General What did you do with your Panda today?

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General What did you do with your Panda today?

Yesterday fitted the winter tyres.

Result I'm now in bed with moderate kidney pain and bladder infection no 2 in 2 weeks. They want to do a stent change in 10 days and seem to think I'm fine to go another year before being - hopefully- repaired. I hope the next trip in Panda won't be another midnight trip to A&E again.

What matters here however is the cars fine tho.... This is the third winters use and the treads are at 8 to 9.5mm still. So to celebrate we went off and got a covid booster. The leaves debris and mud on the road made me glad I did the changeover. Outside temp was 7.5C so time seemed about right.

Summer tyres have worn very poorly and with around 7000 miles of easy use are down to 4-5mm. The next lot will be a different make as the other Panda still has 3 of its originals at 37000 miles.
 
Busy day for our panda today..

Social trip out.. 16 miles each way.. then a trip back to the Welsh Valleys..110 miles of 70mph

The 'naughty car' acted.up again :(

Its back to its stuttery running after several hours at 70 ..easing off due to driving conditions.. means a 'misfire'
feeling

E10 hasnt cured it.. :eek:

But turning on and off does ;)

I swapped the coil pack on the myLife (70hp) and it seems to have cured this aberrant behaviour from ours. It used to throw the EML on everytime you did over 70 for 5 minutes (real 65....)
 
We had our first seriously frosty morning day before yesterday. We're only about a mile from the sea front and docks down at Leith so it has to be pretty cold before it affects us. The cars were all white and you couldn't see out the windscreen. It quickly melted when the sun appeared though.

I've always been very nervous about blanking radiator airflow on modern vehicles. Back in the days of convection driven cooling systems - so no thermostat or water pump, Both my first cars, 1930 Morris Minor and 1936 Morris 8, were like this - you could make a substantial difference by doing this. On modern vehicles with a water pump to circulate the coolant and a thermostat stopping circulation through the radiator unless needed it should make little difference if you blank the rad? I'm also worried because cooling systems generally contain much less actual coolant than the old cars - which is good because it aids more rapid warm up but this also means that temperature can escalate uncontrollably much more quickly. I think it's a bad idea, considering our moderate, "temperate" climate, especially when you take into consideration that our wee Fire engines don't like getting too hot? - I'm thinking possible blown head gaskets?

So now I'm wondering if many of us do this? Or am I in the minority?

I always used to do this if the temperature was below freezing. It does help warm up time and improved the heater on old type cars. I don't do it on the new ECU equipped motors as they are mapped to cope and it might just mess something else up by confusing one of the many irritating and unnecessary sensors!
 
These are quite a nice little touch to any small Fiat, I was thinking of getting a pair of genuine Fiat ones for my front wings

Ah, a man of very considerable means then! Where can we send begging letters. Fiat badges are EXPENSIVE.... nice but expensive.
 
As an experiment, I've been practising my economy-based driving techniques over the last few weeks (since the fuel shortage), and have just hit 1k miles of snore-a-mile motoring in my TA 4x4 Cross.

Boring as f***, but the pay-off has been an average consumption of 47.7mpg over that distance, using ordinary unleaded (so, E10, presumably).

That's a mix of dual carriageway (A14 & A11) at no more than 65, and local driving on quiet A and B roads. No city driving, or hills ('cos East Anglia, innit).
 
Got the Panda into the garage at long last, and giving it a TLC Mini service as around Christmas time we will be visiting all the folks in Yorkshire and Cheshire, some 300 odd miles away. No doubt will have clocked up around 1000 miles by the timewe get back home to Kent. Somewhat ironic that we are the ones to travel as the children, grandchildren etc think it is too far for them to come to us!!
I am hoping for some snow there so as to see how the 4x4 Panda copes. Anyway he is very smart now witha good layer of polish and the underside liberally treated with Bilt Hamber Dynax UC, oil ,antifreeze, winter screen wash, all spot on and tyres up to pressure, battery checked and charged. We are ready to roll.
Have a good one everybody and I hope Father Christmas puts all that you want in your stockings!
 
Gave mine its first service under my ownership!

Along with oil and filters, I changed the plugs and cleaned the throttle body too... What a world of difference it made! It starts quicker, idles smoother and pulls much better at low RPMs.

I suggest any 1.2 owners check their throttle bodies next service too. Mine was absolutely filthy!
 

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I finally got round to finishing the rust proofing on the Panda today after putting it off for a while, I did the rest of the underside & arches over the spring/summer which is still holding up & looking good, the boot floor got left until today, after a clean & a coat of Dynax UC its looking much better. Anyone wanting to rust proof the underneath of their car I can highly recommend the Bilt Hamber Dynax kit which comes with degreaser, 2 tins of Dynax S50 which I used for the arches/well in the front arches/inside box sections of the floor & sills, Dynax UB which was used on the main floor & Dynax UC which was used on the exhaust tunnel & boot floor as they are unpainted & after doing the entire underside & arches there is still a bit left. The whole kit is about £70 but well worth it considering how much it would cost a professional to do it. In the spring the rear beam needs a small amount of attention with some vactan as there is a small amount of surface rust appearing on the edges & also the wheel trims & rims will be repainted at around the same time
 
I've always been into old Fiat's, Lancia's & Alfa's as my dad always had Fiat's when I was growing up, a few 131's including a Mirafiori Sport which he still owns, Panda's etc. The only Fiat's he really hated was the 3 Regatta's he had. When I needed a car in 2018 I started looking & the price of used cars had gone up a lot as I was used to buying few hundred quid bangers which made my decision to buy new/pre reg instead so after trying a 500, Tipo & Panda, the Panda felt the nicest out of all 3 & much cheaper so I went for a Panda & found this one at Thames Fiat pre reg with delivery miles for just short of £8k with a years tax, mats & also a optional colour. I had a Cinquecento & a mk1 Bravo before, while the Bravo was really reliable the same could not be said for the Cinquecento which got written off just before it was going to be scrapped, the Bravo unfortunately met the same fate with corrosion & a blown gearbox. This Panda is a keeper which Im going to try & keep until I'm either too old or cannot drive anymore which explains the regular maintenance & rust proofing, hopefully I'll still be driving it when it gets to MOT & tax exemption age, thats the plan anyway
 
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"This Panda is a keeper which Im going to try & keep until I'm either too old or cannot drive anymore which explains the regular maintenance & rust proofing, hopefully I'll still be driving it when it gets to MOT & tax exemption age, thats the plan anyway"

Nothing like planning ahead!

Do you have a ramp or pit to get underneath it for the rust-proofing? Otherwise you're either a contortionist or a limbo-dancer!
 
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