Good morning everyone.

Unfortunately I am posting again to pick your brains and see if anyone can work out what might be wrong with my partners 500.

She bought it at the beginning of January and to be honest it's been a bit of a pain so far. It's already had a new steering column (fortunately done under warranty), but now appears to have another fairly major problem.

The car is a 1.2 Petrol (08 Reg). It is using LOTS of oil !! We are aware that we should be using some oil, but since the middle of January it's used in excess of 5 litres after only covering 2k ish miles.

The car was in at Fiat yesterday, but they can find no oil leaks and while it was with them did not smoke at all and was running perfectly apparently so nothing was diagnosed. When travelling home I followed my partners 500 home (approx 16 miles) and for the first 10 miles there was absolutely no smoke to be seen, then all of a sudden there was a very quick (but quite large) puff of blue smoke ..... then nothing for the rest of the journey. Almost seems as if it's having a build up of oil somewhere then it burns it off in a puff ??

Anyone have any thoughts on what could be going on ?

AdynGill said:

Good morning everyone.

Unfortunately I am posting again to pick your brains and see if anyone can work out what might be wrong with my partners 500.

She bought it at the beginning of January and to be honest it's been a bit of a pain so far. It's already had a new steering column (fortunately done under warranty), but now appears to have another fairly major problem.

The car is a 1.2 Petrol (08 Reg). It is using LOTS of oil !! We are aware that we should be using some oil, but since the middle of January it's used in excess of 5 litres after only covering 2k ish miles.

The car was in at Fiat yesterday, but they can find no oil leaks and while it was with them did not smoke at all and was running perfectly apparently so nothing was diagnosed. When travelling home I followed my partners 500 home (approx 16 miles) and for the first 10 miles there was absolutely no smoke to be seen, then all of a sudden there was a very quick (but quite large) puff of blue smoke ..... then nothing for the rest of the journey. Almost seems as if it's having a build up of oil somewhere then it burns it off in a puff ??

Anyone have any thoughts on what could be going on ?

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Blocked breather unblocking and then reblocking?

Afraid I can't offer any advice on this one, although if there's blue smoke coming out of the back then that's not good...

The oil consumption you've stated though is way, way over and above what is normal (IMO even the "normal" consumption levels stated in the handbook are generous).

I don't know if you have other options nearby, but you might want to consider trying a different Fiat dealer and seeing if they can assist. It must be very frustrating when no faults are diagnosed - it's Sod's law that the car works fine when it's in the garage!

Hope you have some luck as it is a great little car - if it works properly of course...

Take it back to the dealer

AdynGill said:

Good morning everyone.

Unfortunately I am posting again to pick your brains and see if anyone can work out what might be wrong with my partners 500.

She bought it at the beginning of January and to be honest it's been a bit of a pain so far. It's already had a new steering column (fortunately done under warranty), but now appears to have another fairly major problem.

The car is a 1.2 Petrol (08 Reg). It is using LOTS of oil !! We are aware that we should be using some oil, but since the middle of January it's used in excess of 5 litres after only covering 2k ish miles.

The car was in at Fiat yesterday, but they can find no oil leaks and while it was with them did not smoke at all and was running perfectly apparently so nothing was diagnosed. When travelling home I followed my partners 500 home (approx 16 miles) and for the first 10 miles there was absolutely no smoke to be seen, then all of a sudden there was a very quick (but quite large) puff of blue smoke ..... then nothing for the rest of the journey. Almost seems as if it's having a build up of oil somewhere then it burns it off in a puff ??

Anyone have any thoughts on what could be going on ?

Click to expand...

306maxi said:

Take it back to the dealer

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Brilliant advice Maxi - I'm sure the OP hadn't thought of that. And much more useful than actually answering his request.

306maxi said:

Take it back to the dealer

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I would agree with Maxi. On a car that I had many moons ago it was losing water and the heater wouldn't work. Lived with the problem for 2 winters looking like a gangster wearing a black hat to keep warm. Should have 'jumped up and down' with the dealer - it was a head gasket that was partially gone - it eventually went and the engine was 'finished' despite having only 79K miles on it (it was a Beamer). A lot of 1997 323i engines had this problem and were 'quickly' replaced under warranty. If you're car is in warranty and you have been religious in ensuring that the services have been done as stated and using the right oil (!) I would persist in getting to the 'bottom of it'. 1.2 by all accounts is the most reliable engine in the engine range. How many miles on it and was the oil changed every 12 months ?

As others have said, consuming 5 litres of oil in 2000 miles is indicative of a serious engine fault and needs to be rectified. If the car's been burning oil at that rate for a significant period of time, it may also have caused permanent damage to the catalytic converter, which you will likely only discover when you try to get an MOT.

If trying another FIAT dealer doesn't help, I'd consider paying to get the car independently checked out. If there is a serious fault, you may have a 'fitness for purpose' claim against the supplying dealer - but you do need to act promptly to have a reasonable chance of successfully pursuing such a claim.

Morning everyone !! Just thought i'd pop on and give you all an update on what happened ..........

When the car was at Fiat they filled up the oil and decided on performing a consumption check to make sure it was actually using the amount of oil we stated it had been.

Well after two weeks it went back into 'County Motor Works' in Chelmsford to check on the oil ..... and yes it had used up all the oil again. The car was once again checked and 'diagnosed' and once again no fault could be found on the computers or by eye. It was at this point we were told by the service manager that the car was basically 'knackered' and was probably problems with the pistons due to either the wrong oil being used or no oil changes !! As you can imagine we were pretty dis-heartened with the car and quite stressed at the thought of paying out major works on a car we'd only bought a couple of months before.

Well to cut a VERY long story short, I spoke with a friend of mine who owns his own independent garage and he said if I could get the car to him in Slough (I live in North Essex) then he'd have a look for free and see if he could see anything Fiat had missed. Couldn't really say no to this offer so went along on a weekend ......... Well what happened when I got there was to leave me 'open mouthed' ....... my mate opened the bonnet and pulled out the dipstick and mentioned there was too much pressure in the engine and instantly noticed that the breather pipe was incorrect !!!!!!! The previous owner must have changed this himself and used a piece of 'Heater Pipe' which even said "Car Heater" on the pipe in white letters !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After a quick run to Slough Fiat and £14.50 later we had a new breather pipe on and the issues were over !!!! Seems the pistons/engine were not knackered at all. After days of stressing and working out where we were going to get thousands for a rebuild it turned out to be something they should have noticed in seconds !!!!!

Since this the car hasn't used a drop of oil. I contacted County Motor Works in Chelmsford also known as AMC Fiat to let them know that I wasn't happy and that I should get my diagnosis fee back as they failed to spot such a basic problem and we've basically been told to 'do one' by the overall manager. I've been told that the breather pipe wouldn't be in their list of things to check so there's no way they'd every spot this ..... even though the pipe said "car heater" across it in white letters. The manager Ritz, who is an apparent 'engineer' even told me that it was impossible that it could have been this pipe !! .... I mentioned to him that i'd contact Fiat UK and mention on the internet the problems we've had and I was just laughed at and told me to even mention his name !! .... what an arrogant g*t !!

So for the moment that's the end of our story !! We're completely disalusioned with Fiat in Chelmsford (AMC / County Motor Works) but very very happy that we managed to get the car sorted and it now runs like a dream!!

I'm glad it's a happy ending for you. I guess you won't be using County/AMC Fiat again.

Thats great that they fixed it...I you should give your mates garage a name check. I am going to need a service soon and Slough is not a million miles away from me. Is he VAT registered?

Yeah I should mention him ..... His place is called PJ Automotive. Their number is 01753 639 259. The main man is called Jamie and certainly knows what he's talking about !!

Don't think he's VAT registered? but might be worth checking. :O)

zanes said:

Blocked breather unblocking and then reblocking?

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Well done Zanes, appears to have got it right back in april.

Hi AdynGill,

Really pleased to hear that your car is sorted, and well done to zanes as well for being a top detective!

I would 100% recommend that you take this up with Fiat Customer Services, it's not on that an official Fiat dealer has sold you a car with the wrong breather pipe.

On a positive note, at least you have found another Fiat dealer that is good which isn't a million miles away.

So he doesn't think they should check the breather pipe when oil consumption is a problem, I would say he is probably as good a engineer as my wife. And to be fair to my wife, she trains dogs so wouldn't expect her to know anything about engineering.

If you paid for the diagnosis by credit card, start a charge back request. It is will make life quite difficult for the garage as they have to proove that they did the diagnosis correctly. If they can't you get your money back, I have done it before.

Always best to try and resolve things first in a polite way as mistakes happen, but given their attitude I would just go for the best solution for you.

AdynGill said:

Yeah I should mention him .... :O)

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Great success story. And many thanks for coming back to the FF and stating the solution. JR's advice of going to an independent was correct.