Almost home after an hour, more or less, of uninterrupted 70mph driving and the last mile is upHill, it's not a wee pretendy one, it's steep. "Ello" I thought, as it wasn't trogging upwards the way it usually does, so I dropped down a gear. Lots more revs and no real increase in forward going.....pooh, let go the throttle and then floored the thing and, yep, Houston, we have clutch slip A light throttle from then on brought us to the carpark OK, no trouble.
Hopefully, it's down to the blazingly hot weather here today and the, for this car, longish high speed run, but even so it shouldn't be happening. If it's no better tomorrow after a cool down I'll not be best pleased at this mileage. 1.2 Dynamic in it's 4th year.

It won't have anything to do with the weather you can be absolutely sure of that.

Clutches really ought to last a lot longer, but it does of course depend upon how you drive it. If you ride the clutch, sit there on hills slipping it and are not sympathetic to it, then it will wear out sooner. Depends upon driving style.

Always sympathetic to my clutches. I even sent this one flowers last year when it had a cold! Not a pedal crusher at the lights either - see my halo? - and I'd wear out the handbrake before a clutch. It does lots of short trips so in fairness the mileage is probably irrelevant (ish) but I've never lost one at such a low figure before.

Have you had the car from new? If you haven't then you can't be sure what abuse it's suffered before.

Maybe it's just Fiat engineering in that things are built to such a cost they tend to wear out sooner than perhaps one would expect of say more premium cars or other manufacturers that tend more to over engineering things like clutches?

Hard to say. If it slips tomorrow it'll only get worse, not much you can do really but bite the bullet and replace it.

Might not be a worn out friction plate, could be a problem with the cover plate or an oil leak from the gearbox input shaft or the crankshaft seal...

Good point. You could remove the cover plate to check.

I wondered about oil leakage. No chance me looking though, it'll need to be an oily handed soul. I also worry it's down to the lack of quality too, but fingers crossed it was just a bit pooped after the run and will be ok tomorrow.

Plenty of very high (well 100kish) Pandas on this site and on the original clutch

Fiat have a reputation for a lot of things, but poor clutches doesn't seem to be one of them.

I personally don't think the clutch is up to the job... along with an awful lot of parts on this car (MY car?)

At 55K and four years it seems we are replacing something every couple of weeks. Before anyone starts to comment, I (and my wife) have had many cars in our long lives which have clocked up from new 100K without needing anything other than servicing. Whether it's just this particular car, or the Panda in general, I don't know. The design is great, initial purchase price was good, economy is now better after said tuning box, insurance and tax is cheap, but this is NOT a cheap car to run long term. Too many things are wearing out which does not bode well for a long term investment, and ours will probably be replaced before the end of 2011. Usually we would expect to run a car until it was dead, but death seems to be approaching prematurely with this one......

For my sins, I have 30+ years motor trade experience, so repairs are less of a financial slap than they could be. (I still have access to full garage facilities via my son.. )
But the prospect of always having to Fix It Again Tomorrow has definitely removed any possibility of buying another Fiat - I'm getting too old to spend all my spare time attending to car problems. Sad, as several of our early cars were Fiats which used to run forever, but disintegrate bodily before the mechanicals had worn out.

True to form, I've probably ended up with runt of the litter, so for all you happy Panda owners out there, don't take it as a personal insult. I'd have been quite happy for years with our Panda if it didn't have this attention-seeking personality disorder

Oh, and yes, as mentioned earlier, our clutch slipped as soon as a little extra power was added. It's fine for now with the tuning box backed off a bit...

Can't help but agree. We bought this thing based on it's, then, economic return on fuel consumption and hoped it would last us a fair old while. So far it's going through front tyres at a ridiculous rate, considering it's annual mileage, had two sets of injectors replaced, water pump replaced, O/S link arm (?) replaced, new front disks, had the driver's door seal replaced after flooding the footwell at even the slightest sign of rain, had the steering alignment checked/reset FOUR times and it still pulls gently and steadily to the left. Nahh, can't see it lasting worth a long spit for me.
On a positive note, thoroughly enjoy the drive now I've gotten used to the stupid amount of body roll and lack of acceleration, we really like the four doors and high up position (although I've developed a Quasimodo hunch trying to see through the windscreen ) it's a near perfect city car and....the cutch is fine. No idea what happened unless it was just me trying to push it hard after the Mway run - and no, I don't for one second believe that but it's running perfectly well since. Go figure.

Pandablues said:

Nahh, can't see it lasting worth a long spit for me.

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As a counterpoint, I've now done ~60K km in my MJ and I have had no problems with it.

Tyres lasted 55K km, clutch is fine, not a single part replaced, tracking is spot on, mileage is equal or better compared to the spec (if I force myself to drive like a sane person), brake discs are still good until at least next summer according to my mechanic, not a single drop of water in the cabin even during torrential downpours.

It is by far the most reliable car I've owned, and I used to drive a Corolla!

My Panda MJ has covered 62,000 miles on its original clutch although it has suffered from clutch slip at seemingly random points from around 10K miles up to last week.

The only pattern appears to be that it only happens during either full throttle acceleration in third or when climbing a steep-ish hill.

The Beard said:

......The only pattern appears to be that it only happens during either full throttle acceleration in third or when climbing a steep-ish hill.

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Now there's a thing! After a long session in the sun yesterday I was gently reminded that late last year I'd claimed clutch slip on the same hill and that I'd come home earlier this year, ranting that the clutch had slipped while attempting to whizz past the local hospital - steepish hill and while in 3rd gear! I'd forgotten, but at the time I even went back out to road test and do some handbrake pull offs without being able to repeat the slip. Hmmm......

KozmoNaut said:

As a counterpoint, I've now done ~60K km in my MJ and I have had no problems with it.

Tyres lasted 55K km, clutch is fine, not a single part replaced, tracking is spot on, mileage is equal or better compared to the spec (if I force myself to drive like a sane person), brake discs are still good until at least next summer according to my mechanic, not a single drop of water in the cabin even during torrential downpours.

It is by far the most reliable car I've owned, and I used to drive a Corolla!

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Just goes to show, there are reliable Pandas out there somewhere.

In all seriousness, it isn't a bad car, but I just wonder thesedays with everything built to such low costs which will inevitably mean a lot less over engineering of parts as costs won't allow it. This is why some parts won't have so much built in longetivity. Things like MJ clutches are a reasonable example. Top mounts perhaps, another.

trackdayqueen said:

Just goes to show, there are reliable Pandas out there somewhere.

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Must be a fluke of some sort

I've posted something similar to this before, I think. So if I have, my apologies.

I bought my Panda MJ brand new in March '05, and as such it was one of the first on the road. I test drove it a week before launch day, complete with plastic seat covers and covered in wax.

Since then it has driven 62,000 miles with the following comments. Average fuel consumption has been circa 58 mpg which includes commuting and doing a few driving lessons in order to keep my hand in.

Total replacement parts have been:

One set of tyres, Avons bought from National on a BOGOF making it £25 each.

One pair of front wiper blades.

Two sets of front pads, the last at 61,000 miles.

One set of front anti-roll bar drop links.

And that's about it, oh, the exhaust back box is due to go in the next few months.

I think that makes a pretty reliable car.

The Beard said:

I bought my Panda MJ brand new in March '05 <snip>, since then it has driven 62,000 miles <snip>
Total replacement parts have been: <snip> few!
.

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I wish I'd bought your car and not mine....

-

My friends 54 reg Corsa was on 105,000 miles on the original clutch.

Normally it's down to the person's type of driving & not the parts.

My 100HP clutch lasted for 73k of lessons and even then, it wasn't a lack of friction material that necessitated the change:
https://www.fiatforum.com/panda/249367-100hp-clutch-replacement.html

As with all cars, there are some unlucky examples.

Thunderbug said:

My friends 54 reg Corsa was on 105,000 miles on the original clutch.

Normally it's down to the person's type of driving & not the parts.

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What, this turning into some sort of pee up the wall contest? Let's see, oh yes, my last Mini Cooper did 85,000 on the original clutch and was still going strong when I sold it on Pointless comparing other makes and models. It seems my FIAT Dynamic and at least one other in the marque have an odd tendency to slip now and again in weird circumstances and unrelated conditions - other than going uphill in 3rd gear. Good enough for me to think something's not 100% right and with no need to ponder my driving technique.