General Major problem with 1.1 engine?

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General Major problem with 1.1 engine?

So how about the place you bought it from? No help from them whatsoever?

I always wondered how dealers feel about handling the warranty for cars that were bought somewhere else...
 
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ho ho it gets better ....not.....
local dealer contacted says they at dispute with fiat and are currently not doing anything with warrenty repairs!!!!
Fiat customer care then telephone by my wife , they were amazed that the local dealer had car not done anything dispite having the car for a week now. Complaint number issued etc etc they are taking it up with said local dealer ....meanwhile still no car or courtesy car...
great innit.
watch this space.....oh in regards to where i bought it ....."its under manufacturer warrenty speak to them"
 
nothing new ..other than i have contacted trading standards who told me to write letter of complaint and give fiat set time to repair car by (min 14 days) send letter by recorded mail keeping copy for myself.
I will prepare letter but give them till monday afternoon to contact me before i post it...giving them the 48 hours they asked for when i registered complaint over the phone yesterday
 
1..Regarding giving Fiat 14 days to respond, you can forget that, you will be very lucky if they respond at all. It took them a year to get round to replacing the pistons in my Punto Sporting, and that was only after they received the solicitors letter threatening court action. Never got a single reply from letters, emails or phone calls in 9 months. Trading Standards were toothless but the solicitor worked.

2.. If you bought it through finance, you can get in touch with the finance company and inform them that the car is not of merchantable quality due to this serious defect and that you will reject the car if it is not put right quickly (Sale of goods act).

3.. If you did not use a finance company then the above applies to the place where you bought the car.

If I had had this information at the time my piston slap was diagnosed, I would have most certainly rejected the car.

The final insult from Fiat was to charge me nearly £400 for a warranty repair before I could get my car back from the garage, then it took another 4 months to get them to admit that they shouldn't have charged me and another 3 months to get the money back and that only after I had to go through the small claims court.

My Punto Sporting is now running beautifully (that's probably the kiss of death) and I enjoy driving it, but I will leave it to you to judge whether you think I will ever deal with FIAT again.

Nice car (now), abysmal dealership and even more abysmal and unhelpful customer relations department.

If you still want the car repaired then dont let them put you off with the standard excuse that they are still waiting for the fix to be found. The fix was found 2 years ago, Teflon coated pistons which are actually the proper size for the cylinder bore.

As the mechanic told me when I finally got mine fixed, "the pistons were the wrong size, a bit too small mate".

Good luck which ever way you go
 
mark1962 said:
nothing new ..other than i have contacted trading standards who told me to write letter of complaint and give fiat set time to repair car by (min 14 days) send letter by recorded mail keeping copy for myself.
I will prepare letter but give them till monday afternoon to contact me before i post it...giving them the 48 hours they asked for when i registered complaint over the phone yesterday
the 14 day thing is a standatrd response from trading standards TBH. reading all off this makes running an old car seem a lot simpler........................says custard as he heads back out in the snow to work on the car :eek:
 
OK now here is the news.....
Contacted fiat customers services ...they say ...investigation is ongoing ...blah blah....said they had been in communication with dealer ...blah
Rang dealer still not doing any warrenty work for fiat.....and ....there has been NO communication with fiat regarding my car...
Re-contacted fiat spoke to yet another customer service nobody ...wife gave her hell requesting that our car be collected by another dealer who will do the repairs....said they would ring back .....guess what ....they didn,t
Fiat are a bunch of tossers....never again will i buy one ...once this is resolved one way or another... the car is going to be paid off and exchanged.
Now to write a big complaint letter directly to fiat...now that i have address to send it to
 
mark1962 said:
OK now here is the news.....
Contacted fiat customers services ...they say ...investigation is ongoing ...blah blah....said they had been in communication with dealer ...blah
Rang dealer still not doing any warrenty work for fiat.....and ....there has been NO communication with fiat regarding my car...
Re-contacted fiat spoke to yet another customer service nobody ...wife gave her hell requesting that our car be collected by another dealer who will do the repairs....said they would ring back .....guess what ....they didn,t
Fiat are a bunch of tossers....never again will i buy one ...once this is resolved one way or another... the car is going to be paid off and exchanged.
Now to write a big complaint letter directly to fiat...now that i have address to send it to

It was said earlier you would get nowhere regarding customer services, your letter wll end up lining the bin sorry to say
 
then they can deal with trading standards plus watchdog etc what choice do i have?
currently a £5800 piece of junk
 
Mark,
Now is the time to stay cool and get tough.

You probably have legal fees cover as part of your car or home insurance. Hook the details out and call for advice. Normally, the solicitor listens to your case, and will provide either advice - or will take on the case and write letters and take Fiat to court - whatever is appropriate etc.

If you don't have legal cover, then you should start by writing a letter to Fiat, copied to the dealer and recorded delivery to all of them. Explain in the letter - calmly - that your car has been off the road for however many days and that Fiat are not honouring their warranty to you. Make sure you include the phrase "time is of the essence" and give them as many days in which to fix the problem to your complete satisfaction as would add up to 14 if you include the days it has been off the road altogether so far.

The people in Fiat you should send the same letter to (list them all as copied actually on the letter - so they all know who you are writing to):

Giulio Salomone - Fiat Auto UK Managing Director (Slough)
Elena Bernardelli - Fiat Auto UK Marketing Director (Slough)
Rob Calver - Fiat Auto UK After Sales Director (Slough)
Richard Gadeselli - Chairman, Fiat UK Ltd: 10 Bruton Street, London, W1J 6PX - you may also want to call Richard on 020 7408 1912
Sergio Marchionne - Chairman and CEO, Fiat Auto Spa, Corso Agnelli 200, 10135 Turin - Italy

I don't have Rob Calvers number - but call Fiat and see if you can get it out of them. I think this guy is the one you need to call - see: http://www.channel4.com/4car/news/news-story.jsp?news_id=13920

Also cc: the letter to Watchdog, TopGear, AutoCar etc.

If nothing happens and you can't get a solicitor to act on your insurance policy, then you may need to consider removing the car and taking it to another dealer. If you have to pay another dealer to do the work, then you should make a small claims claim online: https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/csmco2/index.jsp

Good luck!
 
Hi creamola, thank you for your reply, this is todays developements:-
posted letter already early this am in it i have requested situation resolved within 14 days...
Someone from fiat customer services phoned about 4pm telling us to have the AA pick up the car from the house and have it transported to another dealer in Swansea.....thats very clever said my mrs....as the car is situated in another (seems ex dealer) in Bridgend. My wife did as they requested only to be told by AA that they wont collect car from garage to garage without authorisation direct from fiat...ho hum....
wife phones fiat back at 4.55pm starts telling the different customer care the story when its....5pm gets rudely cut off....
stuck now till the morning....
I laughed at the first link you posted "dealers not up to scratch"....from where i stand fiat customer services department stinks worse...they don't communicate with their dealers.... or the customer....we have lost count of the different operatives that we get when using the help line...they don't communicate with each other!!! (hence the last lady thinking the car was outside house not where its been for last 10 days).
Whats the bet that the dealer in swansea will know nothing about the situation when and if the car ever gets there...so what chance courtesy car...
 
fiat say they have now organised the AA to pick car up from Bridgend and transfer it to Swansea....see what tomorrow brings...
 
Mark,
Good luck with it! Tell Fiat you want a courtesy car - and if they won't give you one, tell them you will hire one and then take out a Small Claims Court action against them to recover the cost of hiring.

Please also keep a diary of all the hassle and time you have spent on this (cost it at £10 per hour) and also keep a running total of the extra costs (Taxi's, phone calls, letter writing etc) to add to your claim.

Creamola.
 
well there is hope at last....car has found its way to dealer in swansea who has been in contact and is happy to get on with it.
I am not the type really to go after fiat financially tho i am miffed about lack of courtesy vehicle, getting the car back in fixed condition will suffice but it won't mend the wounds of poor service i received
 
will be phoning the swansea dealer lunchtime tomorrow to find out if repairs have started and when i am likely to get car back
 
18 days without car...now waiting for zone manager to tell dealer wether its repair or replace engine....wish fiat would get their finger out of their collective ar*e
 
Funnily anough my new 1.1 Panda had a problem with a tapping noise coming from the engine (sorry not very technical!!) after 13000 miles, the engine warning light came on and Hylton Fiat (Worcester) had it in for around 6 weeks, turns out it was a design fault and the engine had to be rebuilt. All under warranty, I think they were more embarassed than anything. The "new" engine was fine but just didn't feel, or perform the same thereafter. Fortunately I traded it in for my lovely new 1.4 Stilo so all's well that ends well.
 
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