Thoughtless

A few weeks back, my car was in the shop for some body work. (An unfortunate accident had occurred that meant some repairs were due.)

I took advantage of my insurance company’s connection with Enterprise Rentals to get a quirky car to drive during the repairs – the Fiat 500L.

Overall, I enjoyed the car’s quirkiness. (It had a few quality issues, but that’s another story.)

fiat 500l drivers manualThe manual was completely worthless – a CD. When inserted into the car’s CD drive, it would not do anything except display an error message. The only way to view the contents was to bring it home and put it into a computer with a CD slot. Then a program had to be installed to make it run!

What happens when a driver is 50 miles from nowhere and has a flat tire? The compressor in the back (no spare tire) had no instructions.

Fiat – please do a little more thinking next time!

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4 Replies to “Thoughtless”

  1. That 500L looks like a Mini Cooper ripoff.

    I can’t imagine not having a spare or even a manual that you can read.

    I got a flat tire in a rental Toyota in El Salvador, and had to call the agency for help finding the jack, which was under the driver’s seat! The spare on that car was a full-size tire on the same chrome rim as the others, so I had the patched tire put in the trunk and used the spare the rest of the time I was there.

    1. Tim, Fiat was definitely going for the retro feel. I liked the style, though sometimes it got in the way of function. (The gauges were a little hard to read.)

      And I’m glad you were in phone range when the flat happened!

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