Technical TA 4x4 dramas; 63 plate

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Technical TA 4x4 dramas; 63 plate

Panda IIs

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Hello everyone, my first post here so be patient with me, this is a long one :)

I want to share recent experiences with a FIAT dealership, Customer care and a local (specialist) garage in relation to my 2013 TA 4x4 that I have owned for 2+ years.

The story begins on July 4th; 50k miles and an oil change service with my local guy (who has previously serviced the car). Car is driven home and left on drive for a couple of days, wife goes to start and complains of total lack of power. I get home and drive a couple of hours later - no problem...

Next morning I experience same no power, stop start functionality is withdrawn and car is essentially undriveable running on one cylinder.

I take it back to local guy (who is Alfa trained and runs many Pandas as courtesy cars) who checks out coils, plugs, O2 sensors etc (over many weeks) since problem remains intermittent and I am out of Country and in no rush for car. Eventually we throw hands in air and take to FIAT Dealership for full plug-in diagnosis; result, failed uni-air unit £495 plus fitting. Me not so happy but let FIAT dealer make repair, so now it gets messy. I don't think this unit should have failed at this mileage and contact FIAT Customer Care (FCC) they get back promptly with case number and contact Dealership. FCC get back to me after 2 working days reporting that the Dealer has provided 10% discount on parts as "goodwill" gesture. Dealership cite contaminated oil and therefore changed it and filter, really, only 50 miles done since service??

Local guy collects and pays for work (as agreed with me) and says he wants to replace gear selector cables due to difficult selection, I mention FCC "goodwill" gesture and he says that's odd since Dealership called it a Trade Discount for him and didn't plan to pass it on to me...

Anyways, went to drive car home since gear selector cables were a week away in Milan, and it sure does have a gear selection problem. My immediate diagnosis is failed clutch which is agreed by local guy. Now he hasn't covered himself in glory at this point but Dealership surely shouldn't have let it out the door without mention?

So new clutch kit £99.00 oh and it needs dual mass flywheel (DMF) £250 cables £148 plus some labour...

Needless to say I'm not overly happy that the Uni-air unit failed and the "contaminated oil" diagnosis is all too convenient, when challenged Dealership did not retain oil as "proof".

So, if you have stayed with me, the car is great to drive and goes like the little rocket it is. FIAT reliability is suspect? And FIAT customer care has fallen silent. I'm not looking for sympathy but wanted to share experiences.
 
I have not had the same issues but have chosen to put cost of getting my 4x4 spot on towards the new Panda 1.2 I pick up this Sunday. Have no regrets. Your car worth maybe £4600 and a 2 year old Panda 1.2 Easy you'd need roughly what you've just spent and your car. But that's my opinion. Could have the winter from hell of course, but unlikely. Can see why the TA engine and the 4x4 introduced, but it's bit like an answer to the question no-one asked. It's a small Fiat with a simple engine the Panda. At least it should have stayed that way. :cry:
 
The UniAir modules (and MultiAir units on 4 cylinder engines) can fail, but it's much more often the MultiAir ones.

My Sister had the UniAir module go at 10,000 & 7 months old on her Alfa MiTo TwinAir. That must've been a dodgy part. It started to feel like it was going again at 2 years / 30,000 miles (we don't know if it did as we got rid at this point), but she'd had oil changes with an independent garage due to not being too happy with the dealer & their quotes for servicing. I think the fact she didn't use Selenia oil might've accelerated the problem as you very rarely see the TwinAir engines having these problems, when considering how many are on the roads across the Panda and 500.

I definitely wouldn't steer someone away from a good independent garage as the workmanship usually seems much better than a main dealer. However, on the TwinAir & MultiAir engines, I would ensure that the recommended Selenia oil & genuine Fiat oil filter is used, as these engines rely on the oil to operate the electronic actuators that are in the UniAir module & are very fussy to oil quality and level.
 
Hi.
Correct oil specs and decent filters are very much the norm on modern engines these days. I'd also be inclined to do oil and filter services at shorter intervals or lower mileage than Fiat suggest. An extra oil change is far cheaper than replacement pricy parts.
 
Hi.
I'm aware that Fiat recommend Selina oils but it is a recommendation rather than a must, just like Renault recommend Elf and others have their own partnership with other oil companies. Fiat would have a very negative outcome in court if a warranty claim was rejected due to using another quality make of oil of the correct spec and said the module failed due to not using Selina oil.
I've also read that Selina oils cause gumming up and if it's true I'd avoid it like the plague, again though it could be heresay.
 
I wasn't implying the oil change by the independent was iffy, indeed I know that he buys in the correct spec. (although not Selina) since I always ask for the balance so that I can top up if required using the same oil in the intervening 12 months. He buys in 4.5 litre bottle just for my job and the TA doesn't use it all up to the full mark on the dip stick (don't have the actual capacity to hand). I think the problem is that the uni-air system is a sensitive bit of kit..?
 
Yes I'd agree the uni air unit is sensitive. We are now hearing of timing chain failures in many different makes of engine. Now the debate is the reasons. Are the modern timing chains too light and thin, is the oil changes too far apart or is the wrong oil specified.
Certainly those cars that do long runs and are serviced on time seem to have less failures and I firmly believe that the servicing should be more flexible. Owners of cars that just do a few short miles on each start up from cold should be changing oil and filter more frequently, contamination from cold starts will degrade the oil as Will condensation, this needs to boil off with a really hot engine running motorway speeds. This contamination then passes to sensitive items like MAF sensors, uni air unit VVT actuators as gum.
So no matter who does the oil changes, owner, independent or dealer its on the onus of the driver to make sensible decisions about services. I'm not saying that you dont look after your car and I could be totally wrong about how you use the car or how many miles you do from a cold start but it's worth bearing in mind what I have said.
Personally I blame the manufacturers, today's engines are more complex with all the added gubbins and instead of lengthening service intervals they should be more realistic, oil degrades today just like it did 30 years ago, granted its better quality but I've seen and heard of many issues caused by these very long service intervals.
 
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Let's not also forget the universal use of closed circuit breathers. These cause inlet valve carbonization sensor contamination too, gum can be an issue, look at throttle bodies! I'd suspect this is another cause of uni air unit failures.
 
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