Hi
Just had a test drive in Bravo 1.6 multi jet 105 manual gears. 59 reg and 41500 miles. Seems like a really nice car and I liked it a lot, the only thing was that when going from 2nd to third gear there was more often than not a crunching sound, not horribly bad but still noticeable. I have put down a small deposit to buy the car and the salesman said that the workshop will sort this out before I pick up on Tuesday. I will give it another drive before taking it away,just to check but wondered if anyone had experience or knowledge of this with other Bravos?
Cheers
PS although a newbie to the Bravo forum I have been a long time Stilo owner and have dipped into that forum from time to time.

There have been a number of posts on here about stiff/poor gear selection. Seems to be either (1) corrosion in the swivel joints on the top of the gearbox casing where the selector cables meet the gearbox or (2) corrosion within the selector cables themselves. The latter is pricey and a difficult job, so don't be fobbed off it that's the cause...

Check its not the dreaded M32 gearbox

Gazax - how would I be able to tell, and if it is, is it a reason not to buy?

BTW got a call from the garage which is selling the car to say that pick up for tomorrow is off and it will be the end of the week since they have to do a "strip down". Not sure if that's good or not!

Did a quick Google on this. Oh dear. Anyone know if the car I'm looking to buy has the m32 (59 reg 1.6 multi jet)?

As a matter of interest, what sort of mileage could be expected from a repaired m32 box?

More searching through the forum reveals that the 1.6mj runs the c530 gearbox - phew! So looks like the gearshift problems on the car I am looking at are related to the selector cable issues mentioned by Yellow Peril, which hopefully will be resolved by the dealer before I pick it up, and to be fair they seem to be being honest and up front about it and prepared to fix it. Given that it would be my intention to keep the car for at least 5 years (probably about 80 - 90k miles to add to the existing 41.5k) I suppose my question is - is there any maintenance aspect that can prevent the problem reoccurring?
Cheers and thanks for all the help so far (and I'm not even a Bravo owner yet!)

Looks like you did your own research before I could pipe up

For future reference:

1.4 - C514.6
1.4 T-Jet - M32
1.6 - C520.6
1.9 - C530.5
1.9 150 - C530.6
2.0 - F40

TBH, from what I've read, there's nothing that can be done other than spraying the **** out of the linkages with WD40 / grease, as it's the rubbers that perish and allow water to seep in, causing corrosion and stiffness. Or shelling out £100+ for new cables every time they crap themselves.

The Stilo was plagued with it, and I believe the Punto's are aswell.

I'd look at changing the gearbox oil before you look at changing gearbox cables. I changed my 1.9 150BHP gearbox oil to Redline while I was doing the timing belt, and it made a difference how the gears felt.

Email Opieoils and I'm sure they'd be happy to help you out with what gearbox oil you'd need.

Thanks for the reply. From what you say, it's just the 1.4 T Jets that have the M32 then? That's good to know since I had been toying with the idea of one of these which seem to offer great performance for the money? On the Stilo, I've had mine since new so it's over twelve years old and just over 122k, and the gearshift is still absolutely fine (can't claim that its down to my sympathetic driving style, the car got royally hammered when it was younger, and so was I!). General point though, do all of the Bravo gearboxes suffer from the same corrosion/sticky change issues?

My 1.9 150 with 75,000 on the clock is spot on, great car to drive and fingers crossed, sod all has gone wrong with it since owning it

My Bravo is a 2013 one and had 8000 miles on when I bought it. It and my Panda 100HP suffer from annoying crunching going into 3rd which is much worse when cold. I had the Panda G-B oil changed and this did improve it but I suspect a design weakness. The Bravo has now done nearly 60K and is no worse than 18 months back when I bought it. Once the box is warm it sometimes / often changes really smoothly. I am shortly going to have the box out of the Panda and have the third gear checked and the syncro changed and see if this makes any difference. Apart from this irritation both are / have been very reliable and the Bravo is amazing on fuel use averaging 64 most of the time. I hope you enjoy yours once you get it.

Hi folks
Just a quick BTW for information. Got a call from the dealer from whom I was going to buy the Bravo to say that the deal was off - seemingly it needs a new gearbox which is too costly for them to replace. Shame really seemed like a really nice car otherwise with only a couple of owners and low miles. Oh well.

Sad! Well done for noticing it though, would have been a pain trying to get them to sort it after the deal had been done.

It was probably just a synchromesh, but they didn't have the skill in house to rebuild it.

Hi guys
Back on the Bravo trail again. This time put a deposit down on 2010 1.6 multijet 120. Again seems really nice and liked it very much and will pick it up later this week when some wee jobs have been done - window regulator on front p/s and slight vibration at 60/70mph. Its got a few paint scuffs and so on but its a metallic black which doesnt hide blemishes well but overall looks very smart. It'll also get a service. But i did notice that the oil lamp was showing on the dash which the salesman said would be sorted by the service, which seemed fair enough. However, looking at the mot history online shows the oil warning light was an advisory at the mot in 2014 and 2016, and given that its showing again (still?), i wondered if anyone had any comment? Just seems a little odd that this is something that should be happening so often.
Cheers

Hi folks.
Took delivery of this car today and all seems fine. Drives really good and I think we are going to get along just fine. Only thing I wondered about was the ave mpg - on the trip home mainly motorway, bit of urban (but not much stop start stuff) and some A road, 35 miles in all came in as 41mpg, which seemed a bit disappointing (especially since a major factor in the purchase was the quoted 57 mpg). Any thoughts?
Cheers

the only way to get an accurate mpg reading is fill the tank ,note the total miles , drive normally for a few hundred miles , fill up again note the number of litres , note the total miles again. calculate how many miles you have travelled between fill ups, divide the number of miles by the number of litres this will give miles per litre. if you want miles per uk gallon divide miles per litre number by 0.22.
My multipla average mpg is reasonably accurate in united states gallons , which are different to UK gallons , there is a sticky on the multipla forum about this. A USA gallon is approximately 83% the volume of UK gallon.
Your car is much more up to date and you may be able to change units of measurement in display , fingers crossed someone else may help with this.

tessiedog said:

Hi folks.
Took delivery of this car today and all seems fine. Drives really good and I think we are going to get along just fine. Only thing I wondered about was the ave mpg - on the trip home mainly motorway, bit of urban (but not much stop start stuff) and some A road, 35 miles in all came in as 41mpg, which seemed a bit disappointing (especially since a major factor in the purchase was the quoted 57 mpg). Any thoughts?
Cheers

Click to expand...

Reset trip a average consumption and it will build up over time, if you drive like a nun and do lots of motorway miles these can average over 60mpg

Just had 20 odd mile run - A roads, not above 60mph and gentle driving produced 42.3 mpg. Hmmmm.......

tessiedog said:

Just had 20 odd mile run - A roads, not above 60mph and gentle driving produced 42.3 mpg. Hmmmm.......

Click to expand...

Did you reset the trip a data because that sounds low?