Well I thought I'd better update you guys...
Here we are six months down the line and I'm just a week past Fiat giving me back my bus with it allegedly fixed (Not!) It's been back twice since.
I was lucky - they took the tech's point about premature component failure and gave me a new (recon ) engine - though they havent been able to give me the serial number yet..(DVLA seem to think I should be able to see it ???? )
Any road it has had new engine, injectors, FAP additive topped up @70k, clutch, control unit/fuse box, fly wheel, discs, pads etc. Though they did have no Connect Nav or ABs for six weeks until Fiat Technical came out and flicked the right software switch...(for which they tried to charge me !)
A week ago I got it back - it still has an annoying intermittent fault where it cuts out and loses power 2nd - 3rd gear at around 200-3,500 revs: wont go above 15 mph up hill, but you can coax it up to 50 down hill on the flat... annoyingly despite a 70 mile test run the dealers couldnt get the fault- though I managed it twice going just 3 miles down the road !
On nursing it in to the Dealers with the fault the tech insisted on getting it on the Examiner rather than comming with me and the memsahib for a drive... suprise suprise: no fault indicated !
It was a surreal "Computer says No !" moment.
They now have a £10/day admin fee for hire cars now: despite them having already exhausted my own 90 day courtesy car cover again this year: and possibly having to wait 4 weeks for fiat tech to come out (a £200 admin charge ?) they wouldnt give me a courtesy car (even Fiat UK couldnt get around that) so I had we had to walk home !! That's Customer Care for you....
A few hours later the Dealers rang to suggest it _might_ be the air flow control switch failing, that would be £116 to change (no labour) as it couldnt possibly be related to any of the previous faults on the vehicle !!! Naturally I was unwilling to fund their fault finding by substitution so I got on the blower again... Annoyingly Fiat UK didnt respond to my call until 2 days later and logged the call an hour later than it was made. Do they not think I'm logging all this for some horrendous laegal suit in the very near future ????
Any way after several manic and drawn out chats with Fiat UK, which included the dearest expressing her concern for my mental health they offered to continue the quest for a working vehicle (though they couldnt provide a courtesy car: so losing two days pay it's not exactly free !)
The most annpoying thing is that they raised it as a new case: they actually said " we have already fixed your car once." No ! Even after four years they still havent fixed it: even when they reset the one touch open on the sunroof last week it reset itself two days later.
So here we are now....
It should be back with me again tomorrow: so it you're around in Salford over the weekend and you get stuck behind some idiot in a silver/green Ulysse doing 15 Mph up hill for no apparent reason, or slowing from 70 to 20 mph without due cause, feel free to put in a call to the Fiat Dealers in Poole and help me share my frustration, of course six months without a car is completely reasonable - when you're going to get it fixed... if only !
Not even a mutter of an apology from anyone !