(T) Does yours do this too?

My GP Sporting 130 is coming up on its first 1000 miles and I'm pretty happy with it so far but there are a couple of small issues that I need to check out on the forum before I take it to the dealer to sort ("they all do that sir").

1) Accelerator pedal has about 1 cm of dead travel or slack at the idle position before the engine picks up. It doesn't sound like much but it's odd how it makes smooth gearchanges more difficult (especially downchanges).

2) The wipers 'drop' the last couple of cms to the rest position with a clunk.

Sound familiar to any other GP owners out there?

moved to 'technical' section

hmmm... the wipers would be a concern for me, i'd definantly get it checked as mine don't do it, and it sounds a bit weird! don't let them fob you off.

as for the accelerator, i think mine might do it, but i don't think it makes for clumsy gear changes, in fact i would say i was very impressed with the down changes, one of the best cars i've owned for down shifting, i.e. smoothly, not by any means the most fun to do it in though!

Mines doesnt do either,would get it checked out.

My wipers drop about half an inch, but finally realised that it is caused by the arm resting into position over the top of the rubber blade, which travels behind the arm slightly at an angle.

However about 2 months after I got the car, the passenger side wiper started to really clunk and then staopped all together - this was caused by th eItalian fitters not tightening the nut that attaches the arm to the motor enough - it had worked loose - so you could try this - you need to prise the cover out with a small screwdriver to access the nut.

my pedal does the same, the revometre doesnt even move until the pedal is quite a way down, bit strange. and my windscreen wipers work fine on the way up, but on the way down its pretty terrible how much water is still left on the windscreen. i paid £14 to have another one fitted but its worse than before.

Thanks for responses. I suspect the pedal dead travel is something I'm stuck with (though with practice I'm getting used to it) and the wiper clunking has become intermittent and may go away.

Now that the car has around 1200 miles on the clock I'm starting to push it a bit harder. It's a bit raucous when revved but the performance seems to be improving as it loosens up. My previous car (a SEAT Ibiza diesel with the 130 bhp engine) had a light accelerator pedal and I'm finding that if I take into account that the FIAT's is heavier and just give it a good shove then the performance is pretty good! Economy is so-so at around 45 mpg (I got over 50 in the SEAT even when driven quite hard) but might improve a bit when things bed in.

More generally, I'm very pleased with the fit and finish both inside and out - much improved on FIATs of old . The last one I owned was a 128 3P many years ago and it was great to drive but poorly assembled and painted and the clutch cable snapped in heavy traffic with only 10,000 miles on the clock .

No sign of the dreaded water leaks as yet - and it's had a couple of heavy thunderstorms to date - but I'll keep a close watch on that. Oh yes - and my Samsung mobile won't work with the bluetooth!

Incidentally - why do Italian cars always seem to look best when painted bright red?

i can't help with any of your problems sorry but.....

did you forget to move it?

Check fit website to see if your phone is compatible.

Yep