jackwhoo said:

Has your engine suffered any damage due to the incorrect oil?

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^^ yeah that?

Seems mad to employ a lawyer to challenge a company like fiat on the question of if a car is euro 5 v euro 6, I’m guessing that fiat won’t be picking your legal bill.

Also I’ve run cars in the past for 20k miles, shoved any old oil in etc, in this day and age it’s not uncommon for something like oil and coolant to mix if a water to oil cooler breaks. We don’t tend to see catastrophic engine damage. I know someone who drove an 1.8 Toyota vvti (celiac) about 2000 miles with the oil light on (no oil pressure) before it eventually over heated, it was the over heating that caused the head gasket to warp and damaged the head but the engine hadn’t seized just got overly toasty.


I’d aghast that fiat would change the engine or car for something so minor, fiat could just speak to their engineers who say the oil used is acceptable and in spec just not the most recommended.

Seems like a very expensive argument to take up when you pay a lot for a lawyer and Fiat could end up giving you a Amazon voucher as a good will gesture.

Also if you’ve had the car all these years can you categorically prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that no one else has ever used the wrong oil in the car. Can you show damage that can be directly blamed upon a slightly different grade of oil compared to another.

As cars get older and wear it’s usual practice to increase the viscosity anyway to help aid compression

jackwhoo said:

They just didn't use the correct spec oil when servicing your car.

Nothing in your attachements in writing from fiat saying it is ok to use the oil that was used , the garage could just be making that up.

Has your engine suffered any damage due to the incorrect oil?

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I actually don't know about my engine is healthy or not. But the user guide says "The use of products with specifications other than those indicated above could cause damage to the engine not covered by the warranty"

Could cause means maybe damaged or maybe not.

But not incorrect spec oil only, they used incorrect viscosity 5W-40 instead of 0W-30 and viscosity is important to twinair engine cuz valve tappets of the engine works with the pressure of oil and viscosity is critical for pressure.

I will ask for an expert review from the judge so that the malfunction in the engine can be detected.

The car was built in 2013.
You have owned the car for 6 months.
There is no fault evident with the engine.
Complaining about how it was serviced during it's first 6 years before you bought it.
The manufacturers warrantee expired years ago.
You may have warrantee from the dealer you bought it from-if you bought from a dealer.

Having the correct spec oil put in is a good idea(viscosity is part of the spec)

You definately need to establish your legal position before taking this further.


On a side note if there was a problem with the engine it should be readily evident , as it only has two cylinders any loss of power in 1 cylinder is a big change.

MahmutGirginer said:

the user guide says "The use of products with specifications other than those indicated above could cause damage to the engine not covered by the warranty"

Could cause means maybe damaged or maybe not.

But not incorrect spec oil only, they used incorrect viscosity 5W-40 instead of 0W-30 and viscosity is important to twinair engine cuz valve tappets of the engine works with the pressure of oil and viscosity is critical for pressure.

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The Specifications of the oil predominantly are the Acea C2 and the viscosity while part of what fiat have specified can be open to interpretation and that can change depending on the country.

With the argument here being that 5w-40 would be the appropriate oil for a Euro 5 engine then the argument would go that when the car was build no car was build in 2013 as a Euro6 car, as at that time the rules on euro6 had not been finalised and where not made law till September 2015.

So from that perspective while you could say the car conforms to the specifications of euro6 this is known now, it would not have been ‘known’ 100% when the car was build in 2013, the rule could have been changed in 2014 before they came into law and your car definitely would not have been a euro6 car at that time.

So the euro5 or euro6 engine is exactly the same engine, there is likely no mechanical difference.

What fiat have more than likely done is when the Euro6 rule were finally decided they recommended using a thinner oil in the engine to reduce the drag on the engine components and help get better fuel economy/improved co2 emissions.

But if you live in a hot climate, hotter climates mean thinner engine viscosity especially when cold, therefore having a thicker oil may offer more protection to the engine especially when cold and some people in hot countries or climates will put a thicker oil in a car in hot weather and then do an oil change just before winter to a thinner oil.

To be fair 5w40 or 0w-30 will offer a similar range of protection -30’c and +30’c its only once you get hotter, or colder that the effectiveness of the oil will wear off, and the thinner 0w-30 oil is the one that will become less effective once you get above 30’c, so if you regularly get temperature above 30’c and you’ve had someone putting 5w’40 in, then they have probably been doing you a favour.

I clearly missed the bit where you’d said you’d only had the car a few months so you’ve got no way of knowing if its always had one oil or another put in it, you’ve got no way of knowing how previous owners have driven it, you’ve got 100k on the clock which is going to come with a certain amount of wear and tear (which again a thicker oil might be more beneficial)

1. Why are you getting so worked up about 5W-40 being used in place of 0w-30, if you want an exact oil to be used, make sure that oil is in the car and then enjoy the car.

2. You have not said there are any problems with the car or the engine, its working and you don’t know of any damage, again why are you getting so worked up if the car is working properly.

3. You are taking this down a legal route, lawyers, judges, engineers inspections, these things cost a lot of money, and unless you think there is actually damage that can be directly attributed to the wrong oil being use, which as I keep saying he two grades of oil are very similar and could be used in place of one another depending if the climate was hotter or colder, then you’re going to pay out a lot of money and for what ?

Fiat are not going to change your engine this far out of warranty for the wrong oil being used but no damage being caused, they would likely argue as I have that the car was built in a euro5 period and therefore the oil is acceptable, they are also likely to claim any damage is wear and tear, can’t be ruled out to be caused by the way the car has been driven or used over the years, honestly with that sort of mileage its likely things will break and fail anyway.

They are also not going to give you a new car, to replace an 8 year old car, because of one instance you can maybe prove of the wrong oil being used.

Finally while you could argue the wrong oil has been used and demand compensation, the best you’re likely to get is a sorry and an amazon voucher, but then next time they use thinner oil, you live in a place with higher temperature, you’re actually wearing your engine out quicker anyway and through no fault of your own stubbornness

So you spend a fortune arguing about an old car for the sake of a few bucks compensation and quicker engine wear.......

Honestly I think you’re picking a fight which is both pointless and expensive.

You said "no car was build in 2013 as a Euro6 car" but i attached two piece of screenshoots about 500L Trekking (my car is trekking MPW also). You can read full passage from here;
https://www.media.stellantis.com/uk-en/fiat/press/fiat-500l-trekking-the-500-gets-tough

The passage says " available in September ". So, the date of manufacture of my car is 10/2013.

It's clear that my car is EURO 6. But i have a link for you to clear the situation;

https://www.automoto.it/catalogo/fiat/500l/09-twinair-105-cv-trekking/63822

This was part 1 that we clarify that the engine type is EURO 6.

Part 2;

You told all about technical thinks like hot or cold temperature etc..

To be honest, I am not interested in any of this. Because I prefer to refer to legal documents. In this context, i asked to Fiat Turkey;
if they had a legal document that would override the user guide.
In the answer given, they said that there was no such document and that they made the decisions according to Zkart. (I have no idea what Zkart is and what kind of authority do they that make invalid the user guide written by the manufacturer.)

Part 3;

You said "no way of knowing if its always had one oil or another put in it"

I have all the service records 20K, 40K, 60K, 80K. The vehicle was sold to the first owner(A Woman) in 02/2014. So, the vehicle has warranty until 02/2017. The first two maintenances (20K,40K) have been made by the authorized service due to the warranty rules. The other two maintenances were optionally carried out at the authorized service.

The history of the my vehicle is clear enough but it's not important i think. Because I question the faulty maintenance performed in the authorized service, not the maintenance performed elsewhere.

Final Part;

It can be a dream that my car will be replaced with a new one. I accept this. But at least they can maintain 100K for free and provide an extra warranty for possible future engine malfunctions.

As a result;
They called me today and said " we accept the wrong maintenance and we invite you to talk and solve the problem "

So, consumer rights legislation in Turkey has always taken decisions in favor of the users or citizens even if against big companies. There are many precedents on this topic. Fiat turkey knows this very well and They do not want their corporate identity to be harmed by such lawsuits.

On the other hand, it's not just my vehicle with the wrong oil used. I think they have used the wrong oil in all 0.9 Twinair vehicles sold for the same model year as my vehicle. I have one more car that I will show as evidence for this. (I found it from fiat turkey users platform like this platform)

After the meeting I will make with fiat, we will see what gains I will or will not be able to achieve.

MahmutGirginer said:

Yo
Part 2;

You told all about technical thinks like hot or cold temperature etc..

To be honest, I am not interested in any of this. Because I prefer to refer to legal documents. In this context, i asked to Fiat Turkey;
if they had a legal document that would override the user guide.
In the answer given, they said that there was no such document and that they made the decisions according to Zkart. (I have no idea what Zkart is and what kind of authority do they that make invalid the user guide written by the manufacturer.)

Part 3;

You said "no way of knowing if its always had one oil or another put in it"

I have all the service records 20K, 40K, 60K, 80K. The vehicle was sold to the first owner(A Woman) in 02/2014. So, the vehicle has warranty until 02/2017. The first two maintenances (20K,40K) have been made by the authorized service due to the warranty rules. The other two maintenances were optionally carried out at the authorized service.

The history of the my vehicle is clear enough but it's not important i think. Because I question the faulty maintenance performed in the authorized service, not the maintenance performed elsewhere.

Final Part;

It can be a dream that my car will be replaced with a new one. I accept this. But at least they can maintain 100K for free and provide an extra warranty for possible future engine malfunctions.

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Ok so assuming your car Euro6, they put a 5w-40 weight oil in the car, which won’t cause any damage it is slightly (only very slightly) higher viscosity but as you’re not interested in common sense and you’ve got yourself all worked up about the manual we’ll forget trying reason or explain.

Ultimately the goal was to try and explain the situation to you to save you racking up a huge legal bill as you were talking about judges and lawyers and engineer reports.

As I see it you do not have any “legal” document you have a hand book with a recommendation of the oil that should be used and a warning not to deviate from this, for the purposes of maintaining the warranty which has long since expired.

So you have a car with a service record and you’ve only owned it a few months. You can refer to the service record and make an assumption that the correct oil has been used, (but you can’t say for sure unless you you have a document showing what oil was used) you don’t have any way of knowing if the previous other had topped the oil up at any point without using the correct oil. You can’t say that another garage hasn’t done some work on it, maybe even major engine work, after the warranty had expired, and the didn’t want this to impair the sale to a new owner so this information is not in your service book.

You only know the actual service history of the car between the day you picked it up and now, you can’t even be sure that service history is 100% correct unless someone has sat down and backed it up by referring to the service records that the garage holds, these days there are plenty of fake service records about.

So are fiat going to give you a brand new car to replace an 8 year old car that someone has used 5w40, instead of 0w30, well there is no real difference from a users perspective, so no it’s ridiculous to think they would replace the car.

There is also no likely engine damage that would result from this, any engine damage is more likely to be caused by a previous owner, bad driving, having done 100k, would fiat replace an engine for this substitution of oil, absolutely not.

Would they give you a new dealer warranty for 100k more miles or KM, well again no, the car has done 100k already, things will inevitably go wrong, so where would fiat draw the line between something failing because a slightly different oil being used and the actual failure. Would a oil seal leaking for example would be expected given the age of the car and the, at this point rubber components would start to break down and leak or fail.

If I were fiat (I’m assuming given all the fuss its a fiat dealer who have done this) if its a fiat dealer then the dealership would be responsible not Fiat themselves, in this instance, i would offer to change the oil and filter, maybe “flush the oil” and then as a good will gesture maybe offer a future service or a £50 voucher or something.

It will not have damaged the engine (regardless of the fact that you don’t care about the technicalities)
If there is any existing damage, as a dealership I would force you to prove it and i would force you to prove that damage didn’t already exist and that the wrong oil caused it, I would then simply argue its an old second hand car and you can’t prove someone hasn’t poured sand in the oil at any point in the past for all you know.

I would not give you a new car, the suggestion anyone would is hilarious.

I would not change the engine, if the engine is fine and its highly unlikely any problem with the engine would be caused then to change the engine, have some heavy handed mechanic who is now annoyed with you pull your old engine out and then put a replacement in, could actually leave you with more problems, clips and pipes broken, not put back properly, etc. Any work you do on a car will never leave it as it was when it was a new car, a replacement engine may also have a future effect on the resale price.

Yes some appropriate compensation might be offered, certainly not a 100k warranty on an already 100k 8 year old car..... at best you might get a parts only warranty.... parts are very cheap £20 for an oil shield but the labour work would likely cost hundreds and hundreds and you’d be tied to only getting hat work done at that fiat dealer, when an independent might be far cheaper.

I’m going to bow out here, because you’ve got a legal bee in your bonnet and you’re not capable of seeing sense, feel free to keep us up to date on your legal battle and how it turns out.