Wagon is well worth its weight

THE 500L Wagon is a fairly hefty piece of kit, although you probably wouldn’t guess at that given the engine choice on offer.

Opening proceedings is a 95bhp 1.4-litre petrol powerplant, while there’s also a 120bhp 1.4-litre T-Jet petrol unit.

However, most customers will want one of the two Multijet diesels. There’s a 95bhp 1.3-litre unit, which can also be ordered in semi-automatic ‘Dualogic form. Or a 120bhp 1.6-litre diesel powerplant.

As for day-to-day running costs, the 1.3 diesel manages 68.9mpg on the combined cycle and puts out 107g/km of CO2, figures you can further improve to 70.6mpg and 105g/km by opting to pair this engine with the Dualogic automatic gearbox.

The bigger oil burner manages 67.3mpg and 112g/km of CO2.

By far the least economical unit on offer, the 95bhp petrol unit, will only return 46.3mpg on the combined cycle and 143g/km of CO2.

Servicing will see petrol units visit the garage every 18,000 miles, but you can stretch that to 21,000 miles if you opt for one of the diesels.

Measuring just over 14ft, the Wagon is almost exactly the length of a Ford Focus and it’s a good deal taller to boot. The Fiat is a little narrower, though, which will help when slotting into parking spaces or squeezing through width restrictions.

The cabin can nominally seat seven, but it’s best to think of it as an occasional “5 + 2-seater” MPV.

Fiat quotes a luggage volume of 638-litres but that’s with the two rear seats folded. Of course, for many buyers that’s the form they’ll drive the car in most of the time and they can pack a lot of gear in.

Yet if you plan to use it to collect a bunch of kids from school, luggage space reduces drastically.

There’s 560-litres of luggage space when the second row is slid back to its furthest extent and, when all seven seats are in place, there’s a paltry 168-litres of room.

However, the seat action is easy to use with one-handed folding and sliding mechanisms.

Another thing you will like about the 500L Wagon is the price Fiat is asking for it.

Rather than going head to head with the heavy hitters of this sector, Fiat has aggressively undercut the established players.

So you can expect to pay around £1,500 less than you’d fork out for a Ford C-MAX, the 500L Wagon squaring up more directly to something like a Kia Carens. Budget from around the £17,000 mark.