hi guys n gurls

i went to view an abarth yesterday i traveled 3 hours to go see it...
but when i arrived the car was broken down 200meters for the guys house. :bang:

He said he had just changed the battery and every warning imaginable was showing on the dash and also the cooling fan was running even without the car being switched on. On turning the key the car went through all its checks and left the engine control managment light up. :idea:

The car would turn over and start but as soon as the accelerator was tap the revs would jump and die. My supicisions lay with the fact that when he open the battery box there was water around the fuse box area and the lovely D4 connector was soaked. :bang:

Turned out he had just changed the battery in the pouring rain..:idea:

My question is would this be due to the D4 connector or could it be anything else causing the car to jump reverse and spit like a coil is going.

Lucky for me though the guy, has stated that he will get the car to Fiat by monday to be checked and sorted, with a written report to state that the probelm has been rectified. He wont be driving it as well as the AA where there nicely towing it away..

car sellers worst nightmare!

custard said:

car sellers worst nightmare!

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indeed, but he was not phased by it as he had a brand new mazda RX-8 he is driving around in. and said what ever the cost he will get it fixed...

It's most likely that idea of
"I'll just give the engine a quick power wash before the customer arrives" that forecourt salesman and private sellers just love to do
D4 gets the electric shock therapy and things start to frizz
Maybe that's why they don't power wash computers before the sell them

Deckchair5 said:

It's most likely that idea of
"I'll just give the engine a quick power wash before the customer arrives" that forecourt salesman and private sellers just love to do
D4 gets the electric shock therapy and things start to frizz
Maybe that's why they don't power wash computers before the sell them

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doh.. i knew i did something wrong when i tried sell my computer... :bang:

Why not just keep the 1.6 and not get the abarth ..with the correct tuning you can have 160bhp from that sweet little engine with none of the problems associated with the big brother of the range and if you must change then go JTD for ease of tuning and brilliant fuel consumption

PNL said:

Why not just keep the 1.6 and not get the abarth ..with the correct tuning you can have 160bhp from that sweet little engine with none of the problems associated with the big brother of the range and if you must change then go JTD for ease of tuning and brilliant fuel consumption

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Don't listen to him he's :nutter:

PNL said:

Why not just keep the 1.6 and not get the abarth ..with the correct tuning you can have 160bhp from that sweet little engine with none of the problems associated with the big brother of the range

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PNL: I know I can reach 120 Bhp with GSR induction and remap but where I am supposed to get extra 40 ponnies ??? How much ???:worship:

also does your 1.6 have leather and toys?

I've got a 1.6 and leather and toys
But not all at the same time

oh, kinky

hydrantekk said:

PNL: I know I can reach 120 Bhp with GSR induction and remap but where I am supposed to get extra 40 ponnies ??? How much ???:worship:

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What is needed is a properly built exhaust and not one from one of these drive in and drive out in 2hour merchants either ..camshafts and some headwork ..and the power will be yours ..contact Oldschool on here and he will give you all the info you will need

Or just buy the Abarth and have 170 ponnies on tap without all the effort of modding the car..... What problems do the Abarth models have, excluding a thirst for fuel (unless you're a lucky AlexGS - I reckon you must have a feather for a foot) and oil which needs topping every couple of weeks

People forget the 1.6 is a much lighter car it hasnt got that heavy lump up front like the bigger brother ..and if both car where set up the same with the same suspension and the 1.6 having 160bhp then I dont think there would be much in it because the 1.6 would have the advantage of the power to weight ratio on its side it would give the abarth a good run for its money :devil:

PNL said:

People forget the 1.6 is a much lighter car it hasnt got that heavy lump up front like the bigger brother ..and if both car where set up the same with the same suspension and the 1.6 having 160bhp then I dont think there would be much in it because the 1.6 would have the advantage of the power to weight ratio on its side it would give the abarth a good run for its money :devil:

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hmmmmm...... so a 1.8, being the same block as the 1.6 just bored out more with, 155.9hp already would be just as quick then

.........with more possibilities of being tuned to 180/190hp with the right exhaust, some cams and abit of head work :devil:

seens as a 3 door 1.8 weights in at 1240kg according to parkers and the fat 1.6 5 door weights in at 1250kg, those extra doors holding you back phil hehehe

and just to clarify the abarth dosent weight that much more to be fair 1265kg! and t has all that extra torque from the nice 5 cyclinder! Id say go for it fella, if you can affoard the petrol mucca, with the pries and tax rising at high rates!

thepottleflump said:

Or just buy the Abarth and have 170 ponnies on tap without all the effort of modding the car..... What problems do the Abarth models have, excluding a thirst for fuel (unless you're a lucky AlexGS - I reckon you must have a feather for a foot) and oil which needs topping every couple of weeks

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LOL - Thanks :hug:
My oil never needs topping-up either... and I have my leather and toys all at the same time.

Anyway, when I read the problem here, two things jumped out at me - fan staying on all the time and engine management warning light on, I believe the cause of these could be the coolant temperature sensor which Decks has made a lovely guide about.

Although I suppose it's academic since it's getting fixed before sale anyway. I agree with Custard, it's a car seller's worst nightmare... but also as Decks said, I've often cleaned an engine just before customer collection and oh dear, now there's an electrical problem...

-Alex

Also why bother modding a lower spec car to the performance of the higher spec car without the reliability. The abarth is less strained as it is designed to handle the power. As i have found, when you push a engine/car to its limit or closer to its limit then you sacrifice some reliability for that.

Does the abarth have same brakes/suspension/etc as the 1.6? i'd doubt it as its made to handle 170bhp wheras the chassis/brakes/susp etc of the 1.6 more than likely isnt

....and if youre power mad then 200bhp is only a few hundred quid away with a remap and induction kit on the Abarth. Headwork, cams etc on the 1.6 will wreck any mpg you might have got and the smoothness (and I believe the 1.6 is a bit of rough compared to the 5 clinder anyway) will suffer, it will also cost you a lot of money. Cylinder head work starts at £600 these days and thats without paying someone to remove it and put it back on.
Buy the Abarth.....I managed 36mpg on the way back from work this morning......it did take twice as long as normal though

alpinepg said:

Buy the Abarth.....I managed 36mpg on the way back from work this morning......it did take twice as long as normal though

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LOL! What am I starting here...
Taking off slowly shouldn't really make much difference unless it's 100% starts and stops, in which case you're screwed anyway. Basically, when cruising on a light throttle, the Abarth is equally (un)economical at just about any speed. You even get 8L/100km at 120km/h (70mph), so you may as well cruise at normal speeds. It's just that when you accelerate... the economy disappears and the trip computer takes a long time to catch up, seemingly.

I have just worked out the actual economy figures for the last four times that I've filled up my Stilo (I keep a record of distance and litres, plus the TRIP figures from the computer) and I can now reveal a startling, err, revelation. The computer is usually wrong!

Basically, when the computer said 9.4L/100km, actual consumption was over 11L/100km (!!!) which is something like 23mpg. Then, when the computer said 10.4L/100km, the actual consumption was a respectable 32mpg - 8.8L/100km. This is taken over the whole tank (450+ km) so I was expecting any error to average out to a lot less than that!

But the fact remains that the difference between light driving and foot-down motoring is more marked than in any other car I've owned - even my Uno Turbo. You can literally get either 7.8L/100km (36mpg) or 17L/100km (17mpg) on the same journey, depending on how you drive. It's really quite surprising - unless the computer is totally wrong all the time, of course. Maybe if it said 17L/100km it would really be 12L/100km...
-----

Back on topic, I personally reckon that as prices for the Stilo fall (and I'm sure in England they're half what they are here), the difference between the Abarth and other models must now be very little, so you may as well get the Abarth on the grounds that you're getting better value compared with the new price. For me, the decision was easy, because while the 5-dr was available in 1.6 or Abarth form, the 3-dr was available only as an Abarth on our market

Incidentally although GhostWKD - umm, Alex? - raises many good points, the brakes of the Abarth are probably no different to the 1.6 - they look too small and on a track, they're terrible - and the chassis is, again, awful on the track. But that's a topic for another future post. Hee Hee - Offtopic is fun... I love that signature

-Alex

alexGS said:

Basically, when cruising on a light throttle, the Abarth is equally (un)economical at just about any speed. You even get 8L/100km at 120km/h (70mph), so you may as well cruise at normal speeds. It's just that when you accelerate... the economy disappears and the trip computer takes a long time to catch up, seemingly.

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Alex, keeping this well off topic

Newton wouldn't be very pleased to hear you say that. His formula for the kinetic energy of a body: (1/2mv²) shows that, at least in pure physics, your L/Km figure should be proportional to speed (mpg would of course be inversely proportional) in order to overcome the resistive forces acting on the vehicle.

Interestingly, high acceleration doesn't impart any higher energy demands than if you'd accelerated very slowly (other than the fact you get to high consumption speeds quicker) and just makes a bigger mark in space/time but then that's more in Einstein's domain

The absolute real killer is braking as this dumps energy, which you've paid for, and is lost to our Galaxy forever