AutoUtility currently tracks 2 official NHTSA owner defect complaints for the 2016 Fiat 500L. Powertrain & Transmission issues are the most frequently reported category, appearing in 2 complaints (100% of submitted records). Zero crashes, fires, injury reports, or fatality reports are cited across these complaint records.

Key Problem Findings
  • Total NHTSA Complaints: 2 reports
  • #1 Reported Problem Area: Powertrain & Transmission (2 reports • 100% of submitted complaints)
  • Crash-Citing Complaints: 0 filings
  • Fire-Citing Complaints: 0 filings
  • Complaints Reporting Injuries / Fatalities: 0 injury filings • 0 fatality filings
Reporting Methodology: Statistics describe unverified consumer submissions voluntarily filed with NHTSA. Complaint volume is not normalized for vehicle sales volume or miles driven. Multiple components can be cited within a single owner complaint submission.
Total Complaints
2
Submitted to NHTSA ODI
Crash-Citing Complaints
0
Filings citing a collision
Fire-Citing Complaints
0
Filings citing smoke or fire
Complaints Reporting Injuries
0
Filings citing one or more injuries
Complaints Reporting Fatalities
0
Consumer filings citing fatalities

Most Reported Problems for 2016 Fiat 500L

Top automotive subsystem defect categories ranked by unique owner complaint volume in federal records

#1 Problem Area 100% of complaints

Powertrain & Transmission

2 owner complaints submitted to NHTSA ODI
✓ 0 crashes or fires cited
Domain Share Note: Share percentage represents the proportion of unique complaint filings referencing each vehicle system. Because single complaints may cite multiple systems (such as engine and electrical simultaneously), domain percentages represent individual category incidence and may sum to over 100%.

Recent NHTSA Owner Reports for 2016 Fiat 500L

Representative defect filings submitted by owners to the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation

Powertrain & Transmission NHTSA ODI ID: #11543051
Filed: 09/06/2023

"When you start up the car for the first time and began to drive it won't shift out of first gear for several blocks. The transmission strains to shift into 2nd. The transmission overall takes a while to get up to speed on the the expressways, it's hard to enter at the prevailing speed. Also, the..."

Incident Date: 06/20/2018 • Raw NHTSA Component: POWER TRAIN
Powertrain & Transmission NHTSA ODI ID: #11296855
Filed: 01/03/2020

"THE ISSUE LOOKS SIMILAR TO FIAT 500L 2014 RECALL FOR TRANSMISSION SOFTWARE. THE PROBLEM HAPPENS WHILE DRIVING FOR THE FIRST TIME OF THE DAY. THE AUTOMATIC GEAR DOESN'T SHIFTS EVEN IF THE SPEED GOES HIGHER. IT TAKE ALMOST A MILE OR 2 FOR THE TRANSMISSION TO FUNCTION PROPERLY. I HAVE REQUESTED FOR AN..."

Incident Date: 09/01/2019 • Raw NHTSA Component: POWER TRAIN
Consumer Narrative Notice: Excerpts are sanitized text descriptions submitted by vehicle owners to the federal ODI database. They reflect the reporting consumer's observations at the time of filing and have not been independently confirmed by vehicle manufacturers or government investigators.

Complaint History for Fiat 500L

Reported defect complaint volume across sibling model years (2015–2020)

Model Year NHTSA Complaints Crash Reports Safety Recalls Detailed Report
2015 Fiat 500L 23 0 2 View 2015 Problems →
2016 Fiat 500L Current Page 2 0 0 Current
2017 Fiat 500L 1 0 0 View 2017 Problems →
2018 Fiat 500L 0 0 0 View 2018 Problems →
2019 Fiat 500L 0 0 0 View 2019 Problems →
2020 Fiat 500L 0 0 0 View 2020 Problems →
Comparative Disclaimer: Complaint totals are unadjusted historical counts and are not normalized for vehicles sold, active fleet size, or total road mileage. Newer model years naturally have had less calendar exposure time to accumulate owner filings.

Detailed NHTSA Component Breakdown for 2016 Fiat 500L

Complete distribution of consumer defect reports across all 1 granular NHTSA system and subsystem classifications

Vehicle Component / System Total Complaints Crash Reports Fire Reports Reported Injury Entries Reported Fatality Entries
Powertrain NHTSA category: POWER TRAIN 2 0 0 0 0
Data Attribution & Reporting Methodology: Complaints are unverified voluntary submissions to the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI). Because multiple vehicle components can be cited within a single owner complaint submission, component-level rollups may sum to more than the unique complaint count (2). Injury and fatality entries in the detailed table reflect raw values entered by reporting consumers across individual submissions; they are not deduplicated casualty statistics and may include duplicate or unverified entries. Complaint volume is not normalized for sales volume or vehicle mileage and does not represent an audited component failure rate.
Official US Government Data Provenance

The complaint records on this page are retrieved directly from the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) public database.

Local Production Store Compiled: August 2026 • Deterministic Audited Dataset • Zero Dynamic External API Runtime Latency.