Adam1984
Member
So these are mine. This asymmetrical or directional?
Technical MultiEcuscan setup
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Technical MultiEcuscan setup
Looking very closely at it I'd say they are asymmetric - Although the pattern is almost symmetric, there is a small difference side to side if you look closely.
Telling the difference though is actually quite easy. An asymmetric tyre will have "outside" and "inside" marked on the sidewall whereas a directional tyre will have an arrow - or styalised arrow - on the sidewall with, most commonly, the word "Direction" or "Rotation". beside it. It must be fitted and used so the tyre rotates in that direction when the vehicle is being driven forwards.
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
Clean the VVT solenoid screens thoroghly, soak in clean oil before replacing then take it out and rev it past 4000 quite a few times. If you dont see an immediae improvement Id be suprised. Under 3600rpm they dont pull strongly. If you want speed you need to demand it! Sedate driving means the VVT stays closeda lot more and they get sticky quite quickly.Ok.
Yeah I have cancelled my order of the parts off Amazon.on other side note. I had some NGK spark plugs put in about June, and new air filter two weeks ago. Still slow acceleration.
My brakes make a squeal noise on some occasions but mechanics have looked and said nothing wrong and mentioned something about asbestos
Wish I'd known that when my boy had his Punto. It was pretty sluggish and I'd like to have tried this just to see if it had any effect. Another wee tip to file away somewhere.
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
Try it on Becky. I found I needed to spary carb / brake cleaner into the end and leave it then repeat about 5 times the first clean, Spraying the out side is easy. There seems to be a coating of thicker oil or slighly waxy il that you can see wash away, then the brown sludgy stuff. Inside the unit there was more stuff so keep spraying till the cleaner riuns clear. This is with good qiuality oil and frequent oil and filter changes. The amount of muck that eventaully came out was suprising. I now do this every oil change and the cleaner runs off clean with a short spray or two. I also find that immersing the unit in clean oil is required before replacing to ensure it works properly. If put straight back dry they are sometimes worsI feel that w AIr pockets I think.
When they start to stick its the part throttle low revs area where performance is lost first. I suppose they stick until oil pressure is sufficient to make them move, and this is only higher revs. ALso if the VVT vriator does not move all the way you lose power and econom and more so at lower revs. Its only a five minute job. I
can only say I was amazed at the improvement. We have had 5 1.2s now and they have all been the same and all have responded the same way to cleaning. I have told the drivers here to make sure that they hold the gears and raise the revs several times a week to ensure the unit struts its stuff. This seems to be important. My Mrs rarely exceeds 2500 rpm and had the most sluggish car of the lot. Her building up speed slowly I feel does not cause the VVT to operate fully even at 70mph which results in gradual performance drop off. Ruby has been done and really flies for a little 1.2 if its allowed to rev up to 5000 revv and now freely goes to the red line. Beforehand it really wouldnt run much past 5000 rpm whatever you did. It has the sweetest engine of our the 1.2s, an absolute gem of an engine. Not that I thrash cars any more but I do make sure the revs are opened up once a week by holding third gear on the local byu pass for 20 seconds or so a few times. INow if I boot Ruby, its 60mph in second gear at full revs so if required it can pick up its skirt and run. The big benefit is that its much more responsive in 4th gear at 30mph where previously full throttle was a total waste of time. I think the moral of the story is drive a bit more Italian occasionally. I think itys sad to think that many 1.2s are running around strangled and feel lifeless, ruining one of the Pandas best traits. The Ita;lians have quite a few good ideas on life which seem to do them good!
Thank you, what an interesting post. I would guess a car maintained by a garage will never get this done so probably one of the first things to do when buying one used.
Becky is one of the last of the 60hp models (169) so doesn't have VVT. I've never driven a VVT Panda so can't compare, but folk on here say the non VVT engine has better low speed torque? Which makes it good around town? We find it ideal in the city. My boy's punto was a 2012 1.4 with VVT and felt pretty sluggish. I've seen others say they are pretty poor in the acceleration stakes so we just assumed they are all like that. Unfortunately a kamikaze lady drew out of her stationary lane of traffic right in front of him when his lane was doing 30. He swerved but she still managed to "T" bone him and the car was declared a write off so no possibility of trying what you suggested above. Pity, it was a really nice rust free car and we'd just put a clutch and clutch hydraulics in it - as you do!
Adam1984
Member
If I ask a mechanic to check the VVT, think he would know what he is looking for?
Same here Jock
Decidedly "underwhelmed" by our 500..
Used to cars with Torque, so just not used to revving (seldom go above 3k)
That's why I am interested in the Firefly series..
I think we will probably be asking Kenny to put an axle into Becky if she fails her MOT. In the meantime I've been amusing myself looking at alternatives. Of course it's very difficult for me to seriously consider anything other than a newer 1.2 Panda. Pity the Pop doesn't have a height adjustable driver's seat as Mrs J, being one of the shorter people in this world, really needs it.Same here Jock
Decidedly "underwhelmed" by our 500..
Used to cars with Torque, so just not used to revving (seldom go above 3k)
That's why I am interested in the Firefly series..
Anyway, I digress (what me digress? Surely not!) whilst browsing through a whole load of possibilities last night, what should Pop up but a Suzuki celerio. I almost flicked on to the next one but, probably because my daughter had such a good experience with her Swift, I took a closer look. In many respects I find myself favourably impressed. Roughly Panda size. Simple suspension - Struts at the front with a twist beam at the rear, just like the Panda. Disc front and drum rear brakes with a "proper" manual hand brake. Virtually no "infotainment" at all (a major plus for me is that) 4 door body with plenty of headroom and a boot very similar to the Panda, maybe a little bigger? Split rear seats with 3 seat belts in the rear. So far the downsides compared to Becky are that the engine, a wee 3 cylinder, is more complicated - but doesn't have a turbo and is port injected which is good. Also the insurance is more, but how much more in real money terms I'm not sure.
There's a smallish dealer about a half hour drive away and he's been there for as long as I can remember. Might just call in and check out the one he is showing in stock. It'll be used because although still manufactured, they don't bring them into the UK any more.
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
I suggested this to a chap dealing in small cars in Cambridge a few moths back. He mailed me back and said he was now going to do this on all the small Fiats he seels as it made such a difference so I agree. If my girls can tell the differencethat says it all. They domnt seem to notice flay tyres and failed headlamp bulbs. LOL
If he's a decently capable chap then he should. VVT has been around on ordinary everyday cars for a while now so he will have run into it if working professionally. Most likely to replace a non functioning one. I don't remember anyone I know professionally mentioning trying to clean one like this Doubt if it's something main dealers will think of. Whether he's competent? who knows. The only thing I've found when removing things like this is that they usually seal using a rubber O ring, which often leaks if you try to reuse the old one and the dealers don't often stock them so they have to be ordered. They don't cost much so I'd always get one before disturbing the old one.
Several points mentioned by Adam that prompted a lot of long replies. Can I try and summarise?
Tyres - at only 100 miles a week, which suggests local short runs, ‘any’ tyre will be fine. Devanti are finding niches they excel in (their all-terrain tyre for Land Rover is highly regarded, for example). On a low use, round town only Panda they will cause no issues.
Sluggish performance:
Well, with low mileage short trips only, any car will suffer. We’ve had this conversation in at least one other thread. Cars need longer runs and to get fully warm. So all sorts of things will gum up, soot up and sieze up with low use. (Doing the maths will reveal it’s often cheaper to just take a taxi than pay to tax, insure and maintain a car for such little use)
MES:
I absolutely agree it’s a valuable tool in the tool box. That’s why I have it. But without the experience of working on vehicles and understanding how they work, it can potentially cause more issues that it’ll solve (a bit like using Google to diagnose medical issues). I’ve learned to fix my own, based on 40+ years of working on my own cars. Adam: are you planning to work on your car yourself? If no, then you don’t need MES. But you do need a mechanic who has access to read the Fiat-specific information (so he needs MES or it’s professional equivalents).
Squeaking brakes:
Another symptom of low use. A long journey with sections that need the brakes to work harder (slowing on a slip road after leaving a fast dual carriageway for example) will get the brakes shiny, clean and ‘exercised’
In fact, ‘exercised’ is a good word here: a car is like a dog, or horse. Well feed, well groomed and well exercised and it will be happy.
Tyres - at only 100 miles a week, which suggests local short runs, ‘any’ tyre will be fine. Devanti are finding niches they excel in (their all-terrain tyre for Land Rover is highly regarded, for example). On a low use, round town only Panda they will cause no issues.
Sluggish performance:
Well, with low mileage short trips only, any car will suffer. We’ve had this conversation in at least one other thread. Cars need longer runs and to get fully warm. So all sorts of things will gum up, soot up and sieze up with low use. (Doing the maths will reveal it’s often cheaper to just take a taxi than pay to tax, insure and maintain a car for such little use)
MES:
I absolutely agree it’s a valuable tool in the tool box. That’s why I have it. But without the experience of working on vehicles and understanding how they work, it can potentially cause more issues that it’ll solve (a bit like using Google to diagnose medical issues). I’ve learned to fix my own, based on 40+ years of working on my own cars. Adam: are you planning to work on your car yourself? If no, then you don’t need MES. But you do need a mechanic who has access to read the Fiat-specific information (so he needs MES or it’s professional equivalents).
Squeaking brakes:
Another symptom of low use. A long journey with sections that need the brakes to work harder (slowing on a slip road after leaving a fast dual carriageway for example) will get the brakes shiny, clean and ‘exercised’
In fact, ‘exercised’ is a good word here: a car is like a dog, or horse. Well feed, well groomed and well exercised and it will be happy.
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You make a quite profound point here. Probably most on here will know by now that I trained as a mechanic back in the early 1960s back then you were dealing with points type ignition and ACR type alternators - that is if it didn't still have a dynamo! We were very advanced in that we had a SUN engine tune machine - wow, that was the latest thing which let you set dwell with a meter which actually showed the degrees! It was housed in a very "Buck Rogers" type cabinet and everyone was in awe of it! The Garage just down the street had a British Crypton Tuner, which was the other big name, but did much the same job. These days a machine like that would be so simple to understand compared to todays equipment. If you really wanted to impress the customers, the SUN tuner had a cathode ray tube display - TV screen to you and me - on which you could display the coil HT performance as the voltage decayed on one cycle - a series of reducing oscillations - It allowed you to see if the coil was in good condition. You could also display dwell. It never failed to fascinate the more enthusiastic customers who would particularly ask for a "sun tune" to be performed!
As the years went by electronic ignitions and other electronic engine controls crept in until you have the situation we have today where electronics control everything. The last range of vehicles I worked on "in anger" was the Montego/Maestro and cars of similar age. I never went on training courses for them as I was mostly doing mechanical stuff. We had a man in the shop who did all the electronic stuff. However, over the years I picked up lots of incidental knowledge through working on the cars every day. Then, about 15 or so years ago - maybe more? - I bought my licensed VAG-COM (now VCDS) to work on my old 1.9tdi SEAT Cordoba and got a rude awakening when I found out I knew next to nothing about diagnostics. Over the years I "fiddled" away with it slowly learning more and, very importantly, learning what to expect a "good" reading is for any given component. VCDS is a very powerful package which does things I can't understand and it worries me because when you get deeply into coding etc you can do very "nasty" things, like setting a rev limit which can't be reversed - how would you feel if you set a max rev limit of, say 1500rpm, and found the engine then wouldn't rev over that limit? Solution? a new ECU - which costs plenty!
However I got good enough with it that I could do diagnostics and reset service parameters etc which meant I never had to hand it over to the dealer in all the 20 odd years I owned it. I've had MES for about 8, maybe 10 years now? and it's not such a powerful tool as the VCDS is with the VW stuff. Also it doesn't have the separate generic OBD2 program that VCDS has which let me use it, in OBD configuration only - so rather limited in scope - on other makes, like my boy's Astra for instance. However it (MES) seems to be much more "in tune" with my mental processes and has lots of helper info on the right of the page and I find it much easier to understand. I've learned a lot more since starting to use it. It's terminology can be quite "strange" - for instance, try finding Fuel trims using it? but by and large I like it a lot.
The point I make is that it's all very well buying diagnostic equipment, and I think MES is possibly the best for our wee FIATs, but you'll get nowhere with it if you have no experience. On the other hand, if you're prepared to put the time in, buy some books and spend a lot of time on you tube looking at instructional videos, you can learn enough to sort most of the everyday stuff our wee cars are going to throw at you. Lots of people on here who are very happy to help too.
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I'd suggest even for a newbie to car DIY a scan tool is worth having.
I'd never considered plugging a car into a laptop until my crank sensor failed a few years ago.
And I wish I'd had MES then. Paid €50 for someone to tell me my ECU was fried, then had to pay someone else for a proper diagnosis and fix.
MES would have pointed out the faulty €10 sensor straight away, one bolt and a connector.
I got the interface with all cables here:
The different cables go in between the interface and the OBD port.
Yellow is for low-speed CAN connection, anything that makes you think you need to interrogate that? (typically flashing odo would indicate CAN communication failure)
I'd never considered plugging a car into a laptop until my crank sensor failed a few years ago.
And I wish I'd had MES then. Paid €50 for someone to tell me my ECU was fried, then had to pay someone else for a proper diagnosis and fix.
MES would have pointed out the faulty €10 sensor straight away, one bolt and a connector.
I got the interface with all cables here:
The different cables go in between the interface and the OBD port.
Yellow is for low-speed CAN connection, anything that makes you think you need to interrogate that? (typically flashing odo would indicate CAN communication failure)
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Adam1984
Member
Thank you.
I read online that for my 1.2 petrol panda Pop I only need a yellow cable, is this the case?
Thanks
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I agree. Anyone getting seriously into maintaining their car now a days needs to be able to read OBD fault codes as a minimum. Being able to reset service reminders etc is a big money saver too and so much more convenient than going to the garage and paying them. However, it's what you do once you've read the code that's where it gets difficult. just because the reader says you've got, for instance, a fault code relating to the crank sensor, doesn't necessarily mean you need to replace the sensor. It's possibly more likely even that you've got a continuity problem with a plug connector or even a break in the wire somewhere. Considering I'm all self taught where diagnostics is concerned, I find it deeply worrying that I frequently hear the most terrible load of hogwash being told to customers when I, with my limited experience, know full well they are being told complete and utter rubbish. If someone tells you a new ECU is needed treat it with great caution. Yes, very occasionally they do go wrong, but it's much less common than people think. Sometimes it will be a sensor/actuator but, surprisingly often, especially on the somewhat older cars run by my friends and relatives, it's simply a dirty plug connector. Clean it out with some contact cleaner spray, blow it out with the airline, push the plug together and then separate it again half a dozen times - to re-establish the connection - a small amount of dielectric grease to keep moisture out and stop future corroding and very often, you're good to go! In fact I'd say that even if you've next to no experience and your engine stops or runs very rough, it's well worth just disconnecting a few plugs, working them together and apart a few times and then reconnecting them. If you hit the right connector it may be all that's needed to get you going - you can clean the affected plug later - and if it hasn't got it going again, all you've lost is a few minutes tinkering time before calling the tow truck! I think what many folk don't realise is that modern electronic systems don't pass the large currents older vehicles did. The problem with this is that you don't need much of a resistance to build up at a connection for this very small current to be unable to "punch" it's way through. Modern connectors are designed with rubber seals incorporated to isolate the connections from contamination, but they fail with age and rough handling so poor connections have to be a number one suspect if the car isn't in it's first flush of youth and if it's lived near the sea - with all that salt in the air, or even our Scottish roads, with all the winter salt - then even more likely.
Only if you suspect a communication error on the CAN system that you want to investigate.
Otherwise no, connect the interface (eg. ELM 327) directly to the OBD port.
The different coloured adaptors connect to different modules (eg. red for airbag)
I haven't used any yet!
The yellow lead is for airbag, not the red lead. This is incorrectly stated on the Gendan site, by the way...
Adam1984
Member
You need an OBD interface and a yellow lead. With the direct connection you can read from the engine module and a few others, but you need the yellow lead to connect to modules such as ABS, airbag, body computer, etc.
If you are going to keep the car, or buy another Fiat or Alfa, a MES kit from Gendan UK is a very worthwhile investment. If you buy from them you are guaranteed to get an interface that works, a yellow lead that works and a proper licensed version of MES.
Then you will be able to interrogate any module on the car as well as perform actuator tests as well.
If you are going to keep the car, or buy another Fiat or Alfa, a MES kit from Gendan UK is a very worthwhile investment. If you buy from them you are guaranteed to get an interface that works, a yellow lead that works and a proper licensed version of MES.
Then you will be able to interrogate any module on the car as well as perform actuator tests as well.
