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Struggling to drive fiat 500

My instructor had a fiesta then a vauxhall and I stalled barely ever. However, im three days into having my Fiat 500 Lounge and I am stalling constantly and find it hard to drive off again once I have. Please can people give tips and advice. Thank you
Reply 1
Go to vacant or near empty car parks , try to replicate and resolve the errors you are making within the empty space . Go around and around the car park for a few hours a day, try parking, reverse and forward , parallel and any other manoeuvre that may cause issue with you

Keep practising . Bear in mind , most people that have their licences are still doing many things wrong , or simply pick up bad habbits .

On another note, I drive Fords , I once took out my sisters Fiat 500 . I too stalled the car twice on one journey - its very different feel than the ford .
Original post by ellieloujonesx
My instructor had a fiesta then a vauxhall and I stalled barely ever. However, im three days into having my Fiat 500 Lounge and I am stalling constantly and find it hard to drive off again once I have. Please can people give tips and advice. Thank you

I know exactly what the problem is. Your instructor probably had an Ecoboost or diesel engine in the fiesta and a diesel vauxhall. Both of these cars have highier torque (rotary force) than your fiat since it's a petrol with no special injection. Diesels produce more torque than petrol making them harder to stall at the cost of running out of puff at highier speed faster. Some petrol cars (like the Up or Fiesta) have specialist fuel injection (Ford Ecoboost or VW MPi) which allows them to have diesel like torque and move away just on releasing the clutch alone. Your fiat doesn't have any of these things, and you not being used to the lower torque is what is causing the car to stall.
It sounds like your instructor gave you a bad habit of not increasing power sufficiently before moving off. Do this, rev the car to maybe 1500 - 2000 rpm and slowly release the clutch to start moving. Do the same for all petrols and even diesels, regardless of they are turbo/spec injection.
Original post by AH-64 APACHE
I know exactly what the problem is. Your instructor probably had an Ecoboost or diesel engine in the fiesta and a diesel vauxhall. Both of these cars have highier torque (rotary force) than your fiat since it's a petrol with no special injection. Diesels produce more torque than petrol making them harder to stall at the cost of running out of puff at highier speed faster. Some petrol cars (like the Up or Fiesta) have specialist fuel injection (Ford Ecoboost or VW MPi) which allows them to have diesel like torque and move away just on releasing the clutch alone. Your fiat doesn't have any of these things, and you not being used to the lower torque is what is causing the car to stall.
It sounds like your instructor gave you a bad habit of not increasing power sufficiently before moving off. Do this, rev the car to maybe 1500 - 2000 rpm and slowly release the clutch to start moving. Do the same for all petrols and even diesels, regardless of they are turbo/spec injection.

Would 2nd this - the Fiat I drive has a really high biting point, so get the revs up first, then slowly release the clutch to the biting point and you should feel and hear the difference. It definitely does take some practise though so don’t worry!
Original post by BlueEyedGirl_
Would 2nd this - the Fiat I drive has a really high biting point, so get the revs up first, then slowly release the clutch to the biting point and you should feel and hear the difference. It definitely does take some practise though so don’t worry!

Exactly this. Don't worry about the car running away from you because it sounds loud, you are in full control of the speed with the clutch, a clutch is effectively a "brake" between the engine and gearbox made of 2 plates. When you depress the clutch, the 2 plates are forced apart so the engine isn't connected to the gearbox. As you release the clutch, the 2 plates get closer together. The whole point of releasing the clutch slowly is to allow to engine's clutch plate to slowly rub up against the gearbox's plate and bring it upto match the speed of the engine. This stops stalling by allowing the engine to keep the intertia it needs to keep turning so it can run rather than bombing out all of it's inertial energy. Fiats seem to have very varied clutch positions, from some being very soft, on the borderline of slipping (the engine or gearbox's clutch plate slipping against the other plate when the clutch is fully removed) to being very agressive like the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII's clutch. Maybe they didn't use a good clutch cable which streches or contracts leading to this discrepancy?
Thank you so so much everyone!!

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