Lane 177 - Dover - to Italy with caravan for three weeks.

Press clutch pedal and ...... it won't return

All soft and then goes soft followed by rigid.

Almost certainly broken cover/pressure plate followed by thrust bearing jaming up the works.

Up at 4am back home at 9pm and three weeks shattered. Pets in lodgings etc. etc. Have just eaten (11:30pm).

Fiat won't have parts till earliest Wednesday. Do I trust Fiat parts anymore?
If the original clutch parts failed at 45,xxx miles (like my original Fiat springs which I replaced) putting expensive Fiat bits back in could be a mistake.
Do I have the expensive dual mass flywheel replaced at same time?

Anyway 5.x hours and £500 plus parts to fix. Looking at min. £1000 much much more if dual mass flywheel is replaced at same time (they are really expensive).

Most sadly my local trusted independent garage won't be able to do the job till July 4th at earliest. Family business, father, son & trusted self employed mechanics. Just my luck that this occurred during their holiday period and they are totally stretched and not able to take on major work at short notice.

Leaving out all the emotional stress os losing a long planned trip, prep time, pet housing issues etc. etc. one is left with:

1) Fiat main dealer expensive fix
2) GM dealer ???? timing/cost
3) I get parts at trade so see if all parts can be sourced OEM quickly and find a garage willing to fit them
4) as 3 but all you guys and gals decend on my location and help me do the job
5) fit a tow bar to our Barchetta .... ooops can only tow 450kg (braked) need 1000kg rating for legality
6) Fiat a tow bar to out Strada Abarth. Pulling 1000kg would be a doddle but sourcing such and old tow bar is a little more difficult from my quick research this evenin
7) Buy another Fiat car (Doblo, Brava.....) and towbar, leave Croma in PX (they can fix as cheaply as they like and pass to car auctions).

In all honesty 7) is off the agenda because like all of us here the Croma is still a cracking car ........ shame about the GM *crap fitted and Fiats inability to supply parts withing 24 hours.

A few years ago Fiat had a VOR (vehicle off road) parts service that did deliver parts within 24hours. Used to be a 3pm cut-off to next day (before 8am) delivery.

Just looking to recover ASAP our holiday (with caravan!!!!!!)

Rant over.

holiday insurance wont cover a hire car?

Never seen a hire car with 1000kg or any towbar, maybe someone has them in their offer but def not standard. I know how you feel but slow down take a deep breath. I didn't understand how much time you have plus the forum was down. In your place I would get the parts at trade and get an inexpensive independent to do the job but would stand by them since you haven't use them before. The DMF may or may not be in bad shape you won't know untill they take it off. Buy both to save time but make sure you can return it if not needed. Just FYI a clutch set here in Serbia is 140 eur, hydraulic cilinder is 200eur, DMF 300 eur and you will probably be billed 6 hours for the job @ whatever the going rate is there (here it is 12eur). So yes it is expensive, but not crazy expensive and you will have a like new car again. Remember it could be just the hydr. cilinder, the DMF and or the clutch might not be bad must take off the clutch to know for sure.

Well she is in the Fiat dealer for fixing. Saw car yesterday on lift already stripped down. They fully remove the whole subframe, track control arms etc. No a DIY job unless you are really brave, and have an assistant.

As I expected it was the cover plate diaphram spring which broke. Plate itself had plenty of meat on it but there was on the flywheel side a band about 5mm wide of wear and grease/oil contamination from the dual mass flywheel.

The technician confirm that the clutch is an early GM item and the replacement should be a later Fiat one. Same for DMF.

I wish UK labor rates were only 13 Euros. UK rate is around 80 Euros PLUS VAT @ 20%.

Garage is giving me a discount on labour and parts.

Yes I'll have a new lease of life in the car which is good. Also by deciding to get it done by my dealer I'll get full warranty on parts and labour.

My local motor factors could source all parts at trade price except for the DMF. They also tried their sources as well and nobody could get a DMF except from Fiat. When they looked at Vectra C parts they were different to those listed for the Croma. Went down the GM/Vauxhaul route a well but it looks like the Croma geaxbox/clutch/DMF are not standard Vectra C parts. Could possibly be Signum but unless I could get the gearbox code (Vectra C is N23 marked on top of gearbox/change tower) then nobody would be able to order any parts. I could be no markings on my box from top side.

With luck I'll be back down to Dover this coming Thursday ...... a week later than planned.

Just ordered a new alternator which I'll take to the garage tomorrow.

Seems silly not to replace it now whilst the whole car is up in the air and driveshafts out. Should only take 10 or 15 minutes to replace.

My battery is still the original so I suspect the current lower rated alternator must be working a lot harder keeping charge in the battery. Everybody else has had their alternator fail at around the 5 or 6 year mark (45K to 65K miles) so I see no reason why mine will not do the same. Everything else has failed to scheduled thus far

I am really shocked that the dmf and clutch are not GM ie. slightly different. Keep us updated with part numbers, cost etc. Good luck!

notorious said:

I am really shocked that the dmf and clutch are not GM ie. slightly different. Keep us updated with part numbers, cost etc. Good luck!

Click to expand...

They are GM parts - but not apparrently Vectra-C parts. The OEM part numbers for the Croma parts did not cross reference to Vectra-C parts, or so I was told.

A mute point now as Fiat original parts are being fitted all of which appear to have superceded the ones the car shipped with from the factory.

The alternator is a Lucas 140Amp job. Should arrive tomorrow and I hope I can get it to the garage in good time so it can be fitted before they put the gearbox and driveshafts back.

Hopefully after all this work has been done, together with the other work I've done I'll still be quids in (I paid £12K new instead of £18K so have a £6K expense margin) AND have a long lasting reliable car for many years to come.

I have the car back....Yipeeeee

Having got 10% off labour and 20% off some parts the final bill was a little under £1400.
This included an hours labour to fit an alternator I supplied.

Bill for 5.8 hours plus 1 hour so 6.8 hours in all.

The clutch & flywheel job actually took nearer the 7.8 hours (bearing in mind they stopped and started the job whilst waiting for parts from Fiat).

So a clutch,slave,thrust and DMF job on a Croma at £75 per hour, plus parts at a Fiat dealer will cost you £1035 + VAT = £1242

Hope the info proves useful for those who have to get a clutch & DMF replaced.

Congratulations, but crikey - another year or two and we'll be booking our cars into the scrapyard, not a garage when faced with a job like this. I reckon that bill was about 50% of my car's value - it wouldn't take much more to tip the balance.

Thank f*ck mine's an auto.

I could get a whole new box for that - well refurbed anyway.

there was a whole manual croma in classifieds for less than that the other day

I was just saying to a friend today how much I loved my Croma - apart from the prats (oops, Freudian slip...) that are GM. These seem to fail with alarming regularity and seem to be the weakness of our beloved steeds. Everything which has needed attention so far, other than consumables, has had GM stamped on the side of it on mine. Effing Vauxhall and Genetically Mauled!!!

Status Update:

Trip to Italy went ahead. Over 2500 miles (2000 towing a 1000kg load) and thankfully no further problems.

Now in theory I have a lovely Croma with all the duff bits replaced ...... but I can't but help think/feel that there is something else around the corner. I just love the car and even taking expenses into account it is still a bargain for ownership from new.

Anymore major issues and I may seriously look at the Doblo. Not your plush limo but appears to be a "good old" style Fiat with space, load capacity and a much more pure Fiat generic base as opposed to a hybrid "who made/designed what" collection of bits.

Time will tell.