Christopher007
New member
Hello not sure if anyone can offer any insight or advice. Any knowledge or similar experience is much appreciated. Basically have a Fiat Ducato Motorhome its a 2009 2.3 diesel engine now at 100k miles. never really had any problems and been running perfect!
Currently in Germany and last week it snowed quite a lot temperatures ranged from -8 at night and -3 during the day. Had been having some problems starting up but always managed. After two days in the same spot we went to start up and had no luck. As if there wasn't enough power, if we didn't have a new battery we would've thought it was a dead battery. So we towed to a nearby Fiat dealership/repair shop with good reviews and the next day they had a brief look at it. We were shocked when they told us that it looked like due to a defect in this model snow/water had been dripping through from the windscreen area into the engine bay and formed ice around the engine/timing belt/cambelt area and when we tried to start up the engine is now seriously damaged due to this ice.
They said that they can work on it next week and can only tell the exact damage by opening it up more and can tell us exactly how bad the damage is. They have offered either to purchase and install a 2nd hand engine which will cost around €15k in total or else they can try to fix it which should be 99% successful. The only problem with this is that they will only know the exact cost once they inspect it and take apart the engine further. They have said that it will cost somewhere between €7k - €12k !
Does this make sense ? Can serious damage have been made to the cylinder head/pistons .. like this ? I have heard of examples where the timing belt had gone whilst driving and ruined peoples engines completely but I can't understand how similar damage has been made whilst we were only trying to start up.
Bit in shock really about 1. the defect they mentioned which I can't understand how this is a known issue with the water leaking in and 2. how an attempted start up could cause so much damage ? Apologies in advanced for my lack of knowledge in how an engine works but if anyone can shed some light on what may have happened and whether the €7k - €12k figure makes sense.
Thanks
Chris
Currently in Germany and last week it snowed quite a lot temperatures ranged from -8 at night and -3 during the day. Had been having some problems starting up but always managed. After two days in the same spot we went to start up and had no luck. As if there wasn't enough power, if we didn't have a new battery we would've thought it was a dead battery. So we towed to a nearby Fiat dealership/repair shop with good reviews and the next day they had a brief look at it. We were shocked when they told us that it looked like due to a defect in this model snow/water had been dripping through from the windscreen area into the engine bay and formed ice around the engine/timing belt/cambelt area and when we tried to start up the engine is now seriously damaged due to this ice.
They said that they can work on it next week and can only tell the exact damage by opening it up more and can tell us exactly how bad the damage is. They have offered either to purchase and install a 2nd hand engine which will cost around €15k in total or else they can try to fix it which should be 99% successful. The only problem with this is that they will only know the exact cost once they inspect it and take apart the engine further. They have said that it will cost somewhere between €7k - €12k !
Does this make sense ? Can serious damage have been made to the cylinder head/pistons .. like this ? I have heard of examples where the timing belt had gone whilst driving and ruined peoples engines completely but I can't understand how similar damage has been made whilst we were only trying to start up.
Bit in shock really about 1. the defect they mentioned which I can't understand how this is a known issue with the water leaking in and 2. how an attempted start up could cause so much damage ? Apologies in advanced for my lack of knowledge in how an engine works but if anyone can shed some light on what may have happened and whether the €7k - €12k figure makes sense.
Thanks
Chris
