Hello Folks,

I'll keep it short - I'm at 64k miles, 4k miles away from my major service and I'm getting slightly itchy feet about the prospect of cambelt/water pump failure. The Fiat Extended Premier Warranty that I have supposedly covers this (but I haven't got full T&C's), however I'm not likely to keep the car up till the next 18,000 mile service interval, so essentially wont lose out financially by having it done early. Warranty or not, I've pretty much convinced myself to do it - can anyone see any reasoning in my logic as to why I should wait out the 4k miles? I don't trust warranties really when I don't have the full T&C's, and theres also the prospect of long term damage if something does indeed fail.

Cheers!

Mine was closer to 85k when it went. Original belt and water pump still going strong.

What are you like for the age of the car?

Hellcat said:

Mine was closer to 85k when it went. Original belt and water pump still going strong.

What are you like for the age of the car?

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Hey Hellcat,

'Went' as in failed sorry, or changed without failure?

'Jean' was 4 in May just gone.

He probably means when he sold it.

And the general opinion is that you're right about changin the belt at 60K miles.. that's what the garage boss at my fiat dealership told me to do. (I'm not paranoid so I'm waiting a bit longer)

FWIW I had ours changed first at 72k miles (ie one service before Fiat recommended it, which is a staggering 90k). Water pump on removal was "fine".

Its due its second later this year

Andysan said:

Hey Hellcat,

'Went' as in failed sorry, or changed without failure?

'Jean' was 4 in May just gone.

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Tad-bravo said:

He probably means when he sold it.

And the general opinion is that you're right about changin the belt at 60K miles.. that's what the garage boss at my fiat dealership told me to do. (I'm not paranoid so I'm waiting a bit longer)

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Ooops yes my bad

Went as in left my ownership. Engine was running great at the time.

Get it done now. If you're gonna spend the money then you might aswell spend it & get some use out of the new belt/pump rather than do it & sell it soon after.

The waterpumps don't seem to fail quite as readily as those on the Alfa 147 with the same engine, but some people have had them go at less than 60,000 miles on Bravos and from 40,000 miles on 147s & i think Fiat is being very optimistic setting the official interval at 90,000 miles. I like to get my money's worth outta something but even i'd chicken out at about 65,000 given the history of Fiats waterpumps.

Definately change it. For the sake of 4000 miles it's a no brainer.

mines up on 79k atm still original pump and belt coming up to 5 yr old september too
so when it gets its 90k/5 yr service i may do it but personally i dont like spending money on the car unless i have too lol

Thanks for the replies all.

I had been considering replacing the Bravo for a while now so in actual fact ended up holding off a bit (not wanting to shell out for the work and then sell the car a month later). I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that (as I can't find anything that's a more complete package - bloody Bravo, why couldn't it be rubbish ) I will be having the work done and keeping it a bit longer to recoup some of the cost.

Uncle Arnie has quoted me a whopping £570 for the cambelt, water pump and is refusing to budge so I'm currently obtaining quotes from alternative sources. One thing had crossed my mind - it's no longer necessary to have the car serviced with the dealer in order to not void the extended warranty - I think some garages tried to play that card a few years back but it's pretty much considered to be draconian now right? I also don't know how easy is it to reset the service countdown - will Fiat do this for a fee if I go elsewhere?

Andy -You should be able to get a much better price than you've been quoted .
Dont worry about resetting the reminder , it goes off after a while anyway.

consider getting quotes from alfa independents in your area as well, as the 1.9 150 is pretty much the same as in the 147, 156 , GT and 159. They should be able to reset the service light as well

850kd said:

Andy -You should be able to get a much better price than you've been quoted .
Dont worry about resetting the reminder , it goes off after a while anyway.

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I just got mine done at 90K. Lucky escape as there was a piece missing out the belt. Got quoted £280 all in at main dealer, but got it done by local garage

Andy if you are selling next year you could use the change as a selling point to give the buyer peice of mind

Thanks for the replies all.

Yeah, should have mentioned that the quoted price was for a big service also, so not too bad. In the end i had about twenty miles left before it would have been past the quoted mileage as i didnt get my finger out. All good now however.