Fiat 500 pricing

[jon.b]

Went to look at the latest Fiat 500 at our local dealer yesterday with a view to buying one for my wife.
The sales person showed us round the different models and was generally helpful.
I asked him about pricing on the new models and on mentioning whether or not they would be prepared to discount the car he told me the dealers weren't allowed to discount the 500 at all so I'd get the same price wherever I went.
He then showed us round their 08 registered 1.4 Sport demo and was prepared to sell that at a whole £300 under list price. Not exactly generous for a second hand vehicle with 2-3,000 miles.
I just thought I'd ask:
1. Are any dealers doing deals on the 500?
2. Is pricing really that strong for this car. There seem to be quite a few on the market 2nd hand now and the dealer indicated he could tap into a good stock of new cars so is the seemingly inflated pricing going to last for too much longer?
Finally our annual mileage wouldn't warrant buying the diesel, there are obvious tax and price benefits from buying the 1.2 but in owners opinions is this car slightly under powered? Don't really want to stump up the extra for the 1.4 but at the same time don't want to always regret not going for the larger engined model. We couldn't drive a 1.2 as they didn't have a 1.2 demo!
Would appreciate any feedback.
Thanks Jon

[isuk]

You'll find a lot more info on the 500 at either:

http://www.fiatforum.com/500/

or

http://nf500.com/ (in the forum section).

[Sideways Tim]

The 1.2 is fine for a town/knocking about car - wouldn't want to rack up lots of motorway miles in it, but it's quite happy to trundle along. I was told similar, that the dealers make very little profit on the 500, so there's not much room for discounts.

[Spam]

I haven't seen any reasonable discounts about for 500 either. It's because they also know they can sell them. Hot Cakes.

Have you tried broadspeed. However someone did mention don't buy a Fiat from broadspeed because...

[Robertf]

I got a 1.4 and I think its worth it - driven a 1.2 panda and it was dog slow. The 1.4 is a bit gruff but performance is reasonable.

[Spam]

If it was my money, Abarth aside I would be putting it on the 1.3 Multijet. £35 Tax, 67/68 MPG, Nice and Torquey and 0-60 of 12.5 secs.

[jon.b]

Thanks for everyones responses, seems the general consensus is no discounts unfortunately. Thanks also for links to those websites, i hadn't come across those before.
Ultimately I think we'll go out and try all the models, I'm hoping the 1.2 will do us but also don't want to make a decision I'll regret later.
Think I may wait another couple of months though before buying, there's bound to be quite a few more coming to market and from checking the Autotrader and Fiat websites quite frequently I'm not really seeing the 2nd hand stock shifting that quickly at present with their slightly inflated prices. Cheers, Jon

Edited by jon.b on Wednesday 15th October 23:36