month for this top-notch city car.
We took the car back to Parkside Garage, the Fiat dealer in Whitton, west London, where we had bought the car for the Fiat 500 first service. They really are a friendly and welcoming bunch there. Nothing is too much trouble for them, a reflection on their high standards of service.
While the dealership isn’t one of these glass and steel temples to the motor car – Parkside is a little more down to earth than that – I really don’t care. What’s important is the service, the friendlieness of the staff and their knowledge. Give me this any day in preference to a smart coffee maker and an even smarter showroom full of aloof and off-hand staff.
The cost for the first Fiat 500 service was £120: that’s £10 a month for the first 12 months’ motoring. Not bad. And the road tax had to be replaced today too – that was only £35 because of the Fiat’s low CO2 emissions.
The car does have to go back to Parkside, though, to have a replacement latch fitted on the boot. The locking mechanism has always been slightly temperamental – and Parkside found the latch was faulty. So a new one was ordered, and will be fitted shortly.
That aside, happy birthday Fiat 500. It’s good to have you around. (Even though Alison is already enquiring about a Fiat 500C…)
