Auto box
- Thread starter Bobdodd
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Auto box
Tomferrari517
Member
I'm going to speak for the Dualogic here, not sure about the others but it seems to be a fairly popular transmission in Fiats and Alfa Romeos (Selespeed), maybe other members can advise you with other fiat transmissions.
If you're considering any car that has the Dualogic, their automated manual transmission, don't touch it with a 10ft pole. As an owner of a 2004 Panda with one, it's a ticking bomb waiting to fail and will probably be my car's doom, since everything else works so well. it's costly to repair when it fails or starts juddering (mine still hasn't had any of the larger problemssome have like it just won't go into gear or is very slow to change etc.), sometimes it needs an hydraulic fluid fill-up, other times it might need a whole set of actuators replaced which is where it gets expensive etc. and to top it off, many people don't know how to work with these so they either lie to you saying they did X thing to fix Y but they really didn't do much, do the wrong maintenance etc.
If you do maintain it, it's not the most reliable but at least it won't suddenly fail or start with bad symptoms, and sometimes it's actually fun to drive too, you can change gears yourself, use it in eco mode etc. you also need to learn how to properly "drive" with one since it's not a conventional auto box where if you let go of the brake it creeps forward, and it's a mess to park with it sometimes since you don't control the clutch for precise and small moves, it's essently a manual gearbox that has a clutch controlled by a computer, so the shifts are a little different and such.
My Panda has a low mileage of only 58k mi, considering it's from 2004, but its box has reached the age where it starts with leaks, sometimes works great others almost stalls and sometimes judders, but it still mostly works fine. If even after all that you still want to try one, make sure it's been taken care of and it might not give you problems.
Thank you,yeah i will steer well clear.i'm looking for an auto but one with a convential torque convertor.
Depending on what you are looking at. The 2.0L fiat 500X diesel uses a more conventional gearbox from ZF which I believe has a more conventional torque convertor. It is an extremely reliable and robust gearbox and is used by many other cars including the range rover evoke (actually the most reliable part of the evoke)
Thank you.