Had the phone call yesterday to say that the car had been loaded onto a transporter at Portbury and it arrived today at the dealership.

I am going to collect it on Saturday and then I will be regularly updating this thread to reflect my impressions of the car/engine. Amongst other things I will be monitoring the fuel consumption to determine whether there is indeed a shortfall in the quoted figures and how much the car improves as the miles go up.

Hopefully any other owners will also contribute their impressions and any prospective purchasers can ask questions and get real world answers as opposed to speculation.

grimwau said:

Had the phone call yesterday to say that the car had been loaded onto a transporter at Portbury and it arrived today at the dealership.

I am going to collect it on Saturday and then I will be regularly updating this thread to reflect my impressions of the car/engine. Amongst other things I will be monitoring the fuel consumption to determine whether there is indeed a shortfall in the quoted figures and how much the car improves as the miles go up.

Hopefully any other owners will also contribute their impressions and any prospective purchasers can ask questions and get real world answers as opposed to speculation.

Click to expand...

I am looking forward to your observations as I am still no where nearer a test drive.

Was sent to another dealership today, 'demo' car, up on a ramp in the showroom. They will be registering it on Wednesday or Thursday of next week, but it will not be driven.

As an aside, I had to phone the dealership from inside their showroom as the place was deserted. I was there for 20 minutes waiting for someone to appear.

Cheers

D

rallycinq said:

I am looking forward to your observations as I am still no where nearer a test drive.

Was sent to another dealership today, 'demo' car, up on a ramp in the showroom. They will be registering it on Wednesday or Thursday of next week, but it will not be driven.

As an aside, I had to phone the dealership from inside their showroom as the place was deserted. I was there for 20 minutes waiting for someone to appear.

Cheers

D

Click to expand...

Which dealer was it, if you dont mind me asking?

Collected the car today and everything seemed just great. It was waiting for me, in pride of place in the showroom, all ready for me to fit my number plates and check over prior to driving it home. (I had asked the dealership to leave the plates off as I didn't want them to drill holes in the bumper and tailgate, ..... just in case anyone was wondering).

I set off to the petrol station to fill her up with unleaded (brim it to you Daniel), reset the trips and set off down the M27 to Bournemouth. Just out of interest I was switching between Eco and normal and I have to say that I can't ever see me using the Eco setting, it was one hell of a performance drop. I also checked the instant MPG to compare the readings to the diesel and found that all through the range the readings were about 20MPG shy under identical circumstances but this is only academic at the moment due to the low mileage.

Anyway, the wife was following me in the other 500 and after about 5 miles she overtook me gesturing out of the window (not that kind of gesture) so I pulled over onto the hard shoulder. She got out and said that there was a lot of smoke coming from under the car. I knelt down to have a gander but couldn't see anything obvious so I said that it must be the paint burning off of the exhaust system.

So, off we set again and I kept looking in the rear view mirror for any signs of smoke but with the tyres throwing up so much spray it was difficult to see if it was getting any better. Another 10 miles or so and she started flashing me so I pulled into a petrol station we were approaching. When I got out to see what the problem was I could definitely smell burning oil and I wondered if the oil level had been overfilled and the extra pressure was causing it to be burnt.

Anyway, I went to see what she had noticed this time and it turned out that she couldn't see out of the windscreen because it was covered with a film of oil and she had used up a whole bottle of washer fluid trying to clean the screen. She also had had to put the A/C on recirc as the smell coming into the car was terrible.

I got some paper towels and cleaned the screen and blades and refilled the washers and then went back to check under the new car again. Unfortunately, (something I only found out later) thatdue to the water dripping from the underside of the car I failed to notice that there was an oil leak so I told her to follow at a greater distance until we got home. Unfortunately I didn't quite make it home and she had already turned off to go and visit her mother who isn't very well. The roads in the meantime had dried out and I could now easily see that there was a cloud of smoke behind me so I pulled over, again.

This time I was able to see oil dripping down the back of the engine so but it was impossible to see where it was coming from due to the way it had covered eveything. From under the bonnet you couldn't see anything amiss so I checked the oil level (and I have to thank Andy, the salesguy for telling me on handover where the dipstick is situated) and I couldn't see anything on it at all. I gave it a wipe thinking that as it was so new it was just very clean but on the second dip it again came up dry.

Nothing for it but to call the AA and get the car relayed back to the dealership PDQ. I rang them to tell them what had happened and after they had apologised profusely they got onto the service manager who was just finishing and he said he would wait until I got there instead of just leaving it in the yard until the workshop opened on Monday. When we got there it was put on a ramp but there was so much oil everywhere that it was impossible to say where it was leaking from other than it was from quite high up on the rear of the engine.

First thing Monday they are going to clean it all off and find out where it is coming from so I should be able to report back then.

If nothing else this has raised a few points that I would like to clarify:

1) To those who advised caution before embracing this new technology I can't yet say if you were right or wrong as it may have nothing to do with the Twin Cylinder engine or the Multi Air system. It might be something as incongruous as an oil pressure switch leaking which could explain why no warning light illuminated on the dashboard to show low oil pressure and/or low oil level if indeed there is even a low oil level warning. Perhaps one of the techs might be able to shed some light (pun) on this.

2) The old adage that you only know how good a company is is after you have a problem proved very prophetical today and I cannot fault the service I received.

Now, bearing in mind that this fault could not possibly have been present when I collected the car, (it had been PDId, road tested, 5 miles on the clock when I collected it and had been sitting in the showroom on a highly polished floor for two days without any drips underneath) the sales manager, my salesguy and the Service Manager bent over backwards to get the car looked at straight away and arrange for me to have a courtesy car. They have promised me that I will get a phonecall on Monday with the diagnosis and that they will remedy the matter as quickly as possible.

Can't complain at that!

Anyway, not quite the update I was hoping to give but at least I can claim the record from Greyskull for having a major problem occur at under his 34 miles from new.

How many ladders did you walk under this morning ?

I hope it's not damaged by the leaking.

don't forget to charge them for the used screenwash in the other 500.


Trev

udtrev said:

How many ladders did you walk under this morning ?

Not sure as I was too busy picking up the pieces of mirrors I broke whilst trying to avoid tripping over black cats licking up the salt I'd spilt.

I hope it's not damaged by the leaking.

Well one things for sure the bulkhead, underside and spare wheel well will never ever go rusty now.

don't forget to charge them for the used screenwash in the other 500.

Do you think I'm that petty? Anyway they might try to charge me for all the Hot Chocolate I was served whilst waiting, lol.


Trev

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I have to admit though that I am a little concerned that if the problem is something simple eg. just replace an OP switch and top up with oil, job done that I might later get problems with the engine due to the fact I ran it so low on oil without being aware.

Ah **** mate, that's bad luck

Bugger.

cjc156 said:

Which dealer was it, if you dont mind me asking?

Click to expand...

Verve Kilmarnock.

Would have been funny if it wasn't so sad.

Sales manager told me all the salesmen were in the showroom dealing with customers, and that he wouldn't speak to me if I had a complaint, only if I had happy news.

I walked round the showroom another couple of times incase the salesmen were so small that they were conducting business under the cars, or in the glove boxes, but no.
Not a soul in the place.

Cheers

D

grimwau said:

=
Anyway, not quite the update I was hoping to give but at least I can claim the record from Greyskull for having a major problem occur at under his 34 miles from new.

Click to expand...

Having read your story, words can't express how very sorry I am for you. I can imagine you are absolutely gutted.

Regarding permanent damage, I'd say it depends on whether or not it ran so low that the oil pump was completely starved of oil - in other words, did the oil warning light come on?

If not, then oil pressure was maintained throughout & I think it's unlikely to have damaged the critical bearing surfaces.

But if the oil warning light did illuminate, then in your situation I'd reject the car.

Hopefully though it will turn out to be something minor & you will be back on the road Monday & all will be well.

Oh dear this is not good! Buying and collecting a new car should be exciting and fun. I would say that you have been very unlucky, i wouldn't blame it on anything else other than luck, I'm sure this happens once every 5 years or so!

If it's any consolation, my Abarth is broken too Been given an A500 SS until mines fixed. I hope you get something sorted soon. Chin up

Oh Tony mate, so sorry for the bad pickup... Hope it goes well on Monday, fingers crossed!

Sorry to hear about the hassles Tony - hopefullly just teething troubles!

Our local dealer does have a twin air available to test drive, and it was unfortunately available when I took the good lady to collect her Panda after a service.

MPG, OK, I've heard all the discussions - but I do like the noise! and the more enthusiastic acceleration!

Paolo (1.2 lounge cha cha) is reaching the end of his 3 year plan and the finance deal seemed good so an order has been placed!

Not sure on the exact date for collection, but I understand mine will be ready for delivery in the next couple of weeks. I'll be very cautious......

This is the only photo I have of the car (it took the wife 10 minutes to work out how to use the camera on her phone). I was planning on taking a lot more for my gallery and for Venters to post in members motors but I guess that will have to wait a little longer.



Slightly :Offtopic:but the people who bought my old car came and collected her today and when the got back to Oxford they emailed to say how beautiful it drove and thanks for keeeping it in such excellent condition. I explained about the DPF problems I had experienced but they are happy that with the type of driving they will be doing it shoudn't be a problem.

Bye! Bye! Bella.

ps. That's not me crying or getting emotional that is purely a metaphor for my wife at the moment as the courtesy car we have on loan is a Peugeot 107.

grimwau said:

ps. That's not me crying or getting emotional that is purely a metaphor for my wife at the moment as the courtesy car we have on loan is a Peugeot 107.

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That's rubbing salt into the wounds!!!!

grimwau said:

This is the only photo I have of the car (it took the wife 10 minutes to work out how to use the camera on her phone). I was planning on taking a lot more for my gallery and for Venters to post in members motors but I guess that will have to wait a little longer.



Slightly :Offtopic:but the people who bought my old car came and collected her today and when the got back to Oxford they emailed to say how beautiful it drove and thanks for keeeping it in such excellent condition. I explained about the DPF problems I had experienced but they are happy that with the type of driving they will be doing it shoudn't be a problem.

Bye! Bye! Bella.

ps. That's not me crying or getting emotional that is purely a metaphor for my wife at the moment as the courtesy car we have on loan is a Peugeot 107.

Click to expand...

Just to add best wishes from me as well, hope it all gets sorted out soon and you are then able to enjoy your new car.

On a slightly more light-hearted note, that photo is quite intriguing - it looks like you have bug eye wing mirrors that are stuck on just above the headlights!

i was at perrys the other day

test drove a 1.2 red pop with u alloys and a white stripe

hope they sort this quick not what you want on the maiden voyage

My quest for a test drive takes a futher twist, your gonna like this one.

Finally got a reply from Fiat UK indicating they have finally tracked down a dealer with a Twinair demo.

That dealership is shut!

Cheers

D

Now that Monday has been and gone do we have a diagnosis yet?