General 10 years in : Panda 1.2 Eleganza

[onecleanfinger]

Hi, now that I've had my Panda for almost 10 years from new I thought I'd write a few words about it. It's generally been fantastic and I plan to keep it for a lot longer. It's been used mostly as a second car so mileage has been very low (currently 35K) but they are all short, low speed runs over speed bumps and poor roads, with lots and lots of cold starts.

Here are the things that have gone wrong, and some of my lessons learned from looking after the car myself.

• Heater fan noisy bearing. Probably just needed a dab of grease but replaced under warranty. Apart from the car's first service, some new tyres and 6 MOTs this was the only time the car has been to the garage.
• MOT fail - sticky rear brake. When I investigated I found a broken adjuster mechanism and a slightly weepy brake wheel cylinder. Replaced both using a complete Bosch kit from ECP. The Bosch kit from ECP included shoes, adjusters, springs and wheel cylinders for both sides and was considerably cheaper than just the adjuster from the Fiat dealer. Found its much easier to fit the rear brake shoes when the hub is removed but you also need new hub nuts from the dealer as they're not re-usable.
• Exhaust back box outer skin corroded. Replaced with OEM new one before it got so bad that it would've been an MOT failure - easy job on the drive, very DIYable.
• Nearside diff oil seal (to driveshaft). Cheap part but a bit of an oily job to change. Changed the gearbox oil at the same time.
• Rear springs and dampers changed because they were heavily corroded. Easy job but spent a lot of time cleaning up and repainting the rear axle which was quite rusty.
• Front springs changed because they were very rusty. I didn't change the struts or the top mounts - both seemed fine. Even the drop links seemed fine which is incredible given the number of speed humps this car has gone over.
• Air box breather pipe split. Cheap genuine replacement from Shop4Parts.
• Clutch slave cylinder changed due to a loud squeak. Changed the fluid at the same time. Clutch pedal getting very stiff now despite changing the slave cylinder, but that's the subject of another post.
• Car pulling to the left. After checking lots of things I swapped the tyres from front to rear and the problem went away. There's no sign of a problem with any of the tyres but there must be some sort of non uniformity on one of them. I'm Hankook's at the moment - I prefer them to the original Continentals.

Servicing:

• Usual oil and filter changes every year at least. Always using Fiat genuine parts, mostly from Shop4Parts, occasionally from dealer. For oil I just use a good quality 5W/30, whatever ECP have for a good price.
• I think I've changed the air filter only twice, and it's never that dirty with my low mileage.
• I've done the pollen filter about 5 times. I broke one of the plastic clips on the little cover panel - they're particularly brittle in cold weather. Didn't need to replace the broken part - it still fits quite snugly.
• Spark plugs changed with NGK genuine ones every 3 or 4 years. The HT leads get stuck on really badly and on one occasion I managed to damage an injector connector pulling an HT lead off - expensive mistake, but a nice easy job to change the injector with a new one from Shop4Parts.
• Timing belt changed after 7 years and 25K miles approx. In reality, it didn't seem to really need it and could have gone for quite a lot longer. I changed the tensioner and water pump at the same time. Easy DIY job if you take your time but the water pump seal is metal to metal and needs the right sealing compound or it will leak (ask your motor factor for one that's suitable for metal to metal seals). It's also a complete pain to clean all the old sealing compound off the flange surfaces.
• Brake fluid changed a couple of times

Overall the car is in great condition. There's no rust on the bodywork, it runs fine and gets about 45mpg (real mpg) with mixed city driving and lots of shor journeys. The A/C still blows cold and has never been recharged. The car is still on its first battery (although I have charged off the car once or twice when the car wasn't getting used much).

Hopefully someone will find this useful!

 

[dante giacosa]

this is very interesting to read 'cleanfinger

thanks for going into detail- welcome to the forum

any chance of a picture of the beast?

 

[varesecrazy]

Thanks.

They are good little cars.. we did 90+k in our 1.1 over 15 years.

Have you needed any bulbs? Ours didnt

 

[onecleanfinger]

Thanks.

They are good little cars.. we did 90+k in our 1.1 over 15 years.

Have you needed any bulbs? Ours didnt

No bulbs replaced at all. Not even a new battery in the key fob come to think of it. A couple of things I did forget:

1. The locking petrol cap broke. New one from the dealer was quite expensive and now I have to have a separate key for the fuel tank.
2. The lacquer on the roof rails (they are satin silver) has pitted and they look a bit untidy now. However, the alloy wheels are in remarkably good condition and the paint hasn't bubbled at all on them.
3. All of the external red Fiat badges have faded to a light pink shade.

Upgrades I've made:
1. Replaced original radio with a single DIN Alpine with Bluetooth etc. Also upgraded the front door speakers.
2. Added a second (low tone) horn slaved from an automotive relay supplied by a automotive fuse straight off the battery.
3. Added a dashcam - hard wired and fed from a piggyback fuse in the passenger compartment fuse box.