Looks like it will be cold finger time as the annual service is coming up, I nearly fell over yesterday after being quoted £494,94 for a service and cambelt change. I was expecting something closer to £350.
Not exactly sure if its unreasonable but the full inspection II service quote on my BMW 5 series was £405. (The dealership and service is without a doubt in a different class to the Fiat one before anyone thinks Fiat should be paid the same)


Not really an issue as I have serviced all our cars so far with no problems but due to a number of reasons I would have been tempted to get it done at a reasonable price.

Will get the parts from Fiat and will probably do the tensioner and water pump at the same time. Will update with prices nearer the time.

Yep, I have just been quoted £346.50 to replace the front discs and pads on a 1.4 Dynamic. You gotta love 'em................

£162 for plugs, oil and air filters, waterpump and full cambelt kit.

just oil and coolant to get and maybe the pollen filter if there is one. (not had a look yet)

Just bought from local dealer: cambelt kit @ £53.68, water pump @ £58.63, 3 ltrs Pariflu coolant @ £22.68.
Total incl VAT £134.99.
Your price of £162 means you paid only £27.01 for the oil and air filters, plus a set of plugs, which seems a really good deal. Be interested in what you paid for pump and camkit.

Its very similar to yours from memory. I didnt take the paraflu from the dealer as I seem to remember it was about double the price of anywhere else when I did the panda last year.

Did the air/oil/plugs today, I struggled with the sump plug (partially because my 'professional quality' Clarke jack has expired and MachineMart cant supply me with an o-ring) because of the shape of the sump.
It doesnt allow the socket to sit on the plug,17mm, squarely. Luckily I had a hex drive socket which helped alot. The fact it was a deep socket and I was working at a silly angle didnt though.

A few other things I found:
- the dealer who did the last plug change (or the factory before them) had pinched the seal on #4 coil. The plug and the metal strip running down the side of the coil were corroded. Wonder how long it will go until it fails?

- a sweet wrapper and quite alot of salt stain in the airbox.

- The date on the driveshaft I saw was 26/1/06, this shows they must have really pushed this car through the system as it was the first facelift car and registered in the UK by the press office on the 22/2/06.

MOT tomorrow and then onto the belt when it is less windy and wet.

just checked and i paid exactly the same for the belt and pump.

Just preparing mine for belt and water pump change. On checking current settings I am a bit concerned that the cam belt tensioner is (from factory) set on maximum tension - it hasn't been backed off to correct alignment. Now I wonder if I should set the new one at maximum????? Will probably tackle it over the weekend, but any comments most welcome !!!!!!!!!!!! ps. I have owned the car from new and it's done about 27k miles, so it hasn't, as far as I know, been tampered with. All servicing done at main dealer.

Are you marking pulleys and counting teeth to make sure the timing stays correct? thats how i am planning on doing it as there looks to be a reasonable amount of room.

i havent looked any further other than thinking the aux belt pulley should come off without changing any adjusters and I also havent found an air bleed at the top of the coolant system. (i have found the one on the top of the rad)

not sure of the format for the tensioner but will be trying to return it to a very similar state that I find.

might have a crack on sunday but havent got any time this week to sort out any problems so it may wait until next weekend.

Aux belt has tensioner which you just flex to using 13m spanner to remove /replace.
Have you read any instructions or information for doing cam belt? If not, I could email you some details from my disc so you can see what is required. I strongly recommend you gen up on this before you embark on the adventure. If you are a competent mechanic, I apologise for the "sucking eggs" tone of this post.

Change of plan - not doing cambelt and water pump this week due to family committments. If you do yours Ivantate, perhaps you could let us know how you got on? One of my relatives who is in the trade at a Toyota dealership and who has excellent workshop facilities has offered his experience to do the job, and as he has access to special tools, I am seriously considering taking him up on the offer. Will keep you posted.

Family stuff this weekend for me too although I did get the cams back in my Triumph Tiger.

i think I am reasonably competent if not especially experienced its just getting the car to sit still for long enough to it. Will pm you for details of the disc as I am a sucker for torque settings and also getting things together as they should be. Probably worth me getting one as i am sure there will be something else to fix at some point.

not sure if your mate will have the locking tools for the fiat engine as they are unique but he will have the confidence to get stuck in and to set the belt tension. I am still planning on marking belts and hoping the timing will be correct afterwards, fortunately theres no fuel pump.

Hi
Rcd your pm and attempted to reply but think I made a mess of it, so have emailed you direct.

Finally did the belt at the weekend, thanks to TipoUno for the information and CD.

It took about 3.5hrs with doing the waterpump as well and generally access was fairly easy. Just 1 engine mount bolt needed a very low profile ratchet to get it out.

My tensioner wasnt at max and had an quality inspectors ink mark across it when in the central position to show it was checked.

I ending up doing it the quick way leaving the airbox and rocker cover in place and not loosening the cambelt pulley. 2 marks on each pulley and the old belt and then put matching marks on the new belt and line them up. This bit was strange as the new belt was about half a tooth shorter, even after refitting the old belt to check if the pulleys had moved, they hadnt. The old belt definately hadnt stretched (that much) so I guess it was the surface finish on the rubber or it not pulling correctly into the teeth of the pulley. Anyway it went on with the marks aligned and then I set the tensioner. At max and rotate the engine through a few revolutions and then loosen it off to the mark.

This is were the locking tools would have been useful as you can tension against them, in the end I set the tensioner and made sure the mean position was around the central mark when rotating the engine for a number of turns. This I did quite a few times to be certain because when rotating the engine as it went onto compression or as the cams slipped off a lobe the tension on the pulley changed quite dramatically. Also I guess Fiat have a tool to hold the tensioner while tightening it.


A surprise with the water pump was that it didnt come with any form of o-ring seal and the new pump had a far larger impellor than the old one, still it fitted in the hole and must have worked as even in a 20C ambient at idle the car wouldnt heat up enough to kick the fan in. The original pump had masses of sealer thrown at it, I was a bit more careful not to fitted the pump cavity quite so badly.


Its been running for a few days now so no massive disasters yet and doesnt appear to be any better or worse timing wise so the belt couldnt have been much different despite initially appearing shorter. As usual the fuel usage will be monitored but I dont expect anything to change dramically.

I am also pretty sure the original pump would have been fine for another belt having looked at it but at 5 years old its a small part of the overall costs per year to make sure the seals are fresh.