Yes its back there again, this time the front offside wheel camber is over tolerance.
They reseated the suspension on monday, but that didnt work so now fiat have told them to replace parts till it is sorted.

I got a 57 Plate 1.2 Orange Panda as a loan car only 600 miles on it.

I miss my 100hp tho. Cant really race people at roundabout and traffic lights with a 1.2.

Hopefully they will get it sorted this time.

My car has spent as much time in the garage as its been on the road.

offside wheel camber is what? what does that mean?

grandemike said:

offside wheel camber is what? what does that mean?

Click to expand...

The wheel is running on the inner egde of the tyre!!

So if you look at the wheel from the front of the car it is sat at an angle.


Here is a brief tour of what wheel camber is:Camber

Camber is the angle of the wheel, measured in degrees, when viewed from the front of the vehicle. If the top of the wheel is leaning out from the center of the car, then the camber is positive ,if it's leaning in, then the camber is negative. If the camber is out of adjustment, it will cause tire wear on one side of the tire's tread. If the camber is too far negative, for instance, then the tire will wear on the inside of the tread.

Camber wear pattern
If the camber is different from side to side it can cause a pulling problem. The vehicle will pull to the side with the more positive camber. On many front-wheel-drive vehicles, camber is not adjustable. If the camber is out on these cars, it indicates that something is worn or bent, possibly from an accident and must be repaired or replaced.

this seems to be a fault with many, particularly the os front wheel, mine is starting to feather slightly, so I'll give the garage a call soon

UPDATE: Had a call from the garage today they replaced the struts but has made no difference so they now got to go back to Fiat to find out what they want to try next.


I would take it in James to get it checked out.

They are also replacing the tyres when it is all sorted!

Thats a real shame tho it is good to hear that you local dealer is actually doing something about it and keeping you well posted.
Least your not stranded without a car either.
Sorry to hi-jack your thread mate but did you ever find that cable you talked about for the headunit?
Sorry and cheers

Hope you get it sorted soon

Mark

Found one that i can get from Italy. But am confused about which one to get as im not to good on the ICE side of things.

When the dealer rang today they wanted the key for the fuel cap to they can fill it up before doing the final wheel alignment so it is correct.

I think its a shame to as this is my second panda that has had problems got rid of the firstone because they wouldn't do anything about it.
Hope my 100HP doesn't get as bad as the first one.

If you have a link mate id be interested to see that, im not great either but doing a fair few installs at the the min lol.
Thats good that your going to get it back with petrol too
Some1 out there is bound to have the correct settings so im sure Fiat will get it sorted

mark

Fiat have the seeting but its not adjustable there gonna keeep replacing parts till they find the problem one.

Heres the link: http://www.paser.it/

They do so many i done under stand what it all means.

I'm amazed at all these Pandas with front wheel geometry problems. I had all this ****e with a Ford Maverick and later on a Nissan Terrano 2 (same cars really) back in the 1990's but they were big chassis built off-roaders with lots of adjustment possible. Can't believe that small, modern, monocoque cars built to tight tolerances can give so much bother in this area.
I can't say that the front tyres on my 4x4 wore very evenly but then I drive it like a hooligan and still got 24,000 miles out of all 4 tyres. My daughter's 1.1 Active shows very even tyre wear but then she drives like a lady.
Keep up the pressure on the dealers, lads, so that Fiat get the message that there's room for improvement. Don't forget, Polish built Fiats are the best around and I think are destined to be modern classics.

mine jsut came back from a service and they told me the inside edges of the front tyres are wearing too much. i told them the tyres are about 2 months old so they suggested it was just probably a pressure issue. a bit useless that they didnt even check my pressures or do anything to help the situation during the service though.

Surely if it was a pressure Issue it would be on both edges of the tyres.

yea depends how you drive it i guess, i think g/year eagle f1's have quite rounded shoulders so can wear in this area quite quickly if you like your corners, mine have and my pressures have been fine.. its alot lot worse on the front, i changed my wheels over front to back recently to even out the wear

Geminifm said:

Surely if it was a pressure Issue it would be on both edges of the tyres.

Click to expand...

quite right, and it was. jsut more so on the inside. i have adjusted the pressures now. the front nearside was badly under pressure.

pandamonium24 said:

yea depends how you drive it i guess, i think g/year eagle f1's have quite rounded shoulders so can wear in this area quite quickly if you like your corners, mine have and my pressures have been fine.. its alot lot worse on the front, i changed my wheels over front to back recently to even out the wear

Click to expand...

i punctured both my offside tyres. so i put my front nearside to the back and got 2 new front (so i not have rainsports on the front and eagles on the back). point is one of the rears used to be on the front, oddly enough that one has less wear on it. which makes no sense to me unless the rear tyres scrub around an aweful lot.

Finally got my 100hp back, the problem was the lower arm on the front suspension.

They haven't replaced the tyres at the moment but they said they will on the first servic FOC, because they said it would be a waste to throw away the yres that are onit at the moment.

Geminifm said:

Finally got my 100hp back, the problem was the lower arm on the front suspension.

They haven't replaced the tyres at the moment but they said they will on the first servic FOC, because they said it would be a waste to throw away the yres that are onit at the moment.

Click to expand...

did you get it in writing just incase

toad101 said:

did you get it in writing just incase

Click to expand...

No I trust my local dealer coz they been so good at getting this problem sorted after i went to there main customer complaits.

When i picked it up yesterday it had a full tank of fuel, when i took it in it was nearly on te red.

They are also getting me some red badges for Free.

Plus i put nearly 1000 miles on there loan car in 3 weeks.

they sound like they bent over backwards for you, pity all dealers wern't like that

Thanks for the info on camber, it cleared up an area I was a bit hazy on. I seem to remember from going to Oulton Park and Donington with a mate of mine in the mid/late '70's to help him race his Lotus Elans and hearing about the camber being set up either negative or positive depending on the track or car. As a slight aside, my MJ now has 29K on the clock on its original 165/65s I have swapped fronts to rear and vece-versa obviously and am hoping to get 35K before replacing them. I don't abuse them round town but understeer has become my frequent companion on faster roads.

The stilo has camber issues as well ..and fiat did some thing to the lower arms on them to sort this problem out and owners increase the pressures to the front tyres by a few psi to help over come this ..would also suggest camber bolts if you cant sort the problem H&R do some and they work well on the stilo so cant see ant problem with the Panda if you wanted to fit them to the car ..

http://www.performancealloys.com/loweringkits_springs.asp

Scroll down to see the camber bolts