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Help I might be turning away from a life of Fiat for a Fiesta!

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Help I might be turning away from a life of Fiat for a Fiesta!

I nearly fell prey to the dark side. I was very close to buying a used Fiesta Titanium Ecoboost.

The car drove nicely, but could not get happy with the interior, just old looking

I'd convinced myself that I should buy a Ford as it is what everyone does.


In the end I ordered a new Panda Trekking. The Fiat Panda has a nicer brighter interior for me.

Seeing ten in every car park was depressing.

Nothing wrong with the Fiesta, just not for me.
 
JPeake94 said:
I have seen it and mostly as you've stated "alfas" I've heard of many Alfa ones but not so much fiat ones.
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We've recently bought a late 2010 Giulietta MA with 23K on the clock and I mentioned this to Alfie from Heath Road Garage in Sandbach who services all our cars. He did his apprenticeship at Mangoletsi in Knutsford and spent many years there, still maintaining many contacts in the world of Alfa Romeo. According to him, the MA is dependent on oil. If you keep it topped up with the correct grade and change it when you should then there shouldn't be any problems.

We're now at 25,000 miles so I'll let you know in another 15,000.
 
portland_bill said:
Turbos were not oil cooled.
The need to allow turbos to spin down relates to bearing lubrication, nothing to do with cooling. The turbo shaft runs at 100,000rpm or more. It runs in plain metal bearings with very tight tolerances, requiring a good supply of quality oil. As soon as the engine stops, the oil supply stops. If the turbo is still spinning fast, it can seize, releasing as it cools, but damage is done. If this is allowed to happen often it will not take long for the bearing tolerances to increase enough to allow a little play, then the seals fail. Oil is then passed into the intake or exhaust.
With water cooled turbos, if the cooling fails, like anything else when the cooling fails, damage can occur.
The water pump is driven by the engine on the 1.0 Fiesta, not electric. When the engine stops, so does the pump. Some circulation will continue, slowly due to hot water rising. If the engine has just done a fast run, the residual heat in the turbo boils the coolant in the turbo, which bubbles into the expansion tank like a kettle. This cannot be doing any good.

The 1.0 Fiesta is petrol, not diesel. If I remember my theory from 1974, petrol burns at about 850 degrees, diesel at about 650 degrees. Diesels are considered "cool", but this is relative.
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Although technology moves ever onward, there are certain mechanical principles that will (almost) always apply. The relevant one here is that you should always allow things to cool down after they've been working hard.

If you come down a mountain pass at high speed the brakes will be working very hard, so if you park up straight afterwards it's always a good idea to let them cool before putting the handbrake on, otherwise it's possible it may seize.

If you get the opportunity to be very close to a Boeing 737, or similar, just after it's come to a halt after landing, you will hear a loud humming sound which is the cooling fans in the wheels cooling the brakes. Without this they could, and sometimes do, catch fire. Which is a bit of a problem as the aircraft may still have a few tonnes of fuel on board.

If you've been working an engine hard then, again, let it cool before turning it off, otherwise you get heat soak where the temperature rises a great deal because the coolant is no longer circulating.

For me, it's a practice I've always adhered to after working a piece of machinery hard for a prolonged period.
 
The Beard said:
We've recently bought a late 2010 Giulietta MA with 23K on the clock and I mentioned this to Alfie from Heath Road Garage in Sandbach who services all our cars. He did his apprenticeship at Mangoletsi in Knutsford and spent many years there, still maintaining many contacts in the world of Alfa Romeo. According to him, the MA is dependent on oil. If you keep it topped up with the correct grade and change it when you should then there shouldn't be any problems.



We're now at 25,000 miles so I'll let you know in another 15,000.
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That's good to hear then, I'm going to be keeping on top with my oil changes, roughly every 5K miles. I'd changed it last week, cars at about 31K miles and I've had it since 27K no trouble so far. I think so far it's a brilliant engine, great amount of power with good fuel economy of driven in a sensible manner (I've managed to achieve 46MPG myself) I'm just making sure that I save up a decent amount of money in case it does actually go, fingers crossed it won't.
 
Every 5,000 miles might be a bit over the top. Ours is unlikely to travel more than 10K a year so for us it's going to be a case of a service every year and keep an eye on the level.

I don't think it's even necessary to use Selenia, just oil of good quality. Valvoline, Shell, Texaco and the like.

It's probably important not to overfill it either.
 
The Beard said:
Every 5,000 miles might be a bit over the top. Ours is unlikely to travel more than 10K a year so for us it's going to be a case of a service every year and keep an eye on the level.

I don't think it's even necessary to use Selenia, just oil of good quality. Valvoline, Shell, Texaco and the like.

It's probably important not to overfill it either.
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I cover around 5k a year, but my Grande will still get a service every year.
 
That ought to do it. I was just presuming from your comment that you were going to change the oil twice a year, or more.
 
The Beard said:
That ought to do it. I was just presuming from your comment that you were going to change the oil twice a year, or more.
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If need be I shall. If the oil starts going a horrible black I'll get it changed if not I'll kept it going until it does.
 
So far after (only) 2,000 miles the oil is still, well, oil coloured. I might look up this thread from time to time with the odd update. I know it's an Alfa but the engine and gearbox combination must be pretty much the same,
 
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