Panda 2012+ LOOKING FOR ADVICE ON FAILED FLYWHEEL / VEHICLE EXAMINER

[Pridge]

Hey All - new to the team here - hello !
Found you due to searching for any info on failed flywheels. Got a bill for £6k - flywheel failed and caused damage to clutch and gearbox. Got initial advice but need to show flywheel failed due to faulty rather than wear and tear. Only 24k on the clock despite being 2016 model - so think this is a pretty good indication - also consumers rights act covers it still despite being out of warranty.
I love my Panda - I waited years to buy one direct from Fiat - 4x4 cross.
Anyway - I am looking elsewhere - Motor Ombudsman and Citizens advice and house insurance has legal cover - just need that expert - are you out there?!! ;-)

 

[jrkitching]

Hello and welcome to the forum - I'm sorry it's in these circumstances.

We've seen a number of premature flywheel failures here.

Just a few initial questions:

- what engine does your car have?

- from whom, exactly, did you buy it?

- have you owned it from new, and are you the first registered keeper?

- where was the repair carried out?

- do you have the parts which were replaced during the repair?

From what you've posted, you'll be looking for an independent vehicle examiner who could act as an expert witness. Have you found this website yet?

 

[Pridge]

Hi - thanks for your super speedy reply !
It is an 875 Twin Turbo
Bought from Fiat in Aldershot - moved to Guildford
The garage had it registered but we are the first non Fiat owners
The repair has just been done by Fiat Guildford - so they still have our car whilst we negotiate
I am collecting the parts today - and asked for a breakdown of the costs
No - I had not seen that website - so will follow that up - again thanks for that

The springs of the flywheel have been mentioned - the description of how this has happened is "Flywheel has worn and created play to cause force to the input shaft".

 

[jrkitching]

Hi - thanks for your super speedy reply !
It is an 875 Twin Turbo
Bought from Fiat in Aldershot - moved to Guildford
The garage had it registered but we are the first non Fiat owners
The repair has just been done by Fiat Guildford - so they still have our car whilst we negotiate
I am collecting the parts today - and asked for a breakdown of the costs
No - I had not seen that website - so will follow that up - again thanks for that

The springs of the flywheel have been mentioned - the description of how this has happened is "Flywheel has worn and created play to cause force to the input shaft".

Thanks for the update - that's all extremely helpful.

This issue has certainly cropped up here before; early DMF failure in the TA is not ususual. It's well known that clearances are very tight on this engine, and once the DMF starts to fail, there is a substantial likelihood of costly collateral damage to the gearbox and bellhousing. There's a historic thread that, from memory, is almost an exact parallel to this one; I'll have a look later and see if I can find it.

EDIT: I've found the thread; start reading from here.

Having this kind of repair done by a franchised dealer will never be cheap, but £6k is an insane price. This won't help the OP, but if others find themselves in a similar situation in future, I'd recommend finding a decent independent garage; good quality aftermarket parts can be had for a fraction of the OEM price, and the final bill will be substantially less. Some forum members have reported getting a TA clutch & DMF replaced for somewhere in the region of £500-£700 all in. One recent one, which also involved replacing and reworking other parts which had suffered collateral damage, cost £1100. The parts, whist not exactly cheap, aren't that unreasonable if you shop around.

Obviously this all comes too late for the OP, so the question is what to do next? My first thought would be to try to negotiate the final bill with Fiat Guildford, perhaps with the help of some contribution to the cost from Fiat Customer Services. You can try the legal route, but don't underestimate the sheer amount of effort and hassle this would involve. I've done it myself, once, with a faulty laptop, and the unwillingness of the selling company to meaningfully engage in the process was mindboggling. I produced an expert witness report stating clearly that the failure was caused by an inherent manufacturing defect present at the time of original sale, and they point blank refused to refund anything at all. In spite of this evidence, they contested my County Court claim and settled only at the last minute after the case had been allocated for a hearing. I spent nine months (it'd take at least two years with the current backlog of cases) and recovered about 70% of the purchase price in the end, but despite getting most of my money back, I felt I'd lost something of greater value than this.

 

[Pridge]

Thanks for the update - that's all extremely helpful.

This issue has certainly cropped up here before; early DMF failure in the TA is not ususual. It's well known that clearances are very tight on this engine, and once the DMF starts to fail, there is a substantial likelihood of costly collateral damage to the gearbox and bellhousing. There's a historic thread that, from memory, is almost an exact parallel to this one; I'll have a look later and see if I can find it.

EDIT: I've found the thread; start reading from here.

Having this kind of repair done by a franchised dealer will never be cheap, but £6k is an insane price. This won't help the OP, but if others find themselves in a similar situation in future, I'd recommend finding a decent independent garage; good quality aftermarket parts can be had for a fraction of the OEM price, and the final bill will be substantially less. Some forum members have reported getting a TA clutch & DMF replaced for somewhere in the region of £500-£700 all in. One recent one, which also involved replacing and reworking other parts which had suffered collateral damage, cost £1100. The parts, whist not exactly cheap, aren't that unreasonable if you shop around.

Obviously this all comes too late for the OP, so the question is what to do next? My first thought would be to try to negotiate the final bill with Fiat Guildford, perhaps with the help of some contribution to the cost from Fiat Customer Services. You can try the legal route, but don't underestimate the sheer amount of effort and hassle this would involve. I've done it myself, once, with a faulty laptop, and the unwillingness of the selling company to meaningfully engage in the process was mindboggling. I produced an expert witness report stating clearly that the failure was caused by an inherent manufacturing defect present at the time of original sale, and they point blank refused to refund anything at all. In spite of this evidence, they contested my County Court claim and settled only at the last minute after the case had been allocated for a hearing. I spent nine months (it'd take at least two years with the current backlog of cases) and recovered about 70% of the purchase price in the end, but despite getting most of my money back, I felt I'd lost something greater than this.

Thanks for this - I know it will be hard - got the parts and will try and push. Fiat now offering £1,500 towards cost as a gesture of good will.

 

[jrkitching]

Thanks for this - I know it will be hard - got the parts and will try and push. Fiat now offering £1,500 towards cost as a gesture of good will.

That's a great start. If you could also get the garage to discount their bill, then, pragmatically, settling up could be your best option, and allow you to put all this bother behind you.

 

[Mouse1903]

£6k? I wonder what they are smoking. They must think you are a mug (not saying you are btw ). Definitely shop around, but I'd fight to get some money back although it doesn't always work.

In 2020 I was driving my RS Megane when the engine suddenly stopped and died when accelerating. Turned out the auxiliary belt had given up, took out the cambelt and knackered my top end. Cost me over £4k out my own pocket sourcing a NOS engine and getting it fitted at an independent specialist (going through Renault it would have cost around £9k). The car was just over 5 years old and on 52k miles plus out of warranty, but the belts weren't due according to Renault at 6 years / 75k (whichever came first). I barely got an apology and despite still having the belt they didn't even offer to take it back for examination into the cause, nor did a faint promise of compensation come to fruition

 

[portland_bill]

Hey All - new to the team here - hello !
Found you due to searching for any info on failed flywheels. Got a bill for £6k - flywheel failed and caused damage to clutch and gearbox. Got initial advice but need to show flywheel failed due to faulty rather than wear and tear. Only 24k on the clock despite being 2016 model - so think this is a pretty good indication - also consumers rights act covers it still despite being out of warranty.
I love my Panda - I waited years to buy one direct from Fiat - 4x4 cross.
Anyway - I am looking elsewhere - Motor Ombudsman and Citizens advice and house insurance has legal cover - just need that expert - are you out there?!! ;-)

Hi - thanks for your super speedy reply !
It is an 875 Twin Turbo
Bought from Fiat in Aldershot - moved to Guildford
The garage had it registered but we are the first non Fiat owners
The repair has just been done by Fiat Guildford - so they still have our car whilst we negotiate
I am collecting the parts today - and asked for a breakdown of the costs
No - I had not seen that website - so will follow that up - again thanks for that

The springs of the flywheel have been mentioned - the description of how this has happened is "Flywheel has worn and created play to cause force to the input shaft".

A bit of information is still missing here.
A 5yr old car with 24k miles seems odd for an ex-demonstrator, so I'm not sure what you mean by "the garage had it registered" and "we are the first non-Fiat owners". Unless this was a lease car, originally registered by Fiat Fleet, in which case it is effectively a normal used car with one previous owner.
How long have you had it? Recent, or is it you that has put the miles on in the last 5 years, having bought it when only a few months old?
If bought recently, the dealer should have given a warranty, which I would expect to cover this failure.

Did you agree to this cost before they made the repair? Normally with such a failure, I would expect an amount of diagnosis, then a quote for the repair. That would be detailed, and enable you to decide who repairs and how. I guess much of that cost might be a replacement gearbox, which from a Fiat dealer will be new, whereas a used one might have been obtainable from the many written off cars.

 

[Pridge]

Yep - I think it is difficult - all costly repairs are painful. Reported to Citizens Advice and Motor Ombudsman and taken above advice and phoned DEKRA re a techinical report which it says will cost me £200. We have legal cover on our house insurance so filled in those forms and await their response.
I have written again to Fiat today with photos of the parts etc. See bedlow hopefull. Spring on Flywheel broken and bearings coming out and there are marks on the clutch where the gears have been sitting off centre due to the movement.

Re previous questions....
Fiat Aldershot had registered the Panda to help sell it without tax - it had only about 33 miles on the clock - so not a demonstrator at all.

 

[Panda IIs]

Yep - I think it is difficult - all costly repairs are painful. Reported to Citizens Advice and Motor Ombudsman and taken above advice and phoned DEKRA re a techinical report which it says will cost me £200. We have legal cover on our house insurance so filled in those forms and await their response.
I have written again to Fiat today with photos of the parts etc. See bedlow hopefull. Spring on Flywheel broken and bearings coming out and there are marks on the clutch where the gears have been sitting off centre due to the movement.

Re previous questions....
Fiat Aldershot had registered the Panda to help sell it without tax - it had only about 33 miles on the clock - so not a demonstrator at all.

That all looks very unpleasant, the clutch lining has detached, or at least appears eccentric, is there a view as to whether this was cause or effect?

I had a (in some ways) similar run-in with FIAT with my TA 4x4, a '63 plate with 45k miles on the clock at the time. Short story was Uniair module failed and the car was just 4 years old at the time. I raised the issue with their (FIAT) customer care citing that in my opinion this was a premature failure (£800+ unit) plus the fitting. They pushed back big time (of course) but in the end came back with a similar discount to what you are being offered. I purchased the car as second owner so was on "thinner ice" than you; I did at least have several telephone conversations with their folks in Italy and I genuinely believe they were trying to help. Shortly after or at the same time the clutch/dmf failed - dmf failure seems to throw up some fairly distinctive vibrations as a symptom - with the Uniair failure presenting itself as running on one cylinder it would have been impossible to diagnose at the same time. I was lucky I guess and there was no collateral damage.

You have my sympathy, proving a premature clutch/dmf failure I think will be rather tricky unless a forensic analysis can find some indicative and implicating fracture surfaces in the metal components.

 

[Herts Hillhopper]

While I can appreciate this is a very distressing situation, I suspect you have been given the best support and best financial compensation you' ll see from Fiat. Clutch failure is dependent on very much more than just miles. And a dual mass flywheel (in any car) is a sensitive device which can be terminally damaged, even at low mileage, through the clutch being released 'sharply' one time too many (which stresses the springs that hold the two separate flywheel plates togther and are there to dampen the vibration of a naturally rough-running engine – such as the TA or a diesel, as compared to, say the perfect smooth balanced power from a straight six). Once the springs become weakened, the whole system will then vibrate and destroy itself quite quickly (as many others have reported on this forum). This is one reason why the clutch, and DMF in particular, are generally excluded from the manufacturer warranty on any new car, and more especially on the (often rather limited anyway) warranty offered when buying second hand. Its still not clear if you received and estimate of the cost before the work was carried out.

 

[The Panda Nut]

elsewhere

Fiat have modified the flywheel bearings and changed the part that has failed on many cars. Politely but firmly give them a ring and ask for help. They are not renouned for giving out cash but I think you have a case. Also go back to your Fiat dealer and ask to see the Dealer Principle and ask them to try and help. I think you have a case for some help as its very clear they got the bearing design wrongand have changed it I believe around 2018. There is more info on this on the Forum somewhere.