In November 2006 the front nearside suspension snapped on my 53 reg 3 door JTD – the car had done 46000 miles at the time. I got 2 new springs, the “Relief kit” modification fitted and a new tyre under warranty.

Last week I had 2 new tyres fitted to the car. The garage alerted me to a problem…… The front nearside suspension spring was snapped!

In the 22 months since the springs were replaced I’ve done another 21000 miles. I drove straight down to Fiat dealer that fitted the springs – I was advised that there was nothing they could do as you only get one year’s guarantee on parts fitted. Another spring would cost me about £125 fitted.

I’ve never had a problem with the suspension on any other car I’ve owned. I’m not expecting Fiat to give a lifetime warranty on suspension, but I don’t expect to have to replace the springs every time I replace the tyres! It seems to me there is something seriously wrong with the quality of these springs.

Has anyone else had the replacement springs fail (in an unreasonable time)? Did you try claiming compensation from Fiat? If so, did you get anywhere?

What’s the best way of contacting Fiat UK – phone / letter / email? If email – what’s their email address? I’m hoping for a quick response from them as I’ve stopped using the car just now as the Fiat dealer said it could be dangerous driving the car…..

Any thoughts / suggestions?

Cheers!

That's just plain crazy We've run a few polls on here and I'm pretty certain no one has ever reported a failure for such a low mileage and within such short a duration.

I can only assume two possibilities:

• there's been a mix up and it's really the other side which has now failed (this IS common)
• the spring fitted was second hand to start with

In the former case, the garage don't have a case to answer but if the 2nd they most certainly do :chin:

Hi Argonought,

Thanks for your reply.

When the near side spring snapped in 2006 I requested that the dealer fitted new springs on both sides under warranty – my [untrained] reasoning being that if only one spring was replaced, it would surely make the suspension uneven with a brand new spring on one side and a 3 year old one on the other? They agreed and fitted [according to the invoice which I got a copy of last week] 2x F0050701023 springs. I’m sure they fitted new springs on both sides as the car seemed to sit higher at the front when I got it back.

Were the springs new or secondhand? I don’t really know – the springs certainly “looked” new when I looked to see what they’d done at the time and what the recall modification was. The work was done by a big multi-franchise [including Fiat / Alfa] dealer.

It seems to me that for the original spring to fail after 46000 miles and the replacement to fail after 21000 miles, then the springs cannot be “of merchantable quality”. The bill for the work in 2006 which I didn’t pay was £211 (seems to include about 20% discount). They are now wanting another £125…..

I’d prefer to deal with Fiat by email so I have an accurate record of correspondence. The website says “advisors are available by phone, live chat and email”, however when I click on the icon, the screen simply refreshes – can anyone help with the customer service email address?

TheItalianJob said:

It seems to me that for the original spring to fail after 46000 miles and the replacement to fail after 21000 miles, then the springs cannot be “of merchantable quality”. The bill for the work in 2006 which I didn’t pay was £211 (seems to include about 20% discount). They are now wanting another £125…..

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I agree completely I certainly hope this is a one off and is purely due to Fiat using springs from shall we say a suspect source i.e from the original batch which caused the problems in the first place. I'd want to inspect the broken parts once removed as I can't see how corrosion could have set in during that short period :chin:

As a point of reference, my local Fiat specialist will change all 4 springs for £75+VAT and the cheapest source of oem springs is www.shop4parts.co.uk (but hopefully better quality )

The Fiat UK website seemed to be completely down for a few hours earlier but is now working again.

I have emailed them via the website and requested a free of charge replacement spring in view of the circumstances.

I’ll let you know what they say…..

I uploaded my complaint via the Fiat website last Thursday and got a reply asking me to phone 00800 3428 0000, which seemed to be a call centre in Italy?

I gave the same details as I’d provided in my email and the agent said someone from Slough would contact me within 2 days – I duly got a call on Monday morning from Fiat Customer Services asking me to take the car to my Fiat dealer for examination and following that they would contract me with their proposal.

They have offered to replace BOTH springs so long as I pay the labour cost. The dealer first quoted £102.22 inc VAT labour, based on £58 + VAT per hour. I managed to negotiate this down to £50 per hour. According to the dealer the actual parts cost is £70.96 + VAT per spring (they only cost £41.24 in 2006!).

The part number of the new springs is slightly different to the last ones. The original ones were F0050701023, the new ones are F0050701024 – I hope these are the long life ones and that I wont have to replace them the next time I buy tyres!

Interesting post and sounds like a fair result

Hi Argonought,

Yes, I agree with you, it’s a fair outcome.

This is my first experience of dealing with any car manufacturer for a “goodwill claim” - I’d say that Fiat UK Customer Services acted quickly and efficiently to bring about a satisfactory resolution to my complaint.

Thanks for your input and interest.