Seicento My Little Red Sei...

The garage had a look at it when they sorted the puncture apparently its all ok. But I will get the tracking done.

Also my front ball joints are worn out but they quoted £170 including labour!!
Apparently it isn't possible to buy them they have to buy the whole arms? Is that right?

indeed the whole arm has to be replaced

pair of arms are £50 on ebay (link below) and a fairly easily job, balljoint nut can be stubburn and arb bracket nuts can shear but a easy DIY job



http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FIAT-SEIC...+Make:Fiat|Model:Seicento&hash=item45efcc8e9d


Ash

Cheers for that Whitz, they were quoting £45 each!

yes thats right but they aren't expensive, about £30 a side. They will get them trade though so bit cheaper. Which means they are wanting about £100-110 for labour. Labour is expensive!! But i would have thought they will complete the job in under an hour so think they are stretching it a bit personally.

http://www.shop4parts.co.uk/?name=s...8&secondary=29&opts=48&btnViewProducts=Search

with the FF 10% discount your only looking at about £50 for a pair

EDIT: Whitz beat me

At the moment I don't really have the tools, experience or patience to have a go at it myself but labour at about £45 an hour adds up really fast.... have to get it done before the MOT in April too.

The clonking is annoying and it seems a little twitchy if I corner quickly. Oh and the brakes still feel weird, as in if I brake at low speed it feels like the brakes are being slowly modulated on and off. Bloody strong though, feels like the back is going to lift off.

Getting a strong smell of oil in the car when not moving, can't see a leak though?

Crancase breather still attached?

Will check it in the morning... hope its just that, first noticed it after a rather 'fast' 2 minutes down a bypass and now its doing it all the time..

Well heres my list of things to get done before the MOT in April:

Adjust clutch (again)
Fix exhaust leak (think its causing that oily/gassy smell^^)
New wishbones
New tyres on the front
New discs and pads to be fitted
Tracking
Coolant change

It should be ready to go then, hopefully for a while without anything else cropping up

Well I managed to hit a pheasant today, while I was doing about 60, it managed to pop from a bush right beside me and stop in the middle of the road

It hit the right hand side (of course :bang and punched the mesh through and mashed up the radiator, hard as the bumper appears to have dented it quite a bit. It pissed all the coolant out in a matter of seconds so I'm glad I stopped to have a look.

After a long ride in a recovery truck its at the garage, bright side is it will get some fresh coolant, but yet another expense...

Cento186 said:

Well I managed to hit a pheasant today, while I was doing about 60, it managed to pop from a bush right beside me and stop in the middle of the road

It hit the right hand side (of course :bang and punched the mesh through and mashed up the radiator, hard as the bumper appears to have dented it quite a bit. It pissed all the coolant out in a matter of seconds so I'm glad I stopped to have a look.

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I hear your there, Pheasants are so damn stupid, one jumped out of a bush in front of me once when I was doing 50 down a lane, they tend to just stand there in front of the impending doom. Luckily I managed to swerve round it. It was also at that point that I came across the catastrophic understeer of a Grande Punto at 50mph, missed the damn thing by about an inch. Stopped and got out, the thing was still standing there as if nothing had happened :bang:

has it put a hole in the Radiator ? or just pulled the pipe off?

your lucky theres been no more damage done , when the rad is off give the system a flush out

agreed, that could have been alot more expensive.. hitting anything at 60 and not needing to replace at least one panel i call lucky. I have written off a sei going alot slower than 60.

The only thing it broke was the rad (the bumper pierced it), I guess I was lucky

I will pick it up from the garage tomorrow after work, I could have probably managed it myself but because I need a car to get to work I had it towed to the garage.

The courtesy car I've been given happens to be a very ragged seicento sx but even at over 100000 miles the engine in it is so smooth, a damn site smoother (even at high revs) and quieter than mine, feels faster too, should I be worried

lucky then

will the garage be giveing your cooling system a flush out at the same time ? might be worth while when its all out

well one would hope if they have that thing which will have been abused and its still running tip top that they know their way around a cento.

Well its all been flushed out and treated to some fancy fluorescent orange coolant and a shiny new radiator. Now to save for the MOT!!

Cento186 said:

The only thing it broke was the rad (the bumper pierced it), I guess I was lucky

I will pick it up from the garage tomorrow after work, I could have probably managed it myself but because I need a car to get to work I had it towed to the garage.

The courtesy car I've been given happens to be a very ragged seicento sx but even at over 100000 miles the engine in it is so smooth, a damn site smoother (even at high revs) and quieter than mine, feels faster too, should I be worried

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That is just the coolest courtesy car EVER

Good luck with the MOT

Just got these pictures off my camera from last weekend, had a little blast around the Suffolk countryside, found some time to stop for photos. The fog rolled in pretty quickly though

Just a small update...

Got some Novitec pedals installed at the weekend....
...with a hand from my uncle (It was a nightmare trying to drill them in hence the screws in random places

They're even closer together now, which isn't great for my size 12 feet but I like em :slayer:



Also offered the schumacher skirts up to it, havent fitted them yet. Unsure if they look ok on the smaller wheels?



MOT is coming up soon, needs a few bits done to it and I should be in for a year of cento-ing. Thankfully the car will be doing less miles now as I've moved close enough to work that I can walk (Already done 9000 miles in my first 6 months driving)