[Red Bread]

Don't forget that you can lower your 135i insurance rate if you change it to a weekend car on your insurance. We had an M3, 135i and M Coupe when we lived in Laguna Beach and the M3 was listed as a weekend car, total coverage for all three was $180/mo.

[mfindigital]

Originally Posted by mremg

$40/month for insurance in Los Angeles? How'd you manage that??

I used to lease a Smart car ($99/mo) but it's insurance was like $140 a month. Made no sense whatsoever. But for $140 (incl insurance) a month having a second electric car isn't a terrible idea. You probably break even $$ wise but just having a tiny car is a blessing for street parking.

18 years of perfect driving. Got 3 speeding tickets at 16, but have had zero since then. 0 at fault accidents since 16 as well. I only pay 80$/mth for the 135i with comprehensive coverage and a $500 deductible. Also have a bundled policy with my home owners insurance, which drops the rate quite a bit.

[c1pher]

I owned a 500 pop and an Abarth. I feel like the pop was okay but not something you really want to drive in the city because it’s so slow w it’s almost dangerous. I nearly got rear ended more times than I could recall because I simply couldn’t accelerate fast enough.

The Abarth is a different story. I put a piggyback tune on it too and it was a lot of fun. The 500 is very roomy from a storage perspective and we used it to make sams club runs. I got 36-37 mpg which was a minor penalty over the 40 mpg I got in the pop.

The seating position and pedal placement is odd but you get used to it. The exhaust on the Abarth is made by Akrapovic and is incredible sounding for a little 1.6l turbo. Only reason I sold it was to get a big cargo van we converted to an RV.

[jmg]

I was in the same boat as you. 80 mile round trip, I didn't want to put that many miles on my M3, so I looked into the Fiat 500e for that <$100/mo lease payment.

You NEED to check this site periodically:

http://ev-vin.blogspot.com/2016/07/c...ected-evs.html

Lowest EV leases all listed and update every month.

Personally, I ended up getting an i3 REx.

[damageprone]

Originally Posted by Spa2k

The Honda Fit is very reliable, has decent ride and acceleration - plus an incredible amount of room for carrying stuff once you fold the trick back seats. Good luck!

+1 on the Honda Fit. I still drive my 2007 Honda fit along with my F80 . Going on 180K miles. A ton of space in there.

[///M Power-Belgium]

Fiat is crap !

[FlyingLow78]

My GF has a 2011 cinquecento Sport and it's a fun little car to drive and well suited to narrow Italian streets. The build quality is quite poor, though, and we always take my car on the longer road trips. I've seriously considered getting one for the run to-from work because they're cheap to run, spacious enough for two, and as maneuverable as a roller skate on a merry-go-round.

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by FlyingLow78

My GF has a 2011 cinquecento Sport and it's a fun little car to drive and well suited to narrow Italian streets. The build quality is quite poor, though, and we always take my car on the longer road trips. I've seriously considered getting one for the run to-from work because they're cheap to run, spacious enough for two, and as maneuverable as a roller skate on a merry-go-round.

Mini's are 100 X better !

[yco]

well for stop and go traffic it ll burn less fuel than other cars you mentioned for sure.. i drove on 500 in Italy for 2 months, easy to park, fun car to drive if you have no literally no performance expectation.. what else option you have?

[Germanauto]

If you can get over the effeminate looks then sure it makes sense.

[mfindigital]

Originally Posted by Germanauto

If you can get over the effeminate looks then sure it makes sense.

The 1 series doesn't exactly scream masculinity to 95% of the world.

[mfindigital]

Originally Posted by jmg

I was in the same boat as you. 80 mile round trip, I didn't want to put that many miles on my M3, so I looked into the Fiat 500e for that <$100/mo lease payment.

You NEED to check this site periodically:

http://ev-vin.blogspot.com/2016/07/c...ected-evs.html

Lowest EV leases all listed and update every month.

Personally, I ended up getting an i3 REx.

You're the man!! Thank you.

[Germanauto]

Originally Posted by mfindigital

The 1 series doesn't exactly scream masculinity to 95% of the world.

Yeah but it's not girly Fiat.

[vinylengraver]

I owned an Abarth for two years.
Had it tuned, upgraded a few bits here and there, got a set of dedicated winter wheels and rubber and drove it like i stole it every time I had a chance.

It was a blast. Zero issues, mind you it was still under warranty.
Felt crazy fast with 200+ lb-ft of torque and sounded awesome.
Lacked refinement and it never felt really solid... like I always expected something to go wrong with it, but it never did.
Great in the snow, surprisingly stable on the highway, and plenty roomy for two people. My back seats were always folded, which yielded surprisingly vast amount of cargo space.

This was a very special car for me so I am biased, but now that you can get them for 1/2 of the original price I would go for it and enjoy for what it is.

Having said that, I would try and find one with warranty remaining or extended coverage already in place.
They are easy to work on but no car today is cheap to fix, including this one.

Fun fact: my car came from factory with leather seats, leather steering wheel, leather gauge cluster hood, leather shifter knob, leather shifter boot and leather handbrake handle. I don't believe any other car in this price range has so much leather-wrapped goodness. Perhaps this is because leather is cheap in Mexico. Still, nice touch, IMO.

[mremg]

Originally Posted by mfindigital

18 years of perfect driving. Got 3 speeding tickets at 16, but have had zero since then. 0 at fault accidents since 16 as well. I only pay 80$/mth for the 135i with comprehensive coverage and a $500 deductible. Also have a bundled policy with my home owners insurance, which drops the rate quite a bit.

Cool! What insurance carrier do you have?