I inherited my Mums 2004 1.4 Active Air about 5 years ago and I loved to hate it. After years and 100 thousand and something miles, more sweat, blood and tears than I care to remember I went and bought another. The is a 2006 2.4l 20v Abarth. I must be mad.

I've finally joined the forum to express my gratitude for all you diy'ers as you've helped me and my Dad solve many problems over the years.

You have good taste with the 2.4 but you'll need triple jointed arms and deep pockets for things like cam belt swaps.


PS absolutely DO NOT trust the old cam belt unless you know 100% that it's been replaced. They are safe only to 40,000 or four years (not very long at all) but when they break the engine will be toast as it can damage con-rods as well as valves.

PPS You probably already know that.

Welcome to the forum, I agree you must be mad lol

You’ll need everything Dave said, plus if it’s the auto selespeed gear box you’ll also need deep pockets.

Still a cool car though.

By the service history it hasn't been changed since 2012 so it's booked in for Thursday, I haven't driven it since picking it up.

Thanks for the tips all.

Stilomad1989 said:

By the service history it hasn't been changed since 2012 so it's booked in for Thursday, I haven't driven it since picking it up.

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Well done I stupidly drove my Punto 1750 HGT before getting the belt changed and guess what happened. Thankfully I had not wrecked the bottom end but it was a lot of work to repair.

DaveMcT said:

Well done I stupidly drove my Punto 1750 HGT before getting the belt changed and guess what happened. Thankfully I had not wrecked the bottom end but it was a lot of work to repair.

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Thats very lucky, I don't trust other people enough to do that. She's going to get a full service next weekend too.

I forgot to mention it's not the selespeed thankfully