Hi,
I am new but hope someone can help.

My 2 year old Sedici has badly uneven tyre wear on one rear wheel. At first they said it needed 4 wheel alignment, but when they did that they found the axle was slightly bent.

They thought it would be fixed under warranty but Fiat have refused.

The car has not been in an accident, has not been mistreated or overloaded. No sign of any damage on any of the wheels or anywhere else.

Has anyone else had this problem?

I don't see how I could have bent the axle.
Either it was a manufacturing fault and was not spotted by their quality control or it is a metallugical fault and the axle has been gradually bending due to metallurgical stresses ???

The only other thing I can think of is something I read about once called 4wd 'windup' - I can't remember much about it. We live at 1500 feet up in the North Pennines and regularly have snow and ice so the car is often in 4wd (Today we had a hairy drive home in the snow) unlike most cars which just potter around towns.

What is the best way of contacting the Fiat warranty people? I am getting the run around between the garage service reception, their warranty guy, and customer services at Fiat, but none of them will put me in direct contact with the Fiat Warranty guys who have turned it down.

Hope someone can help !!

Rockie

That’s sounds horrible. I can’t see how you might have suffered from axel wind up if you are in Auto mode. As I understand it the multi-clutch lock on the rear prop shaft is electronically activated only when slip is detected, so it is only a temporary measure (sounds pretty techie for a woman eh ). I have driven 4 x 4s with the old fashioned type of centre diff lock which is a mechanically activated device and when you wind the axels up you can’t disengage this lock as there is so much torque locking up everything. You either have to figure out how to turn in a circle to take the pressure of the mechanical bits, or find a slippy surface to drive on for a bit, or even jack the car up and let the wheels sort themselves out (a Land Rover friend of mine said that’s what the Army used to do with their old trucks).

I suppose if you use the lock facility on a dry surface for any distance, you might cause a bit of stress to your metal bits. I must admit I am worried about a very bad transmission vibration I have on my Sedici, which only occurs on the overrun. I hope it isn’t transmission related.

Good luck

Rockie said:

Hi,

What is the best way of contacting the Fiat warranty people? I am getting the run around between the garage service reception, their warranty guy, and customer services at Fiat, but none of them will put me in direct contact with the Fiat Warranty guys who have turned it down.

Rockie

Click to expand...

Try complaining to Fiat from the Fiat UK website (www.fiat.co.uk). IME your complaint will be passed to a complaints handler in Italy. Not that it was a warranty matter (Fiat "lost" our brand new Sedici) but it worked wonders after loads of fruitless contact with dealer & Fiat UK. These guys in Italy seem focussed on Fiat's public image, unlike the dealer and Fiat UK who seem to mainly fret about which of them will pick up the bill for any remedial action.

That said, I feel for you - they may argue that your problem was caused by engaging 4x4 while driving round a bend (which the manual specifically warns against). But I'd definitely give the Fiat complaints process a go..