Hello

I've just bought my first Panda (54 Eleganza, Dualogic) at the weekend. The bodywork and interior are in great condition. It has FSH and was serviced every year according to the handbook despite low miles by the first owner of 12 years. The second owner did 12k miles in 2 years of ownership and did one large service in that time - not quite as pampered, but decent servicing by my reckoning. The dealer I bought it from did an oil and filter change before the sale.

It drove faultlessly in the test drive and on my 40 mile journey home. So far so good. I was over the moon with it and spend the next day washing and polishing it.

Over the last couple of days of driving it however I have noticed a few problems. I've spoken to the mechanic at my local garage and read several posts here and I know the cause of the first problem, don't know about the second and the third is trivial/an easy repair I hope.

1. The heater isn't working properly. It behaves exactly as described in a few threads on here when the plastic gear is broken.
2. The Eco button on the gear unit doesn't work - the E doesn't show on the dash display and the car's gear change isn't affected. It doesn't work in short.
3. The central locking doesn't work on the rear passenger door.

My questions are: -

1. Are either of the first two problems likely to lead to worse problems down the line? (It sounds like the Eco mode can be achieved by short shifting manually so I don't mind it not working. Although I would prefer it to work of course - so if anyone knows what the problem might be, please let me know.)
2. How difficult is it to live with the heater as is? (It seems tricky to me but I've only lived with the car for a couple of days. If I wack it up to full fan speed and jiggle with the direction controls, I hear something shift into place and get hot air. But when I lessen the fan speed, the air blows cold after a couple of minutes. Which means constant attention - seems like a pain in the bum.)
3. Should I cut my losses and get a refund and look for a car without these problems? (Bearing in mind the general condition of the car apart from the problems I've listed.)

(If I do go for a refund and look for a different car..)
4. How prevalent is the heater problem? I really fancy an Eleganza because I prefer the 2nd generation Panda shape and like the dual sunroof and alloys. From the threads I've read, I know that the heater problem affects the Eleganza and 100HP models with climate control. Would I be better off looking at Dynamic models fitted with alloys and sunroofs to avoid the problem?
5. Should I avoid dualogic? Is it reliable/prone to problems? I like it and prefer it to manual - seems ingenious and like the best of Auto and Manual. But I'd go for manual if it meant increased reliability. (My mechanic's advice is to avoid dualogic.)

I realise that's a lot of questions for a first post! If you only have answers/suggestions for some of my questions, I'd welcome them.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Hi, sorry I don't have any technical advice - as a 1.1 Eco owner such I can only dream of such luxuries!

On what you should do, it's a difficult one - the car is 13 years old, so a few issues are not unexpected. I don't know what you paid for it, or what if any warranty you got. If not sold as seen, I'd certainly take the matters up with the dealer you bought it from, and see what they are prepared to do. Then weigh your options up.

Sounds like the resistor is gone in the heater. Not expensive but an absolute bugger to get at as it's found above the pedals and behind the clocks. It requires long bendy arms and much swearing. I'd return to the dealer for a chat to see what can be sorted. There's bound to be a little bit of warranty on it.

Hi. Heater issue.. you seem convinced its sheared a gear.. tends to only happen on the more complex automated heating.
The basic twist a knob..that pulls a cable type are fairly robust.

The g.box is usually sound.. it is the robotised side that can give trouble..

Reliant on fluid levels to operate correctly... .

Charlie 1.1 active..pretty solid.

Thanks for the replies.

I might have jumped the gun about the heater. Reading more about it, it isn't behaving in the same way as when the plastic gears have broken. So I will look into the resistor being the cause. (It is the complex climate control, digital controls set-up.) As long as it gets no worse, I have found a workaround - a way of operating the controls that isn't too much bother.

Set the fan speed to 3 or 4 'bars' on the display and the temperature at 32.5 (the highest it goes before going to 'Hi'). After a while, you hear the vent 'clunk' which is the sign that the hot air will stop blowing. As long as the 'recycle air in the cabin' button is selected, pressing the up button for the temperature once to put it into 'Hi' causes the fan speed to crank right up and this causes the vent to clunk back so hot air is given. Then pressing the temp down button once to reselect 32.5 causes the fan speed to drop back to 3 or 4 bars (a normal speed rather than 'jet engine' speed). It gives hot air for 5 or 10 minutes. Repeat as necessary! Sounds like a faff but it isn't too bad.

The gearbox is the Dualogic. I've had the local garage look at it - they've plugged it into the diagnostic checker and there are no faults that give a clue.

My concern is whether the fact that Eco mode isn't working suggests more problems with the gearbox down the line. (If you have thoughts on that or first hand experience/knowledge - please reply and let me know.)

I think I am going to keep the car because it is in nice nick and I've invested time and a bit of extra money into it already. I will give the dealer a call and explain the problems. He sold it to me as having no problems although to be fair he might not have known about any of these problems - they are the kind you are only going to find out about by living with the car for a bit. He seemed like a good bloke, so he might give me some money towards the repairs.

It did come with a nationwide warranty so I will also see if I can get some stuff fixed through that.

Thanks again.

Does the actual Eco button work smoothly?
I've heard there's been problems with the button sticking.

The dualogic gearbox, like a lot of automated manuals aren't the most reliable.
They all seem to suffer issues, with the dualogic it seems to be hydrualic actuator issues and repairs are generally expensive.

https://www.fiatforum.com/500/425006-one-only-dualogic-failure-thread.html

I've a Citroen with their version, the EGS6 gearbox.
Oddly for a Citroen, they appear a bit more robust, though no less jerky!

Always a tricky one.

The more complicated thing are the more they go wrong.

Against as they get older the less premium you have to pay for a fully loaded version


Against your own ability. Biggest part of repair bills are labour. If you are doing all the repairs yourself verses paying a garage.


The problems you have I would be confident in fixing myself even if I had to cast a brand new air con gear in resin