General 2008 Fiat Panda 1.2 MOT Failure on ball joints
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General 2008 Fiat Panda 1.2 MOT Failure on ball joints
Fiat contracted out the suspension parts to Leerdammer and the results were predictable.
http://seekpart24.com/fiat/panda-169-03/1-2-13613
You can buy Bilstein (FeBi) suspension arms, rack ends, tie rod ends, droplinks and top strut mounts. There is no reason to buy the original crappy Fiat bits.
doctorchris
Established member
Guess what?
My 2008 Panda Cross had it's MOT today at 22,000 miles and passed with flying colours.
Sorry to be so smug!
My 2008 Panda Cross had it's MOT today at 22,000 miles and passed with flying colours.
Sorry to be so smug!
How do you know FeBi aren't the OEM to Fiat?
Because on the shop4parts site OCAP are listed as the manufacturer of genuine Fiat suspension parts 
Their website looks like Tony built it on Microsoft Frontpage back in the late 90's.
http://www.ocap.it/home.asp
Oh and Bilstein don't make **** You don't become a supplier to F1 teams by making shoddy product
Their website looks like Tony built it on Microsoft Frontpage back in the late 90's.
http://www.ocap.it/home.asp
Oh and Bilstein don't make ****
You don't become a supplier to F1 teams by making shoddy product
Because on the shop4parts site OCAP are listed as the manufacturer of genuine Fiat suspension parts
Their website looks like Tony built it on Microsoft Frontpage back in the late 90's.
http://www.ocap.it/home.asp
Oh and Bilstein don't make ****
Ocap are quality assured company
Let me explain how it works with OEM contracts
The customer specifies the product and the manufacturer produces to that spec. So if the parts are not fit for purpose it may be a specification or a manufacturing issue.
My company supplies parts to OEM spec and the OEM spec is lower than our standard spec. Not crap but not as high spec.
Also we need to be see things in perspective, out of the 2 million Pandas how many as a percentage have suffered the issue with suspension wear?
Perhaps, but that still means that going to a Fiat stealer and getting OEM parts is going to probably fail again in the not too distant future.
I take on board what you mean about different specs. I used to work for a large IT company back in Australia and whilst we sold IBM, HP and Toshiba stuff, we also built out own PC's inhouse and I remember the guy in charge of that department telling us how he was talking to a taiwanese case manufacturer and you could for x amount of dollars, you could get an A grade case and power supply and the failure rate would be y% and for a few dollars less, you could get a B grade case, but the failure rate for the PSU's went up a few percent, C grade was even cheaper but again you were going to have more failures. I think the lowest grade was a D grade case and you were talking something like a 20% failure rate over 3 years.
I also agree with you that we don't know just how many Panda's and 500's are affected, but IMHO that cars are having bushes fail so early and balljoints failing MOT's so early doesn't bode well.
All said I would imagine that purchasing FeBi parts wouldn't be a bad idea due to the good reputation of Bilstein.
Again you hear but you don't understand...
You have no evidence that the FeBi stuff is a different spec! What you are stating has no evidence to support it. The only way to compare is do a controlled experiment, commenting based on a few premature failures when you dont know what has happened to cause the failure is just guessing.
I know what you're saying Rob, but certain companies tend not to make crap
Try to find a brand new Miele fridge for the price of a really crappy Beko one.
I know what you're saying Rob, but certain companies tend not to make crap
Well I have experienced crap bilstein product, I had a suspension kit in my cinq that prematurely failed after only 6months, the shock blew out...
I replaced with a Spax kit that lasted over 5 years of track and fast road driving.
Fridges, how are they relevant?
Well I'm sure not even Bilstein claim that their product is 100% reliable.
P.S How do you know that the Spax wasn't manufactured to the same spec as the Bilstein suspensiona and that the Bilstein suspension didn't just have a manufacturing fault?
because Spax is manufactued to their own uprated spec, not sold as oe replacement
that is how i know
you will never accept that you might not be right will you, this is a character flaw and i suggest you get some advice
actually dont, you would probably end up arguing with the practitioner
because Spax is manufactued to their own uprated spec, not sold as oe replacement
that is how i know
you will never accept that you might not be right will you, this is a character flaw and i suggest you get some advice
actually dont, you would probably end up arguing with the practitioner
I think we'll have to agree to disagree, you're basically trying to argue over a maybe.
We know that the Fiat OE parts are ****, that is a fact.
We don't know for sure that FeBi parts are crap.
not a fact without evidence, regardless of how many time you re-state it
So you think that balljoints and droplinks failing in such a short time is acceptable? If it were just a couple of people I could understand, but there have been a few on the 500 forum already, alfatastic got rid of his 500 because IIRC it needed pretty much everything in the front end replacing, strut tops, droplinks and wishbones.
Do you think that's indicative of quality components on a car?
So you think that balljoints and droplinks failing in such a short time is acceptable? If it were just a couple of people I could understand, but there have been a few on the 500 forum already, alfatastic got rid of his 500 because IIRC it needed pretty much everything in the front end replacing, strut tops, droplinks and wishbones.
Do you think that's indicative of quality components on a car?
have a read back through my posts again, remember only unhappy people complain
as for this topic i'm out :wave:
Kitchen too hot for you eh Rob?
Suspension parts aren't the sort of things which you should have to go on a forum and say "The balljoints on my car are fantastic! They've done 20k miles and aren't borked yet!1111111!!!!!!"
I know only unhappy people complain, but these sort of things shouldn't fail so soon in a cars life......
