Hi all,

Just got hold of an '02 1.6 Stilo 3dr, and I must say, I'm very impressed.

I got it quite cheap, as it needs a few bits and pieces doing to it, and a fair bit of tidying up.

Anywho, I'm 43, and until last November, I worked in a brewery, but had to leave due to a recurring injury. So I'm currently doing a bit of freelance IT work, whilst looking for something a bit more permanent.
I live in Keighley, unfortunately, but grew up in Huddersfield, so I can be forgiven.

I'll be scavenging for parts and info, and when I've cleaned it up a bit, I'll get some pics up.

Cheers.

'ow do indeed!

welcome to the club. I too was very pleasently surprised with my Stilo when i got it. Brilliant car (mines the 1.9 JTD Sporting). You seem to get a lot of car for the money.

Im Huddersfield based, work in IT myself and love tinkering with the cars, which is a good thing since i bougth a Fiat!! nah, mines been tip top so far.

Hi,
A big warm welcome from sunny St.Helens Your at the right place to sort out your niggles. . . . We've all had them or got them ! alsimmo

Hello and welcome

Another JTD owner here and yes, the Stilo is a great car. My dad brought me mine about 2 years ago and i still love it. I even had a new engine fitted when my old crankshaft had problems! I live in Barnsley so not too far from you!

Phil

Thanks all.

Ok, sorted the first problem; the CD changer wasn't working, so I took it out and opened it up. There were three shredded CDs in there, so I removed the bits, and stripped the mech down.
Unfortunately, a piece of broken CD had cut through one of the ribbon cables, and the rest of the mechanism was so badly bent that I just binned the whole unit.
Problem solved!

I should point out, by the way, that I am City & Guilds qualified electronics engineer, and before I got bored and joined the brewery, I was a repair guy for about 15 years.

Sooooo, anybody got a spare CD changer they don't want?

Hi, Welcome to the FF.

Shame you binned it, an electronic engineer would have been able to repair the ribbon cable, and the normal problem with the mechanism is the carriage alignment posts go out of line. I posted some repair information in post #6 of this thead a few years ago. https://www.fiatforum.com/stilo/288531-cd-changer-help.html
.

The ribbon was shredded, and it would have entailed hard wiring between the two sockets. Not impossible, and certainly within my ability, however, with the bent mechanism, totally pointless.
You can never straighten a bent frame perfectly, and this will lead to timing problems, which will, eventually, cause the mechanism to jam or fail.

I used to work on Kenwood ICE, and we tried many times to straighten bent mechs, all of which failed. My 'specialty' used to be the MASK units, anybody remember them? They were lovely units to work on. [/sarcasm]

Bring back Minidisc, they were great.

Bring back 8 track players.

Hmmmm, trouble is, you would need a huge boot just to carry a decent selection of cartridges!

No space left in the boot, the Pye Westminister radio telephone is in there.
.

Wasn't that an optional extra on the Stilo?

Welcome, visfix. The Stilo is an under-rated gem of a car, and we'll help with any problems.

Hello visfix and welcome to Stilo ownership and the FF

Hello visfix welcome to the forums, I'm from Huddersfield too

Cheers, me dears.

Seems to be quite a few Hudds types on here, you are obviously gentlemen of great taste!

Welcome - while you and I might not have a lot in common and we are on opposite sides of the world, we both see the value of the Stilo

I used to have a Stilo Abarth when they were three years old - it was the most expensive car I've ever bought, about twelve thousand in British money - and I remember feeling that it was a little compromised compared to my Alfa 164 that I'd replaced - but it was a good all-rounder. I sold it after less than two years as I didn't want to lose too much of its value (I lost about $4000).

Last year I had a FIAT 500 (another expensive purchase) in a fairly basic Sport spec, and I ended up deciding that it wasn't really that much of a car - and again, the loss of value was frustrating.

So in November I bought a Stilo Abarth for just $4000 (and sold the 500 for $20000), and I think I've got great value though there are a few things I'd like to do. This week I made a start on replacing the clutch - got all the parts and tidied the garage... Because mine's a Selespeed, the worn clutch manifests itself as poor clutch control most of the time, with much riding of the clutch in first and reverse, some bunnyhopping in 2nd, and a rather abrupt gearchange into most gears.

About the CD changer, I suggest one of those XcarLink or Loudlink things - or get a double-DIN adapter and fit an up-to-date head unit. It's time to move on from CDs... it must be terrible having only a few dozen tracks on offer when you could instead have many thousands of tracks (I use a 160GB iPod with only about 30GB of music).

I have a Chinese head unit made especially for the Stilo - review to come shortly.

Cheers,
-Alex