Hi All

Today my Stilo exploded. Very similar to Jeremy Clarkdons £10 supercar.

I pulled out my Grandads road onto the main road and there was an almighty bang. No lights, just a lot of oil and chunks of metal.

Now, as some of you are aware my gearbox has been making a noise after having a warranty repair done to it, and the dealer wanted to fix it but Fiat UK wont auth the work.

Fiat Uk have been dealing with my complaint over 6 months now and havent come back with an answer and i do chase them. They now are aware of the explosion.

Spoke with the dealer and it sounds like its the gear box, infact my uncle who has looked at it says it looks like a gear box.

Its going in tomorrow on the back of a towtruck for them to deal with and speak with FIAT UK.

I am Fuming about this now as it gave no warning as the noise/performance never got worse and it was unexpected to say the least.

The bits of metal recovered are the casing and about an inch of a rod that has 3mil grooves in it running spirally down it, with a cut in the end that is the end and an almost clean shear on the other.

I am 'kin sick of this car now, sick of fiat uk (stress not the dealer as they have been great with me and the car- no problems with them).

To call me not happy is an understatement

One thing that got me was that the oil that came out smelt of engine oil, i thought gearbox oil was different

Well its being dragged to the dealer today on a tow truck, lets see what happens

Good Luck !

Well off it went, dealer will be speaking with FIAT UK re whats happened and my complaint, they are aware that I am not happy. Here a couple of pics, one is a pic of the bits that come out, mostly are casing, and it being dragged off from my cousins gaff.

gearbox oil has a pretty distinct smell TBH.spill it in your car and you will be smelling it for weeks!
did you look around the engine blocks for holes,conrods sticking out of it! etc (a leg out of bed they call it here)
if you have metal on the ground then theres a hole somewhere and it would have come out at quite a force usually

the only thing I found other than casing was on inch of rod thats sheared and has grooves in it, on the lhs of the pic.

Def wasnt engine coz all the oil is still in there, and no warning lights.

Thats what amazes me with the stilo, no warning light for a gearbox explode but one for airbag faults that dont exist

yeah but gearboxes have very little to warrent a warning system.they dont 'use' much oil unless its leaking so not worth the R&D,parts costs etc for warnings

Got any more photos? Ought to take lots as much can be proved by how things break.
Sure looks like you had a gearshaft break and it will go straight out through the box then

There wasnt much more to take photos of, couldnt see the hole, and all that was remaining was a 40ft trail of oil, then a puddle

I was shamed well and truly when it went as there were a few people knocking around that street.

Big Black Stilo said:

I was shamed well and truly when it went as there were a few people knocking around that street.

Click to expand...

Well I wouldn't bother about that - even on the trailer your motor still looks pretty smart to me.

So are you getting a NEW box this time? - I think I'd demand one.

:yuck: I have sympathy for you as my gp has been at the dealer for 7 of its 10 week life waiting for a new gearbox, which they still say is on back order.

I just told fiat customer services to sort it in 2 weeks or i will take legal action with fiat to recover the whole car's new value.

Fiat customer services suck...

:bang:

Got the phone call this afternoon and FIAT UK have agreed to pay for a full repair, which is.... ta-dah..... a whole new gear box, is on order and expected by the end of the week.

Dont need a car this week as im off work, got the mrs saxo (with her driving it!) and in london thurs fri so it wouldnt be run. Dont need it sat sun. Just hope its ready for monday.

Going to speak to FIAT UK to see if they will pay me back the cost of dragging it from its final resting spot on friday to the dealer (£55)

Fiat constantly engaged this morning so give up waiting

anyone reckon they'll refund the towing fee?

Glad your getting your new gearbox finally... as for the tow fee, dunno, suppose you could say had they fixed it properly in the first place you wouldnt have had to pay this money out - refund as a goodwill gesture? You can but ask... good luck!

I have asked them, no reply yet will ring them on monday

Had an interesting conversation with fiat this morning, more specifically, the guy who agreed the good will gesture of fitting the box.

He was being cocky and the nice BBS wasnt working, he slowly wound me up, and continually quoted that fiat uk do not recover vehicles-so they wont refund the £55. Then he told me I had been told twice when i called about this that they were not going to refund the fee- i had never been told this so I kinda blew my top and went off on one about it, and picking what he was saying to pieces, even though he was getting flustered he was still being cocky.

Conversation ended with me saying we aint going to go further and if we do you wont deal with anything as you didnt in the first instance.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...................................

Whats the update on this?