It is nothing to do with redlining, or abusing the engine though. It is to do with the gearbox, as has been said elsewhere - it is miss-shifting that causes it. Sticking it into 3rd instead of 5th, forcing the engine past it's limit. BUT this is going to cause issue with the engine, not the box. Anyone that is currently experiencing this with issue with FIAT should ask them for 100% clarification on what exactly the issue is, what is meant to have caused it and what damage has been done to the box as a result.

Reading the thread about the driving instructor cars, they all seem to be fitted with 17" wheels on the 1.4's. Wasn't there a know issue on here with diff failures when fitting 17" wheels onto the 1.2 GP's? If FIAT are now fitting 17"'s as standard on the 1.4s, and using the same box and shafts as the 1.2 then surely they've flamingo'd up here.

It is also worth looking at what people who work at dealerships have posted on the issue;

NumanR said:

So to recap, you have had three gearbox failures in two seperate cars (not including the last one being towed to garage. There seems to be two common denominators here, Fiat, of which there are millions driving around with no gearbox problems, and the drivers.
We as a dealer are not fitting gearboxes regularly, last gearbox we fitted was in a 147 a year ago, before that we did a stilo 1.6 about two years ago. I would be slightly suspicious if one customer had three failures on two seperate vehicles. Good luck with any claim you have against Fiat, sorry I cant give you any info that could help.

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T14086 said:

Must admit, never had gearbox problem on a GP before.

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The 1.4 was a 16v, Hardly any boxes go on the Gp 16v. Its more the 1.2s that have it happen to them. In the end Fiat paid out for the 3rd box though i think? Cant remember in the end but they were being threatened with legal action over it from the owner iirc.

punto_matt said:

The 1.4 was a 16v, Hardly any boxes go on the Gp 16v. Its more the 1.2s that have it happen to them. In the end Fiat paid out for the 3rd box though i think? Cant remember in the end but they were being threatened with legal action over it from the owner iirc.

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T told me in another Thread that he doesnt see hardly any gearbox issues on any GP, from memory its nearly always the 1.2 guys, probably wringing the 1.2's neck to extract every 0.02Bhp out of the little engine they can, brings us nicely back to over-revs dont it....

ok, but the 8v and 16v is just the engine - not the box. If there was a recognised fault with the boxes used on the 1.2 8v's and that box is now on the 1.4 16v then it is a problem. The boxes are interchangeable, my cinquecento still has the box from the 1108 8v engine that it came with, and at 15 years old and 127k depsite the abuse it gets, still works nicely (though the synchro on 3rd is going).

The box is different on the 16v. 1.2 & 1.4 8v is a 5 speed the 16v is a 6 speed.

ok. what about the diff?

I do not know about that.

this is why we need to know what the failure actually is, is it the box, or is it the dif? No amount of speculation on a forum can answer that, need to see someones car who's bust!

From what i have read it is usually the Box that goes.

but who is it who is saying that, the diff is semi-integral into the box - the diff casing forms part of the box casing. It's easy for someone who doesn't know exactly what they're looking at to just say it's the box when it is infact the diff.

I dont think the issue is what has caused the failure, more the explanation from Fiat. Does anyone know the exact definition of over rev Fiat use?

Im going to speculate that its something to do with the map causing mechanical faults.
My 1.6 Stilo was massively over rated power as standard and guess what i have had problems with the gearbox.
So what is the reason for a car being 15bhp over standard rated power on the standard map, surely something has to give.
Can we get any RR figures for these cars with faults.

Why would the map cause faults to a gearbox? The ones that have gone are on standard cars bar jamies. Because the output on a rolling road is higher than what fiat claim it means nothing. Manufacturers often state lower power figures to what the car actually is.

ok, but the 8v and 16v is just the engine - not the box. If there was a recognised fault with the boxes used on the 1.2 8v's and that box is now on the 1.4 16v then it is a problem. The boxes are interchangeable, my cinquecento still has the box from the 1108 8v engine that it came with, and at 15 years old and 127k depsite the abuse it gets, still works nicely (though the synchro on 3rd is going).

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Ok, as a directly affected 1.4 owner I will relate what's happened to me. Before I do I'll happily admit that half a dozen track days and 25k miles in a year with me being a total hooligan at the wheel of my 500 are massively contributing factors :devil:

A little while ago I noticed that changing into 3rd is starting to crunch. I reasonably assumed this was the synchro. I dropped the beast off at a dealer to see what they'd say.

I had a call a few days later where I discussed the issue with the technician. He confirmed that my gearbox is crunching and it is likely synchro in third. I asked (being somewhat cheeky, somewhat serious) if it was a warranty claim. My thinking was, they're likely to say no in which case, no bother I've got another gearbox that's brand new that I can swap it in while I replace the synchro on the existing box.

He said that they have so few problems with the 500 1.4 gearboxes that a Fiat inspection is done in the event of a warranty claim being made. Interestingly he said they do have issues at about 25k on the Grande Punto 6 speeders. Anyway, the first step in the evaluation is for the dealer to download some info from the on board electronics and submit it to Fiat. When they did this they found evidence that the engine had been over revved.

I mentioned to him that she's done half a dozen track days and I've bumped the limiter a few times in the process of that. This is where it got interesting to me. He said that the next step is that a Fiat inspector comes around and has a look. He said that the rev bouncing, combined with the modifications (induction kit, remap - my clarification, not his accusation) would likely swing the Fiat inspector in favour of simply refusing a claim but that they were entirely happy to proceed and try it.

He was at all times completely honest and open about the process. I won't name names but when I went to pick the beast up I had a chat with the salesman who is a very nice, very genuine guy. He said he'd asked the service guys (generically) is it possible to reset the recorded info re the over rev. They confirmed that they have no method with dealer level equipment to reset that information.

Now like I say, I have been an absolute hooligan and I have done a bunch of track days and had some fun with her. And so as a grown up who is half way looking for an excuse to stop worrying about warranty and mod the nuts off his 500, and as a man who has a new gearbox sitting on the shelf and is about to pull bits out to install a quaife diff, I'm not overly troubled by Fiat's position in this matter and I chose not to pursue it.

I emphasise again that at no time did the dealer say that they wouldn't honour the warranty. They were completely happy to pursue the matter with Fiat and the chice was entirely mine. We discussed the pro's and con's of this for a bit. The message, although not directly stated as such, was that if we were going to do that it would be sensible to take the induction kit off and blast a standard map back on. Again, I'm not pursuing it.

I know at this point some would be saying that I should pursue it and that having a few small mods should not invalidate a warranty. Especially given that 6% more torque and 9% more power shouldn't lunch a box built to reasonable tolerances. But my response to that is that Fiat are selling the 500 as a cute city car and I'm using it as a race car. I wouldn't yell at Fiat or condemn them for my car going through 3 sets of front pads in a year for the same reason.

Treated normally I'd fully expect there to be absolutely no issue at all. And treated normally and not as an occassional race car I wouldn't expect the car to be wearing a synchro in third.

Well structured post

Any chance you could ask them to clarify what an over-rev is, and how it is decieded. If it is simply a reading taken off the rev counter, then it is (imo) entirely possible for the TDC to throw up an odd reading from time to time which could compute into an 'over-rev'. Did they go into depth about what is actually wrong with the box, and how that damage is linked to an over-rev. Was it caused by that, or is it a manufacturing / design fault.

Hellcat said:

Usual one is going for 5th and getting 3rd. Who can say they've NEVER done that - automatic drivers not included!

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Ive done this a few times and helcat has a good point about the posibility of a bug.

If you could find out how fiat are reading the ecu or whatever they do.
Read a cars ecu yourself and find that it has no record of over reving.
Nacker something up then take it to fiat and see if they claim over reving is recorded.

My first one blew apart in side and part of the 6th gear was rattleing around side the bell housing!.

Second one just had some sort of internal linkage failure not quite sure as I didn't want to pay out my own pocket for diagnosis. They refused warranty under the grounds I had a GSR induction kit and painted alloys

How do you stand if you buy the car 2nd hand but still in warranty ? How can they prove it was you and not the previous owner etc who had over - reved the vehicle are there dates logged etc ?

arc said:

Well structured post

Any chance you could ask them to clarify what an over-rev is, and how it is decieded. If it is simply a reading taken off the rev counter, then it is (imo) entirely possible for the TDC to throw up an odd reading from time to time which could compute into an 'over-rev'. Did they go into depth about what is actually wrong with the box, and how that damage is linked to an over-rev. Was it caused by that, or is it a manufacturing / design fault.

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An over-rev, from the conversation I had, was an entry in the cars electronic log that the rev limiter had been hit. From what I understood there isn't an option for the dealer to interpret the results. They just take a download from the car and send it on. I don't think Fiat have structured it such that the dealer has the tools to do a lot more than pull the details and forward it to them. Which sort of makes sense. Stops the dealer fiddling with stuff and claiming dodgy warranty jobs.

Their best guess with the box was synchro and without pulling it to bits they can't confirm 100%. But it sort of makes sense given the comments about GP's at 25k miles. The EPR they consulted while I was there gave the same part number for the GP 6 speed and the 1.4 500 6 speed.

Semi related, I noticed that when the car was returned to me there was a Fiat branded blanking plate in the drivers door pocket, the sort of thing that covers a socket normally. I'm going to investigate what the socket looks like this weekend, pop the trim off and have a peek. Curious what the connectors are and what format the data is in.

Having hit the limiter isn't an over-rev though, not in my head anyway. The rev limiter is there to protect the engine (and box), so surely if the ECU is letting the engine rev to a point where it is damaging the gearbox then that is an ECU design issue. As I said earlier though, I can see an erronous TDC reading flagging an 'over-rev'.

I can't see how an over-rev (in their definition) can damage the synchro, again - that must be a design issue. My box (earlier but essentially the same) as i said has it's synchro failing, but that's after 15 years and 125k odd miles. Sounds like the 'issue' was always there - but recently FIAT have skimped on materials and the problem is surfacing much sooner.

The socket inside the car should be OBDII. Any car made after 2001 has to have it.