General Serious fuel line leak!

[wellfan]

Wife's car towed off the local Fiat dealership this morning. Petrol pissing out of high pressure fuel line feed in engine bay. Got myself a nice petrol shower when investigating the problem. Called the RAC as car too dangerous to drive (RAC guy arrived in about twenty minutes, so well done).
Looks like the petrol lines have been rubbing against each other for quite some time to have caused such damage.
The item is not kept in stock, now there is a surprise!
I'll get the 'coil pack' recall done at same time and get them to have a look at the S&S system. Offer of courtesy car at twelve quid per day admin. charge, soon reduced to six quid.
Anyone else had similar problem? RAC guy says he has never had one before. Looks like pipes were badly positioned during production process.
My wife has no sense of smell so could have been a dangerous situation had she been a smoker.

 

[jrkitching]

Wife's car towed off the local Fiat dealership this morning. Petrol pissing out of high pressure fuel line feed in engine bay. Got myself a nice petrol shower when investigating the problem. Called the RAC as car too dangerous to drive (RAC guy arrived in about twenty minutes, so well done).
Looks like the petrol lines have been rubbing against each other for quite some time to have caused such damage.
The item is not kept in stock, now there is a surprise!
I'll get the 'coil pack' recall done at same time and get them to have a look at the S&S system. Offer of courtesy car at twelve quid per day admin. charge, soon reduced to six quid.
Anyone else had similar problem? RAC guy says he has never had one before. Looks like pipes were badly positioned during production process.
My wife has no sense of smell so could have been a dangerous situation had she been a smoker.

Nasty.

What was the exact position of the leak?

I'll go and have a look at mine for signs of possible wear/chafing.

Would be interested to know if this is a one off due to poor assembly in the factory, or a possible long term issue for everyone.

 

[wellfan]

I should have been more specific. The car is a Twinair, some 18 months old and has travelled some 11,000 miles. I believe there are three lines, two black and one blue positioned to rear of Twinair black plastic engine cover, between the cover and the bulkhead. The two black pipes run down near the brake servo unit. There was a tiny hole in one of the lines at this point.
Not sure if any of that makes sense. I'll try and get a picture from somewhere.

Edit. https://www.fiatforum.com/500-guides/297051-twinair-oil-filter-change.html

Third picture down. See the black fuel lines. Just follow them down about six inches, and that is where the damage is.

 

[Ulpian]

Very unusual this one, but potentially very dangerous and Fiat needs to be aware. It does look as if it was an assembly fault, like my old car's A/C condensate pipe being wrongly routed, but the design should preclude this ever happening.

If Fiat really wants to be known as an upmarket maker, which is where they are stated to be heading (can charge more!), then this sort of thing must end.

The S&S system is notoriously erratic by the way, so I wouldn't hold out much hope.

And they should have loaned you a car for free I reckon - upmarket brand and all that

 

[jrkitching]

The car is a Twinair...

Ahhh.

I'll have to duck out at this point, as mine's a 1.2.

Perhaps one of the more technical TA owners will pick up on this & do a comparative check on their own car.

 

[306maxi]

Scary.....

 

[varesecrazy]

Where's BOB when you need him..?,

Oh it's friday night - he'll be out enjoying himself..,

I'll have a look at the Punto's plumbing,
Charlie

 

[varesecrazy]

Anyone else had similar problem? RAC guy says he has never had one before. Looks like pipes were badly positioned during production process.
My wife has no sense of smell so could have been a dangerous situation had she been a smoker.

very true,
no great surprise that the RAC man had never seen this on a twin-air ,
he'd probably never seen under the bonnet of one before..!!,

Fuel lines DO let go through age + perishing / deterioration,

the fire service stated car fires were 10 TIMES more common in the
First 2 /3 years of CAT equipped cars , and the change over to pressurised lines,
my Dads Vauxhall dumped 5 gallons in 2 minutes,

he pulled over because the gauge was falling THAT FAST..!!,
Charlie

 

[ahmett]

Wife's car towed off the local Fiat dealership this morning. Petrol pissing out of high pressure fuel line feed in engine bay. Got myself a nice petrol shower when investigating the problem. Called the RAC as car too dangerous to drive (RAC guy arrived in about twenty minutes, so well done).
Looks like the petrol lines have been rubbing against each other for quite some time to have caused such damage.
The item is not kept in stock, now there is a surprise!
I'll get the 'coil pack' recall done at same time and get them to have a look at the S&S system. Offer of courtesy car at twelve quid per day admin. charge, soon reduced to six quid.
Anyone else had similar problem? RAC guy says he has never had one before. Looks like pipes were badly positioned during production process.
My wife has no sense of smell so could have been a dangerous situation had she been a smoker.

I hope that gets sorted quickly.
Your car is under warranty under no circumstances should you pay for a courtesy car.
If they create an issue threaten to report them to Fiat and see how quickly they "refuse to charge you" = )
Do let us know the outcome.

 

[wellfan]

very true,
no great surprise that the RAC man had never seen this on a twin-air ,
he'd probably never seen under the bonnet of one before..!!,

Fuel lines DO let go through age + perishing / deterioration,

the fire service stated car fires were 10 TIMES more common in the
First 2 /3 years of CAT equipped cars , and the change over to pressurised lines,
my Dads Vauxhall dumped 5 gallons in 2 minutes,

he pulled over because the gauge was falling THAT FAST..!!,
Charlie

Bit of a coincidence the RAC guy has a friend with this particular model.

Last time I had a fuel line go was on a Mk2 Golf Gti with over 130,000 miles on the clock. Fuel was pissing out. Quick trip to local car spares shop and bought a length of fuel hose and fixed in five minutes. The good old days, life was so much simpler, and cars were much easier to fix.

 

[wellfan]

Scary.....

Yup, very scary now that I have had time to think a bit more about it. My wife has a significant olfactory system problem, so she has no sense of smell. When I drove to meet her at her workplace car park, a health centre. I could quite distinctly see a trail of petrol where she had driven into the area. Her car was sitting in an island of petrol, and the inside of the car was absolutely rank with fumes. Anyone around with a fag end and goodness knows what the scenario could have been. She possibly drove for miles with the fuel leak.
Was going to contact Fiat but will just be a waste of my time. No need for a courtesy car at the bargain price of six quid per day as my wife can use my car.

 

[Gardengnome]

Had a look at my Twinair this morning - at about the spot described above it has a plastic clip holding all three lines together (one blue and two black). It keeps them separated at the same time (that make sense?) so they can't chafe on each other. Is it possible this clip was omitted from your car at assembly? It certainly wouldn't fall off if properly fitted.

 

[varesecrazy]

Had a look at my Twinair this morning - at about the spot described above it has a plastic clip holding all three lines together (one blue and two black). It keeps them separated at the same time (that make sense?) so they can't chafe on each other. Is it possible this clip was omitted from your car at assembly? It certainly wouldn't fall off if properly fitted.

I've just been out + check my Punto T/A plumbing,

Quite different to the 500 in the pics..

3 fuel lines (all black) on the Fuelling unit , go back to the bulkhead, then run in WHITE clips to the UK steering wheel area,

the ONLY black line running towards the servo appears to be a VAC hose ( lower down on block,

Charlie

 

[Gardengnome]

To be more specific; that black clip I mentioned only holds the pipes together - it isn't fixed to the firewall or indeed anything else. Seems to be there just to prevent an occurrence such as wellfan's leak. It's fitted about 6" down just about where wellfan says his leak happened.

Michael

 

[varesecrazy]

thanks for clearing that up..,

shame there's too little room to get a good photo,


LOTS of room in the Punto.. BUT = totally different plumbing,
Charlie

 

[wellfan]

Had a look at my Twinair this morning - at about the spot described above it has a plastic clip holding all three lines together (one blue and two black). It keeps them separated at the same time (that make sense?) so they can't chafe on each other. Is it possible this clip was omitted from your car at assembly? It certainly wouldn't fall off if properly fitted.

Looks to me you have identified the problem. I am sure all the lines were touching each other with no clip to be seen. Actually thought it looked a very untidy arrangement when examining it. There was actually another line attached to what looked like a small filter also rubbing against it. I am going to go to the garage first thing Monday morning to have a look under the bonnet to confirm. Too late to go today before closing time and I am sure they won't even have thought about looking at it until Monday.

 

[bgunn]

If Fiat really wants to be known as an upmarket maker, which is where they are stated to be heading (can charge more!), then this sort of thing must end.

Not really - given there are quite a few TA owners on here - you don't hear of them in droves peeing petrol on the floor. It's a straightforward assembly cock up, and happens with Dacia's, FIATs, BMWs or anything that's made on a production line. It's how the service side of the organisation picks things up that marks whether it's a good one, or not.

The S&S system is notoriously erratic by the way, so I wouldn't hold out much hope.

Plenty of people find it works fine. But that's a whole different argument.

 

[Gardengnome]

Just to be sure we're talking about the same thing here's a couple of shots of my vehicle's setup - you never know, it might differ country to country but it is at least RHD. This is looking toward the firewall with the brake booster visible on the right. I hope it's useful.

Michael

 

[wellfan]

Those are the correct images. The leak looks like it is in one of the black lines, possibly the bottom one. It was hard to tell with fuel leaking everywhere. RAC man used a torch and thought he could see a pin prick size of hole in the bottom line. The black line to the side attached to the white plastic connector was also rubbing against the three hoses, it rotates in its mounting in the servo. Does it have a small metal clip holding it onto the white piece? Looks like it does in your image, mine did not and I thought that was where the fuel was coming from. RAC guy thought otherwise.
Just had another look that black line attached to the white thing is not a fuel line. Looks like a vacuum hose perhaps.

 

[Gardengnome]

Again, I hope I've correctly identified what you're referring to...

Here's one of the other pix I took. I think the pipe on the right is that to which you refer. If so it's held by a black plastic clip (arrow 1) which is, in turn, held by a flat pressed metal bracket (arrow 2) to the firewall. Note that it does not have a metal pipe-clip on the end (that's a reflection off its shiny surface) but no way can it swivel around! I haven't followed it to the other end (it's late so I'll have a look in the morning) but it's the one in the foreground marked 'Lancia'. I would guess, as you suggest, that it's probably a vacuum pipe - unlikely to be the source of your leak.

Michael.