Is that a genuine fiat sump guard?
General What did you do with your Panda today?
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General What did you do with your Panda today?
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Yes; not sure when that post was but I took the guard off a couple of weeks ago to change the oil and it is still looking good on the inside (engine side) which is where the last one rotted through from (water pools up there). I found some old (clingy) motorcycle chain lube in a corner of the garage from many years ago and gave all those nooks and crannys a bit of a squirt. I'm sure that guard will outlast the rest of the car given the first one lasted 10+ years!
Oddly, I too took mine off last week (which I previously removed and repainted in 2021) and found it to be in reasonable shape, but with surface rust where my off-road travels had removed the paint layer. This time, fully stripped the outside (bottom) back to bare metal, red oxide primed and then repainted with Hammerite (since I had that to hand). A few rust patches on the inside (where the steel sheet is welded to the stronger steel strips) were treated with rust convertor, then also painted. For good measure, the inside sprayed with Dinitrol ML (spare from doing the Landy)... Still very solid at (nearly) 7 years old.
Not so good was to find the propshaft support has given up completely! Separate post about that to follow...
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Do share the propshaft bearing experience; my TA is getting objectionable when reversing up out of my downward sloping drive (kind of juddery) possibly dogbone engine mount but I do wonder if the prop-shaft bearing is "winding up"...
BTW what tyres are you running? Tread pattern looks good.
I got an aftermarket sump guard when my Fiat one distergrated. The Fiat one seemed quite pricey but I wish I had bought the original now because the aftermarket one seems to sit lower and I keep clunking it on things like speed bumps! It is however very tough compared to the original but it’s just too low.
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Yeah, I think the OEM one is better described as a skid plate but does do that fairly well, the 6mm stiffeners are pretty robust. My original plan was to skin this with stainless but hindsight says just a sheet of thermoplastic composite would be effective, attached to the original frame.
I did an aluminium plate, to the original sump guard frame, with a big bead of polyurethane sealer and then small stainless tek screws on our Mk1 cross, now the daughters, and it’s held up really well
No apparent effects at all … no clonks, drives normally and I wouldn’t have known had I not been underneath for the sump guard.
Tyres are Michelin CrossClimates
As I mentioned in another thread, Becky (our 2010 eco dynamic Panda) went into Kenny's garage on Monday to have her broken O/S/F road spring replaced. There was a small complication in that the top mount had to be replaced too but, as it has to be removed to do the job anyway, it didn't increase the price of the job much except for the price of the mount itself of course. Unexpectedly, and most "thrillingly" is that I noticed, on the drive home, that the slight pull to the nearside she's had all the years we've owned her, seems to have disappeared! (or at least been reduced to the extent that I think it's disappeared - I've only driven her a couple of miles on the way home). Anyway, yesterday Mrs J took the car to the pool for her swimming session and I asked her whether she thought the steering felt any different? She said "just like it's always felt". So it's still pulling to the left, I asked? Not that i noticed she said, but then I wouldn't have said it pulled to the left before. DOH!
An added bonus of the car going into the garage workshop was that he mentioned, as I was settling the bill, "Don't forget that O/S/R tyre will you. I'll fail it on that next year" The O/S/R has a degree of cracking at the base of the tread grooves - almost certainly due to a combination of it being a very cheap tyre and how old it is. I'd forgotten it in the "excitement" of her recently passing her MOT and then the spring. I'll give Steven (the mobile tyre fitter) a ring and see what he can do for me.
An added bonus of the car going into the garage workshop was that he mentioned, as I was settling the bill, "Don't forget that O/S/R tyre will you. I'll fail it on that next year" The O/S/R has a degree of cracking at the base of the tread grooves - almost certainly due to a combination of it being a very cheap tyre and how old it is. I'd forgotten it in the "excitement" of her recently passing her MOT and then the spring. I'll give Steven (the mobile tyre fitter) a ring and see what he can do for me.
Did you struggle to find springs at a reasonable price? I have just had all mine replaced on my TA 4x4 and Fiat ones were eye wateringly expensive and would take weeks to be shipped from Italy. My local Volvo garage ended up doing it for me in the end and used his parts supplier and got some more reasonable prices.
Shop4parts would normally be my "go to" for something like this: https://www.shop4parts.co.uk/?name=store&op=Product&ProdID=37821 and the price on these for my FWD Panda looks pretty good. Kenny's Garage got KYB branded springs from the local factor for just a few quid more. They seem to list 4x4 springs for very similar prices. What did you end up paying through the Volvo dealer?
Front ones were £60 each and the rear ones £50 each. Fiat main dealer quoted….wait for it…..£1600 for the four springs!
FIAT main dealer prices for things are a complete mystery to me. Over the years I've been surprised at how cheap some parts are and then astonished at how expensive other parts are. If it's something substantial I'll often enquire about it at the dealer "just in case" but usually end up either at S4p or my local factor's door.
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
Kinelle! That seems truly SICK!
I think half the time they're just not interested as I went into my local Fiat/Stellantis dealer in Warrington earlier today to ask about a sump gasket for the Seicento as it has a slight seep, as soon as I gave the reg the answer was "nah it's too old" so I gave the exact part number & they went into a room & came back out virtually straight away & went "they don't do them anymore" soni went home & found a genuine Fiat one for £45 delivered from Italy, the only 2 good Fiat dealers I've ever come across were Wilson Purves in Crawley, West Sussex which is no longer Fiat it's now Volkswagen commercial & Wilson's in Epsom, Surrey who are great as until I moved up north I could walk in there, give them the part number & it would be ordered in there & then.
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My local Fiat dealer, when I previously went in to ask about a new propshaft, told me that I would be better off scrapping my panda 4x4 and that it wasn’t worth repairing. I purchased a new one online for £120 and as good as new. What they don’t realise is that panda owners get really attached to them and I certainly intend to still be driving it in when it is a classic car (albeit likely with a new engine, drivetrain,suspension,subframe)
Us Cento owners get really attached as well
it must be a Fiat thing I've already spent more than I paid for it & have already started going down the modifying route, next big thing I'm thinking of is an Autobianchi A112 Abarth cylinder head as it's the same engine as my car just slightly bigger cc but tweaked by Abarth which should make things very interesting 
Another good example of why I never go to a main dealer (for any make of car)… they really are the worst place to try and get help!
Of course there are exceptions, but, in general, I would agree with you. Of course it's in their interests to get you to bring the car to their workshops, but it's mostly because of the way the interface between the dealer's workshop and their customers is set up. Regardless of whether you ring in or approach directly to the service desk, the people you will speak with have very little technical knowledge because they are there to manage the workshop workload not work on the vehicles. It's not their fault. The technical people are round the back in the workshop and every minute they are talking to you is time they aren't working on the vehicles which is potentially loosing the dealership money - and the overheads on a big "flashy" new spotlessly clean dealeship setup are enough to cause the average punter to collapse with "wobbly" knees at the thought!
