Hi everyone, just bought a 2000 X Seicento Sporting, Car has done 39k Miles and I pick it up from the garage on Saturday. Body work is mint and engine looks fine, no leaks or anything visible.

There were a couple of minor things, the sunroof is rusting were the black paint meets the rubber seal so they are going to rub it down and prime it for us, is this a common problem on older cars? So if if becomes a pain in the ar$e can you replace it easily/cheaply.

The other thing is I have no idea when the timing belt should be changed, so was hoping you could shed some light on that as well.

And the last thing is were is the best place to get bits and bobs such as lowering springs, back boxes etc etc.

Cheers in advance.

Marc

Boyakasha said:

There were a couple of minor things, the sunroof is rusting were the black paint meets the rubber seal so they are going to rub it down and prime it for us, is this a common problem on older cars? So if if becomes a pain in the ar$e can you replace it easily/cheaply.

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Err...the roof is galvanised, so you shouldn't have a rust problem if its a factory fitted sunroof.....

It's not the roof, it's the thin black strip of paint around the edge of sunroof on the glass before the black rubber surround.

is it removable? I dont know the cars, but if you can pull of what is rusting and replace it, I would

As for timing belt, your ok for a bit. Most people change about 55-60, a lot of people think timing belts suddenly snap at 60k, truth is they can do it any time, but after 60k the risk rises more.

Boyakasha said:

The other thing is I have no idea when the timing belt should be changed, so was hoping you could shed some light on that as well.

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I think the recommended intervals are 5 years or 60k whichever comes first

the sunroof does rust on sei's, mine did too.. Never did anything about mine tbh but the sunroof is removeable although i never tried so can't tell you exactly how.. If they are rubbing it down and painting it for you i shouldn't worry about it to much, if it comes back easy to rub down again and paint, replacing with a new one is pointless IMO as it'll rust too.

Timing belt should be fine for now but its a half hour job to do yourself if you wanna change it for piece of mind, if oyu do get an alternator belt to, might as well as you haver to take it off to get to cambelt

there ain't really a best place for all that stuff, you just gotta shop around and find the best price you can at the time, lots of bits pop up on ebay, keep eye on classified on here (something many people don't seem to do and there are many a bargin to be had).

Lastly, go get yourself a haynes, you need to get a cinquercento one as haynes never did one for the Sei as they are so similar, being a 2000 model you could have either a spi or a mpi sei, still get a cinq haynes but theres more differences on the mpi than the spi which is basically the same but in a curvier body

Great, thanks for all the advice.

Looking forward to this little project.

I would change the belt for peace of mind as despite the low mileage, things like that still age over time and your car is 6/7 years old so well over the original factory recommended limit.

Lowering springs and that are well covered on here, have a search, ebay, and fastfiat.com are good for things like that

check here
https://www.fiatforum.com/cinquecento-seicento-faqs/
and you can find the servicing intervals
https://www.fiatforum.com/cinquecento-seicento-faqs/94734-servicing-intervals.html

Brilliant, I should use the search more. I have a couple of other cars and I'm on forums for those and I know that folk get annoyed with the same questions over and over again

Roll on Saturday

Boyakasha said:

I have a couple of other cars and I'm on forums for those and I know that folk get annoyed with the same questions over and over again

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So long as we dont see 'can you fit a 1242/1368/ turbo engine in a sei' without consulting the FAQ's first then itll be ok

when was it last serviced? i would be tempted to do a mini service on it as well i.e. plugs filters etc

Agree with that, good practice on any new car purchased to do a service.

Oil and filter
check air filter
check plugs and leads

the usual stuff

No danger on engine transplant. I'll leave the major modding to the other car.

The garage is going to do a service but I'm going to check everything and change the belts over and check the sparkies.