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General New 2004 Eleganza 1.2 owner saying hello!

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General New 2004 Eleganza 1.2 owner saying hello!

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NickEleganza

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Apr 8, 2021
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Hi all, just joined after buying a 2004 1.2 Eleganza, intended to be my daughter's first car.

Actually can't get over how well it drives, with no rattles or clonks from suspension & it's in really nice condition for a car of it's age with lots of invoices & history & good MOT history too.

All the electrics work fine, even the mirrors!

Now I've tempted fate!

I've changed cambelt & water pump as was no record of that & belt looked well polished on its outer side

I sourced a driver's seat (mucky but not torn) that I've steam cleaned using some fabric detergent & it's come up really well.

Some new HT leads to cure the misfire at idle when cold & will be changing gearbox oil in next week or two.

For what I paid for it, it's a cracking little car.

Reminds me a little of the various Renault 4s I owned in my youth!
 
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Give the back ends of the bolts around the engine a regular squirt of creeping oil ACF-50 is ideal. For some reason, Fiat alloy parts are drilled all the way through. This allows the bottom end of the threads to get corroded and clogged with aluminium oxide. When you unscrew the bolt this clag rips the threads to shreds. ACF-50 is a searching anti corrosion oil so a regular dose helps to unstick the threads.
 
One of my daughter has a Panda to replace her Nissan Micra, SHe absolutely loves it now she got used to it and has had to admit she now gets my Pandanuttery! I hope it goes well. Rar brake adjusters are temperamental so expect to have to do some intervention to keep rear brakes adjusted. We now have three Pandas in the Family and generally nothing bad to say.
 
NickEleganza said:
Reminds me a little of the various Renault 4s I owned in my youth!
Click to expand...
I agree, we had a couple growing up and there is something quite Renault 4-ish about the Panda. Quite similar lack of styling and simple honesty about the way it does things.

My mum thinks so too! Last time I visited them she ran in excitedly to tell my my car was on their calendar. Surprising as they have a calendar of French cars (one of those flip calendars where you get a different car every day - as you might imagine, from the sublime to the ridiculous. You might get a Bugatti T41 Royale or a Citroen LNA...). She led me through to proudly show me the day's offering of a turquoise R4. Close enough I guess:)
 
Excellent!

There is a simple honesty about the Panda but it's also a damn sight more civilised & comfortable than the R4 albeit ride isn't as good!

Plans for this weekend are gearbox oil change & fresh air filter
 
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DaveMcT said:
Give the back ends of the bolts around the engine a regular squirt of creeping oil ACF-50 is ideal. For some reason, Fiat alloy parts are drilled all the way through. This allows the bottom end of the threads to get corroded and clogged with aluminium oxide. When you unscrew the bolt this clag rips the threads to shreds. ACF-50 is a searching anti corrosion oil so a regular dose helps to unstick the threads.
Click to expand...

Great tip, thanks for that
 
NickEleganza said:
Great tip, thanks for that
Click to expand...

No worries. I can't promise its a fix but its a better chance of them coming out undamaged when you do need to do some work.

IMO, Fiat should know better. Normally a bolt into aluminium will crack loose and unscrew just fine because the threads have been hermetically sealed. Fiat's open bolt holes leave them exposed with all the problems of expanding Al₂O₃ packed into the bottom few threads.
 
Great "tip" Dave. The big bolt which holds the steady bar on our Panda did this when the gearbox came out to do the clutch. It has, slightly reluctantly, gone back in but if I ever need to replace the steady bar I just know I'll never get away with it and the hole will need to be helicoiled. I've never tried that ACF-50 stuff so this looks like a good excuse to buy some and give them all a squirt!
 
The Panda Nut said:
Rear brake adjusters are temperamental so expect to have to do some intervention to keep rear brakes adjusted.
Click to expand...

With the nice weather we've had lately I won't be able to justify poor weather as an excuse for not getting stuck into Becky's rear brakes for much longer (and treating the rust on her rear axle) I'm slightly dreading what I find with the self adjusters as I'm pretty sure they stopped "self adjusting" around 6 to 9 months ago - inconveniently just as the cold weather came on. People say they are quite expensive to replace so I'm hoping I can resurrect them.
 
With the talk above about the Renault 4 I remember doing one, once, when I worked in the little country BL garage out in Midlothian. Renaults were an unusual make to see in our workshop, often if there was one it would be a trade in and pretty much all the lads were most derogatory regarding Renaults but I didn't run fast enough when this one came in. The job was a clutch replacement and I remember the gearbox was in front of the engine - in line, not transverse. The gearchange looked very much an afterthought with the lever sticking straight up out of the box (in "front" of the engine, which itself was the "wrong" way round because the gearbox was directly behind the front panel) connected to a "push me pull you" gear lever in the car much like a 2CV Citroen (although the citroen box is behind the engine.)

I don't remember it being particularly difficult to do and I remember how the car rolled in the corners during the subsequent test drive but was very comfortable very much like the wee Citroens drive but with more "go".

The story didn't end happily though as just a few weeks later it came in for it's MOT and failed horrendously on corrosion in the rear suspension mounts (torsion bar rear suspension if I remember correctly?) It definitely wasn't just a plating job as the mounts had moved so would have needed a proper chassis bench type realignment before welding in. Don't know what happened to it.

One car we serviced regularly was a Renault 12 Estate and invariably it would be a case of "give it to Jock, he's the Renault King" on the strength of that 4 I did. In fact I really liked that car. It's about the only Renault of that era I'd have given any room to. Many years later I remember seeing a Dacia version of the same car when on holiday in Montenegro - never did own a 12 though, although I did have a 20 for a number of years when our 3rd child arrived and we needed the extra room - replaced it with an Austin Ambassador when it's "time" was up, right glutton for punishment me!
 
Pugglt Auld Jock said:
With the talk above about the Renault 4 I remember doing one, once, when I worked in the little country BL garage out in Midlothian. Renaults were an unusual make to see in our workshop, often if there was one it would be a trade in and pretty much all the lads were most derogatory regarding Renaults but I didn't run fast enough when this one came in. The job was a clutch replacement and I remember the gearbox was in front of the engine - in line, not transverse. The gearchange looked very much an afterthought with the lever sticking straight up out of the box (in "front" of the engine, which itself was the "wrong" way round because the gearbox was directly behind the front panel) connected to a "push me pull you" gear lever in the car much like a 2CV Citroen (although the citroen box is behind the engine.)

I don't remember it being particularly difficult to do and I remember how the car rolled in the corners during the subsequent test drive but was very comfortable very much like the wee Citroens drive but with more "go".

The story didn't end happily though as just a few weeks later it came in for it's MOT and failed horrendously on corrosion in the rear suspension mounts (torsion bar rear suspension if I remember correctly?) It definitely wasn't just a plating job as the mounts had moved so would have needed a proper chassis bench type realignment before welding in. Don't know what happened to it.

One car we serviced regularly was a Renault 12 Estate and invariably it would be a case of "give it to Jock, he's the Renault King" on the strength of that 4 I did. In fact I really liked that car. It's about the only Renault of that era I'd have given any room to. Many years later I remember seeing a Dacia version of the same car when on holiday in Montenegro - never did own a 12 though, although I did have a 20 for a number of years when our 3rd child arrived and we needed the extra room - replaced it with an Austin Ambassador when it's "time" was up, right glutton for punishment me!
Click to expand...

I knew a bloke who delivered eggs to shops and pubs in his Austin Ambassador. He said it was the best delivery vehicle he had ever used due to the smooth ride. He praised it so much that I nearly bought one. I didn't - I got an Allegro instead. I found out why they were called All-agro
 
GeorgeDamper said:
I got an Allegro instead. I found out why they were called All-agro
Click to expand...

Me too. I had an estate with the 1500 OHC (E series I think?) engine which was most commonly found in the Maxi. Not an engine I was especially fond of, prefered the old A series for it's simplicity. I don't think that, of it's time, the "Agro" deserved all the brickbats thrown at it however I'd find it difficult to describe it as a "good" car.

PS. The ambassador had very comfy seats, more like livingroom armchairs and was very good on long distance cruising although it could have used an "overdrive" top gear. We took ours down into the Dordogne with three children and all our camping gear for one memorable holiday. Got around 32mpg overall if I remember correctly!
 
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Pugglt Auld Jock said:
With the talk above about the Renault 4 I remember doing one, once, when I worked in the little country BL garage out in Midlothian. Renaults were an unusual make to see in our workshop, often if there was one it would be a trade in and pretty much all the lads were most derogatory regarding Renaults but I didn't run fast enough when this one came in. The job was a clutch replacement and I remember the gearbox was in front of the engine - in line, not transverse. The gearchange looked very much an afterthought with the lever sticking straight up out of the box (in "front" of the engine, which itself was the "wrong" way round because the gearbox was directly behind the front panel) connected to a "push me pull you" gear lever in the car much like a 2CV Citroen (although the citroen box is behind the engine.)

I don't remember it being particularly difficult to do and I remember how the car rolled in the corners during the subsequent test drive but was very comfortable very much like the wee Citroens drive but with more "go".

The story didn't end happily though as just a few weeks later it came in for it's MOT and failed horrendously on corrosion in the rear suspension mounts (torsion bar rear suspension if I remember correctly?) It definitely wasn't just a plating job as the mounts had moved so would have needed a proper chassis bench type realignment before welding in. Don't know what happened to it.

One car we serviced regularly was a Renault 12 Estate and invariably it would be a case of "give it to Jock, he's the Renault King" on the strength of that 4 I did. In fact I really liked that car. It's about the only Renault of that era I'd have given any room to. Many years later I remember seeing a Dacia version of the same car when on holiday in Montenegro - never did own a 12 though, although I did have a 20 for a number of years when our 3rd child arrived and we needed the extra room - replaced it with an Austin Ambassador when it's "time" was up, right glutton for punishment me!
Click to expand...


Yep the R4 had some interesting engineering solutions!! As you say it was torsion bar suspension front & rear but because the rear bars ran across the car ahead of the rear wheels so one bar had to lie in front of the other, the wheelbase was over an inch longer on the right side of the car than the left!

Yep gearbox longitudinal in front of engine with the pushmepullme gearchange
 
NickEleganza said:
more civilised & comfortable than the R4 albeit ride isn't as good!

Plans for this weekend are gearbox oil change & fresh air filter
Click to expand...

Aye, roll control and damping aren't the Panda's strongest points. Still great fun to drive! But I do feel a bit sorry for rear passengers on bumpy roads:)

The rear axle is the area that perhaps most betrays the Panda's budget status. There are suspicions it's not the best designed, manufactured or installed piece of kit, and it rusts heroically. It might be an idea to monitor tyre wear, one of my rears was chewing itself to bits.

Still, the rest of the car (apart from the oil sump and coolant return pipe across the front of the engine) has surprisingly good rust protection. Should last longer than the R4 at least:)

I've recently changed my transmission oil and couldn't get the specified 75w/80 anywhere near me, so ordered it from Opie oils. Some (including me) have run the much more common 75w/90, which seems fine.

Some handbooks specify transmission oil to API GL4, others to GL5. If I understood Guy from Opie oils correctly, GL4 is probably better for our Pandas.

As it's to be your daughter's first car, there's one thing worth being aware of. The battery and its earth strap need to be in good condition or the power steering can throw a wobbly - it draws a lot of current. It's most likely to fail during manoeuvres, especially if the 'city' button is on, when it's drawing most current.

As a precaution I always park with the wheels straight and let the battery recover before setting off.
 
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NickEleganza said:
Yep the R4 had some interesting engineering solutions!! As you say it was torsion bar suspension front & rear but because the rear bars ran across the car ahead of the rear wheels so one bar had to lie in front of the other, the wheelbase was over an inch longer on the right side of the car than the left!
Click to expand...
Hah, I didn't know that, thanks! Similar layout to the Citroen Type H van. Ah, French engineering genius
I'll have to add some notes to my parents' calendar:)
 
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rmjbn1 said:
Aye, roll control and damping aren't the Panda's strongest points. Still great fun to drive! But I do feel a bit sorry for rear passengers on bumpy roads:)
Click to expand...

my 05 and 06 were wobbly like jelly and tippy on corners


but the 11 is completely different. Much firmer and corners flatter


I dont know whats been upgraded. Springs, struts or wider low profile tyres but its a completely different character.

so when it was wibbly wobbly I wanted it firmer
but be careful what you wish for
because now its firmer I want the wibbly wobbly back
 
Worn rear dampers cause the suspension to thump back up after hitting a road bump. It feels like you are being kicked.

100HP has springs shortened "standard" 1.1/1.2 springs making them hard. It also has long bump stops making them even harder. I fitted Fiat Coupe rear bump stops from Febi and 500 springs. Better ride and the back end no longer skipped on rough roads. The downside is slightly more body roll.
 
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Pugglt Auld Jock said:
With the nice weather we've had lately I won't be able to justify poor weather as an excuse for not getting stuck into Becky's rear brakes for much longer (and treating the rust on her rear axle) I'm slightly dreading what I find with the self adjusters as I'm pretty sure they stopped "self adjusting" around 6 to 9 months ago - inconveniently just as the cold weather came on. People say they are quite expensive to replace so I'm hoping I can resurrect them.
Click to expand...

nothing to fear here standard Bendix type screw / ratchet things they just seem prone to gumming up. There only needs to be a slight issue and the ratchets just fail to click over. I think my use of copper grease may be part of this. I will use proper brake grease next time. I was a Renault man for years and had a number of them that has the same issue. Generally trouble free and straight forward to maintain.
 
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