Of interest to all Fiat owners are the average number of engine 'over revs' logged by the engine management system in say 60,000 miles (maximum mileage covered by warranty). This is of particular interest to me as it has been used to invalidate a 3rd year warranty claim by the insurance company Fiat pays to cover it's 3rd year (I assume this arrangement is to save Fiat the cost of repair and for the insurance company to make money - this situation is very hard to square if the level of cover is the same, although Fiat tout it as being so!). Hence, the insurance company will do anything it can to avoid costs.

Obviously, how engine 'over revs logged are used to invalidate claims will vary with the component - in my case it was the gearbox (only 19700 miles Fiat FSH Punto Grande), but others will naturally be interested in the engine. Before members think this doesn't apply to me as I never over rev - I also thought that (if the management system is working fairly). However, when I claimed that I never over rev the service manager stated that every Fiat they have ever looked at has over revs logged - although there is no public policy or guideline on how many you need to invalidate a claim from their insurance company.

Furthermore, this easy to use information was only acquired after they had removed and stripped the gearbox just for the insurance inspection - this cost is now my responsibility at £460(I had to sign a document taking responsibility before they would even look at it), which is very nice for the dealer. The car is now gearboxless and will cost an extra £1600 to actually have a gearbox put in. I would recommend that any prospective buyer of a Fiat has the number of 'over revs' logged, downloaded and quoted even if it has only has delivery miles, as they might use this information to invalidate claims during the manufacturers warranty period as well.

Any hard information on this subject would be greatly appreciated in my pursuit of enforcing my warranty.

PS I like Fiats, but not their supposed '3rd year cover' scheme. If I didn't have this I would have been able to save my last service cost (just 2weeks before the gearbox went and right at the end of the manufacturers 2 years warranty period) and the insurance inspection money and just taken it straight to the local mechanic (£600 for a used gear box including fitting).

Interesting. I recon you can pick up a good used geasrbox for £200 and get the local backstreet clutch guys to fit it for around £100 -- unless you live dahn sahf.

Wonder if the software distinguishes over-rev under power and over-run?

Difficult to see over revving daqmaging a gearbox, though..............

When they say over rev, I assume they mean what is sometimes called buzzing, where you run the engine to the limiter in say 3rd then drop to second to get over the limiter...?

However that doesn't instill confidence in the recording software setup if for example over-rev is defined as 5k rpm and the limiter is at 6.5k!

Your right.... apparently, it should only be changing down that will lead to over revs as there is a rev limiter - I don't know what it is set to though, but I'm a careful driver anyway.

The worrying aspect is that the bottom line is with any kind of used mileage on a car there will be some over revs notched up - according to this Fiat dealer. So, they should be up front with how many invalidate what - a simple check on this would have saved the gearbox extraction/strip, if the number logged was really that high and the logger was working correctly. The service manager claimed no idea of what number would invalidate a gearbox or and engine cover, so there was no point in reporting this to the insurance assessor first of all, and that the assessor would still need to see the gearbox stripped.

There's a thread on the Grande Punto forum about a guy with a broken gear box and an over-revved engine. Searching will find it.

Many Thanks for that info .... at least I don't feel so victimised now I can see they are doing the same to others!

I've taken it up directly with Fiat UK and I will post the outcome when they give me their final answer on whether they'll help. In the meantime the car has to stay off the road .... the insurance company say that if I pay to have it fixed then the claim is automatically void, even if my case was just. I'm literally on my bike now - I hope my Shimano gears don't let me down now, as it's Shanks' pony next!

Under no circumstances would I accept this. First of all the service manager has got no power to decide whether a claim is accepted or not.

Ask them for a protokoll and the clear definition of over revving.

Also I do not find it acceptable that when pay to have it fixed that the claim is automatically void, even if your case was just.

My gut feeling tells me that there is something dodgy.

I would make clear to the service manager that he has to justify his position or you will claim compensation against him and/or the person that leads you up the garden path. This will put you in a much stronger situation.

Also let them know that they obviously will have to pay for the inconvenience holding up the repair process.

fingers99 said:

Interesting. I recon you can pick up a good used geasrbox for £200 and get the local backstreet clutch guys to fit it for around £100 -- unless you live dahn sahf.

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Think again there rare as rocking horse s**t. Theres a guy on ebay that restores them and then sells them on a swap out basis for £350 . Then you looking at about £150 labour realisticly for someone half competant.

I know this as im on my third!.

No, really, the price up here in t'frozen north is £100 plus parts. Think about it -- to replace clutch you have to remove gearbox. The clutch jockeys do 5 clutches a day. To them it really doesn't matter whether it's the old or the new gearbox, it's just 2,500 a week for two guys in a little shed with a hoist and a transmission jack. "Real" garages simply can't work at that kind of rate.

Yea kinda see that. Cost me £150 on mates rates at a Italian car specialist, but that included new oil so not too bad . Thinking about buying another box and getting it refurbed in standby for it breaking again lol.

The service manager didn't refuse the claim.....
He indicated that the insurance assessor would need to see the gearbox taken out and stripped in order to process the claim - seemed unusual because all the assessor would see is the inside of a broken gearbox. I had to sign for this work to be done ... I didn't think they could possibly see anything to refuse the claim in the gearbox. However, the insurance assessor used the over rev log to refuse the total claim outright .... at this point anything that he might have observed in the gearbox was totally irrelevent. So, why extract/strip the gearbox when the easy to obtain over rev number was apparently the key to everything - the service manager indicated he had no idea what the criteria are for invalidating a claim based on over revs. However, he didn't have much trouble in understanding the need to strip the gearbox for the assessor.
I think if that was my job, I'd hope to have a better idea!

RICHARD1415 said:

He indicated that the insurance assessor would need to see the gearbox taken out and stripped in order to process the claim - seemed unusual because all the assessor would see is the inside of a broken gearbox.

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signs of abuse would be self evident

Many Thanks for your comment ...... Fiat UK never claimed the gearbox main bearing initially went based directly upon anything observed in the gearbox itself - the key to refusal was the over rev log. However, the fact that you indicate any driver abuse as the prime cause of failure would be self evident in the gearbox and this wasn't raised, appears to back up my case even further.

The dealer was simply following the assessors requested procedure to have the gearbox stripped (this actually cost £353 in the end) - they did not know what or if over revs would disqualify a claim. Maybe they will re-think how to approach a gearbox sounding like a bag of nails to give customers an option of checking the over rev log first in future -apparently they have only had one gearbox go under warranty before and it was covered. The Fiat dealer seems to be genuinely helpful in this case and have made some useful suggestions today to help me pursue my claim, even though I am not going to get it fixed there (and did not purchase the car there either, although all service work has been done there)..... after all I'm sure it would have suited them for Fiat to pay, rather than have a disgruntled customer.

Still pluggin away with Fiat UK for answers and who knows maybe some cover ...... but here is some informed opinion I have been given on over revvin

Most Likely Damage in approximate order A to F:

Engine
A). Damage to the valve train: expect accelerated valve guide wear expected, leading to smoking and heavy oil consumption. This vehicle was running clean and Fiat service two weeks before did not flag any malfunction, smoke or poor performance.

Wear to valve seats, but these days use of sintered valve seats for unleaded petrol would minimise observable damage from valve bounce.

B). Catastrophic valve failure: total valve failure which could cause valve drop and destruction of the engine.

C). Damage to pistons and con rods with excessive G load and total engine failure.

Gearbox
Over revving in itself is unlikely to cause gearbox damage prior to engine damage/failure, but if it must........

D). Snapped teeth

E). Bent selector rods/forks

F). Wrecked syncromesh

For D to F catastrophic failure would normally be preceded by chronically increasing gearbox noise and vibration leading to 'baulking' over a long period of time. This gearbox was totally smooth with no malfunction or poor performance noted at it's Fiat service 2 weeks prior to it's sudden failure.

G). Primary failure of the main bearing would not usually be a consideration.

This opinion appears to be reinforced by the fact the very highest over rev recorded by the ECU was only 6720rpm. The maximum power quoted is 77bhp at 6000rpm for this Grande Punto (GP) 1.4 Dynamic, using Fiat's own advertising literature see www.fiat.co.uk (i.e. 6000rpm shouldn't be a problem if these figures are actually attainable on a supplied GP). So, using a worst case scenario of 6720rpm as a gearbox damaging over rev seems very harsh.

However, I'm still waiting for a full definition of what an over rev actually constitutes for a GP 1.4 Dynamic from Fiat UK and this could shed light on matters - over revs are not mentioned in the 235 pages of the GP owners handbook and there is no red line indicated on the tacho that reads up to 7000rpm (6720rpm is not 'red lining' in the classic sense, as there isn't a red line). Perhaps, there is an engineer's manual that needs to be read before operating a Grande Punto - I reckon it would be of use to give the delivery drivers a copy of this prior to ramping our cars off the ferry and logging us a warranty crippling over rev on the ECU.

However, there are a multitude (too many to list) of engineering and quality control issues that would lead to early primary main bearing failure, rather than user error. This is certainly not a comment on GP's, because obviously this is just an individual car out of hundreds of thousands and not a statistically valid study of GP gearboxes, which some of my more mathematically minded friends reckon would require following a sample size of at least a couple of thousand cars to fairly comment - who said 'bods' weren't useful!

H). In general over revving an engine does not necessarily place any strain on a gearbox whatsoever as the clutch may not have been engaged at this instant of over rev e.g. missing a gear or simply even pumping the accelerator under no load such as being stopped at the lights (most rev limiters can only stop over rev under gradual acceleration acting on the load of the whole vehicle).

Pluggin on .........