Good luck with the Punto, hopefully you've made the right decision, let's face it you're going to have to spend a lot of money before it's the wrong decision.
Regarding looking after it no misfuelling etc. Sadly you don't need to do the misfuelling - it's done on your behalf! There's plenty of damp poorly maintained holding tanks, misfuelling at fuel depots as well as the ridiculous situation in which you (as a middleman) can add up to 5% biofuel to diesel without disclosing it, the fuel goes on to the next middleman in the supply chain and he adds his 5% to increase profits so on and so forth, then Mr BP or Shell etc buy the fuel and add their own 10% to make "badged" biofuel, or 5% biofuel to make it cheaper and you end up with crap quality diesel which is useless as a lubricant for the pump. All oil companies buy base fuel off the open market if it's cheaper than the stuff they are making themselves at the time or the saving in distribution costs justifies it. You cannot guarantee the quality of the fuel your are using, you can get away with murder with petrol, sadly diesel can have all sorts of rubbish in it which high pressure diesel pumps don't take kindly to. Another problem with the increased use of biofuel in diesel is it's encouraging bacteria to breed in the fuel, these can literally "infect" you car, block filters and lead to breakdowns or in the case of low-pressure side filters, run the high pressure pump dry.
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On the other hand......It seems on the face of it that annual mileage would only be +/- 7500 a year? Would the extra cost of fuel by using a petrol car be significant enough to matter?
If you are really fed up wih the car you might do well to change.
Tricky one granted.
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I hope you don't mind me being brutally honest OR - but it seems even with the lavish attention & pre-emptive work you've done on the car, it's basically a sow's ear - and no amount of care, it seems, was going to transform FIAT 'quality' into the silk purse of your dreams.
If money's not a particular issue I'd start afresh (despite my previous post-al advice..) & get something to re-kindle your obviously flagging motoring enthusiast's spirit.
I've no idea really what would suit (on the many levels you seem to appreciate cars) & fulfill
the usage criteria, but would suggest it's something mainstream, simple & petrol - Toyota, Ford & Skoda spring to mind - a petrol 1.4 Fabia estate has charm with some underlying quality.
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Interesting point early in this thread about a milk float as it's the same style of driving. My local milkman uses a small roughly 8 year old Japanese or Korean pickup. Might be worth sussing out which engine one of these has then look for their model of car with the same engine.
FWIW my wife's Toyota Starlet does mostly short trips and seems bombproof, problems come in ones and quite infrequently, with your regime one would last forever.
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Perhaps we are at a stage in manufacturing that when an item is high precision, then the bell curve for failure moves up in mileage, in other words, they are all built to such a good standard that even the bad ones that should've failed at low mileage and under warranty now fail at 60K? The good ones go on to do sterling service and high miles. Perhaps this is where we are? Just unfortunate for the poor person that cops for it out of warranty and down the line.
It might've been a "bad pump" from the get go, just waiting to fail down the line.
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Instinctively I'd say keep it. You would spend a fortune on repairs to match the depreciation on a (probably less suitable) replacement.
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"it's basically a sow's ear -"
Oh, yea of little faith ;-)
It`s going to the block next week and a new star has arisen in the East. Well, North West actually - as the dealership is orientated to the house.
Beyond that impossible clue - guess what Mrs Oilrag chose - and why.
Yep, a mini quiz spinning off the tail of this thread.
1) Name the car
2) Knowing me - as you do - what is it`s spec and why?
3) What did Mrs Oilrag say to the salesman who didn`t offer his name - after I introduced her to him?
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Daihatsu i10 Classic?
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Clues
Galvanised
Very conservative on the mechanical side - tried and tested - can I fully service it? Yes.
And you know how I don`t like aircon, alloy wheels, metallic paint, risk of damage from cambelt snapping. (The later is the biggest clue - but you need lateral thinking on it))
Edited by oilrag on 27/01/2010 at 14:51
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You're importing a brand new Lada Riva from Russia, aren't you?
Either that or a Perodua Myvi.
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Beyond that impossible clue - guess what Mrs Oilrag chose - and why.
Yep, a mini quiz spinning off the tail of this thread.
Hmmm... well, 'beyond that impossible clue' is 'mini' - so I'm guessing that.
Not sure about spec, maybe a Clubman, diesel?
What would Mrs OR say I wonder? 'Hello Mr NoName' or similar?
Edited by woodbines on 27/01/2010 at 14:56
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`Mini` -Bit of a red herring I`m afraid Woodbines. The real clue is in the cambelt comment - as above.
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OR - whilst we're thinking about what doesn't have a cambelt, what have you got against met paint? Apart from the £300+ extra cost, of course. It's tougher and stands up to a bit of neglect better than solid colours, IMO. I know you only wash the underside of cars, not the bits you can see....
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Lateral thinking... hmmmmm.... Could mean a non-interference engine.
But could mean chain cam or cams. Doesn't the Maserati V8 have chain cams?
You did say lateral thinking oilrag.
:o}
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.....or to Mornington Crescent the whole thing....Mk 3 Mondeo ?
;-))
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"You did say lateral thinking oilrag."
;-)
Edited by oilrag on 27/01/2010 at 17:03
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"what have you got against met paint?"
It`s touching up little scrapes out on the drive Diesefitter. Mrs OR often comes in and says "mend it OR" and as you know - solid colours - in particular white..
Edited by oilrag on 27/01/2010 at 17:09
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I reckon you might have gone for a Hyundai I10? Chain cam, Red paint - the default colour. We have 2 in our family, a manual and an auto. Got scrappage on the auto, ordered Aug 09, delivered Dec 09 otr it was £6400 plus a 20 yr old Escort van we have run for peanuts for the last 8 years.
Rusty.
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Oilrag, I reckon it's a Panda 1.1 or 1.2 Petrol - cambelt but non-interference engine, so no damage if it does go, tried and tested, easy to fix, cheap parts, basic spec. Am I right??!!!
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Spot on Bazza ;-)
Panda 1.1 basic spec
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Fine wee car Oily. Just tell us it's not the school dinner watered custard yellow please !
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"Tee heee..... "
You knew.....;-)
White, Hump
Edited by oilrag on 27/01/2010 at 20:08
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No really ? We could have a whip round for a better paint job. That could give people migraines !
Edit - white ? Phew !
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 27/01/2010 at 20:10
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A bucket of champagne at 2 a.m. for bazza I trust? Virtual at least oilrag. Come now, do the decent thing...
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Here you go Bazza. Pop...glug glug glug. ;-)
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I was really attracted to the engine. Tried and tested over 19yrs. non interference belt - as Bazza says.
Simple easy access poly v belt. plugs on leads not buried under fragile single coil packs.
External clutch slave cylinder rather than co-axial. Easy access all around the engine - with a nod to a head gasket going now and then on these engines. But simple in a way that I could do anything to it.
Mrs Oilrag always takes my advice on board for engines - cos she knows she has to pay if I can`t do the servicing myself.
White paint - was there anything better to hide a touch up or bit of blow over on the drive?
Considered
Renault Twingo - liked the look of that engine too - but not brave enough to recommend it.
VW Fox - Road tax & fuel consumption and to be honest felt too big to Mrs OR
Toyota Aygo - Felt too small - MrsO didn`t like the dash and the 1litre engine would have dropped mileage payments.
Hyundi - Diahatsu - Suzuki - not galvanized
Ford - Mrs O won`t consider them -
The salesman who didn`t give his name at the VW dealership - when I introduced Mrs OR to him? I said (crass, I know, but the Renault dealer was the same) "and your name is?" Mrs OR then immediately said two words in her own language before he could respond and smiled sweetly.
Your worst assumption is likely to be correct ;-)
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Now you're talking! Look forward to that! We have a 1.2 plus a 1.1 I managed to get hold of for my daughter, so am not seeing a lot of it. It averages about 50mpg. We all love it, it is so much fun. I believe the motor goes back to the 80s but it's absolutely superb to rev up and enjoy. There's plenty of info over on the FiatForum!
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I hope that you enjoy your new car, and that you are rewarded for giving Fiat another chance. :-)
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So what did Mrs O say to the sales chap then ?
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See above Hump.
Also the 1.1 not 1.2 as you were forced to have aircon on the 1.2
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Thanks for the kind thoughts on the choice, Guys. I will show Mrs OR later. ;-)
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I like Pandas. Mrs B would like a 4x4 one. Not sure why but she is from Cheshire. Big hair and all that y'know.
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Mrs O fancied a Suzuki Jimney. Fuel consumption soon laid that idea to rest though. Also not galvanized. You can feel a twitch when you`ve lived through the `rust era` - if it`s not galvanized.
Edited by oilrag on 27/01/2010 at 20:53
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To be honest, 99% of the time, it's all the car you ever need. I love simplicity and basic functionality, which the Panda has plenty of! It reminds me of driving my old Minis, fun, simple and efficient. I can park it anywhere, it will cruise at 85 if I want it to and there's no DMFs, DPFs, common rail, etc etc to go wrong. Tyres are £40 apiece for premium brands and insurance is 150 quid a year! I get from A to B in exactly the same time as anything else and have a lot of fun along the way! I'm sure you will enjoy giving it a regular italian tune-up!
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Can totally relate to that bazza. We've had a base model Ka kicking around for 6 years. Only paid £5k for it brand new. Never given us any grief but to be fair it's only done a short 30k. I love driving it. It's only concession to modernity is its power steering. Manual windows, basic locking no acronyms at all. Hoot to drive. Corners like a Bluebottle. Panda should be all of that fun and more.
Are you preparing to embalm it already OR ?
;-)
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 27/01/2010 at 21:26
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I asked that they grease the brake pipes at the PDI, Hump. When it arrives I will rub a handful of HMP grease on the sump.
I`m not likely to grease the subframes until it`s out of warranty and maybe won`t do it at all.
As you may be aware - It`s the Eco Panda and it seems they got the fuel consumption down - and road tax to £35 by using low resistance tyres and low viscosity oil.
I will be thinking about the low viscosity oil - and at any rate will change it at around 1,000 miles - along with the filter.
I always ran this past the dealership with new cars and the service manager was all for it.
Went up yesterday (pick up car tomorrow) and asked service manager to go through servicing points with me. He put their senior tech with me and we went over it - in the middle of the showroom - bonnet up.
All straightforward and I`ve made notes. There isn`t a Haynes on it - but the engine alone is covered in an old Punto manual. I won`t bother - as it`s all so straightforward.
Edited by oilrag on 28/01/2010 at 06:51
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The Panda is a cracker - one of those rare cars that just feels good to drive.
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>>I will be thinking about the low viscosity oil
It's not something that would occupy me for long.
The car will spend most of it's time cold or on warm up, when ALL oil is way too thick. All these cold starts will put the car firmly into the category where intermediate oil changes will be required, as, unlike the diesel, there will be enrichment at cold start.
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That`s a good point about the oil viscosity NC, thanks.
It will be on half interval/period oil changes - that will work out at 6 months and around 4,000 miles. But that will all be multiple cold starts.
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If I can be bothered to go out to my cold workshop :-( , I could take the datalogger off my bike and then plug it into my car logging the coolant temp from the ODBC data simulating a cold start then restart after 30 mins, I'm fairly sure after warm up, the coolant temp will not drop enough in 30 mins to trigger a fuel enriched "cold start". I'm pretty sure once warm 30 min intervals will not initiate cold starts.
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Judging by OR's OP, I don't think the car can get anywhere near warmed up - he mentions 50 cold starts per day!
The degree of enrichment will vary according to temperature rather than being a purely binary switch, of course, the car will start in open loop mode where the fuelling is not corrected by the lambda sensor - it will be spending a lot of its time operating in open loop mode rather than closed.
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I know it's not as simple as a binary switch, I've written software for EMS ECUs professionally, although there WILL be a coolant temp point in which fuel enrichment will not occur on startup. The OP does say above, the car gets a good warm up before it starts the start/stop rounds if this maintains coolant temp above the pre-mention point, there will be no cold-start fuel enrichment, although there is always a degree of enrichment whenever a petrol engine is started as most FI systems pulse trigger all the injectors for continuous injection until the data from the crank and cam position sensors have been read for a few cycles at which point the sequential, mapped injector triggering takes over.
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there is always a degree of enrichment whenever a petrol engine is started
Yes.
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Yes maybe, but nowhere near the (high wear) enrichment required for a cold start. You simply get a few tenths of a second where the fuel injection system effectively turns into a CIS system like the MK1 Golf GTi. If that was such a bad thing those cars wouldn't have lasted very long! As for the open and closed mode running, the vast majority of Lambda sensors are heated these days, a pre-warmed engine will be running in open mode for 20-30 seconds at most. Or if the driver is knowledgeable enough to hold the engine on a fast idle for a few seconds after start up - seconds.
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... the vast majority of Lambda sensors are heated these days, ... >>
even on the most basic Fiat Panda 1.1 that oily's wife is buying?
p.s. I don't know which oil oily is going to use but assuming that his car's spec says he can use a 0w-30 "fully" synthetic, I suspect that the car will die of other problems long before he notices anything wrong with his engine due to the use of this "thin" oil.
Edited by jbif on 28/01/2010 at 14:35
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Before all of this, there's also the enrichment during cranking, which dwarfs the ganged versus sequential fuelling difference - so much so that the correction is typically modified with a time dependant reduction as an anti flooding measure.
Yes, there are degrees of enrichment, and yes, lambda sensors do switch on quicker these days than they used to partly because they are now close coupled, and partly because of the heating current.
However, the point being made was and is that this car will swill more fuel into its oil than the old tech diesel it is replacing.
>If that was such a bad thing those cars wouldn't have lasted very long!
That says as much about the deviant types who own them as for the cars themselves.
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I had assumed it was cold running all day but forgot about the run in - as someone said. It has a hot engine when it arrives on the patch - then it`s stop start all day - but some of these runs are a mile or two. You could equally say the engine never cools down, especially in Summer.
Without that five mile run in, it would be grim though, for the engine - and some workers do live on the patch.
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Actually oilrag, following some earlier posts jokily suggesting a milk float, it would make really good sense for someone to market a nicer, less hideous and reluctant than a GWhiz and perhaps roomier and more practical, small electric car for carers, district nurses and others whose motoring is like that. It would be nice for them, economical, and convenient (they could plug in while they were in people's houses sometimes perhaps to keep the juice topped up).
I suppose it makes too much sense for anyone to do it though. Tata ought to. Perhaps outa China 'cross the bay too, knowImean?
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A genuine 50mph and twenty mile range is all that`s required Lud. Charge it at night on cheap rate electricity.
You really wonder whether old milk float technology could do that. I suspect some of the pure electric cars are technology showcases just for the sake of it.
The Prius was mentioned earlier and I`m not sure how one of those would charge it`s own batteries on ultra stop start. There`s no significant braking and the heater is on full blast all Winter. I suspect that alone would cause a Prius`s engine to run continuously.
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Steve's points have made me go away and find some data I haven't read or thought about for years.
I found that on a particular system, there is enrichment;
- for cold start, where the duration is initially fixed at 2ms per ignition pulse, then decaying, also relaxing to one injection event per crank revolution after a given number of ignition pulses. Cold start is also factored by the time since the last cold start attempt to prevent flooding.
- after start enrichment constant below -30C and variable between -30C and +80C, decaying with time after starting
- warm up enrichment constant below -30C and variable between -30C and +80C, not decaying with time after starting
- warm start enrichment - enrichment until a given time threshold after starting, then, decaying linearly with time.
I'm sure there are as many different schemes as there are controllers!
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For the systems I've worked on the additional warm start injection duration is tiny compared to cold start. It's there to encourage the catalytic converter to "light up". Horrid things but that's another argument! :-)
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To conclude.
It wasn`t to our benefit to have bought the Punto 1.9D - back in 2002. Petrol would have at least broken even - and possibly better than that.
The `stumbling point` was the psychological barrier - against £1,200 for a new high pressure pump - with no absolute guarantee that even that would have fixed the problem.
Contrasting that with a typical worst case scenario for the Fire petrol Punto - a head gasket at around £300.
The body seemed like new at almost 8yrs. I bet we could have kept the petrol model for at least another 5 or 6 yrs.
The diesel was better in fuel consumption - but total disaster would have ensued if the cambelt had ever snapped - the petrol Punto is non interference.
The Diesel had official 6,000 oil change intervals - halving that led to a lot of work out on the drive. The petrol at 12,000 - half the work and expense
The Petrol model was cheaper to purchase too.
A wrong decision then back in 2002 - although who would predict a HP pump just failing like that - Shell fuel almost exclusively and never misfueled.
There are other 1.9D`s on the internet with failed pumps too. It seems to me that that particular pump is weak - or my particular pump was less than perfect new. I suspect it`s the former and don`t believe it`s fuel quality. The other diesel the common rail Multijet has been running on the same and has had no problems.
I always drain diesel fuel filters into a glass and examine the contents and sometimes have cut open the canister type.
It`s always very clean - contents and element - and without even a drop of water. It`s years since I got a drop or two of water out of a fuel filter.
Interestingly - the petrol Panda has no serviceable fuel filter.
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Oilrag: Interestingly - the petrol Panda has no serviceable fuel filter.
The fuel fliter isn't lsited as a service item by FIAT, but they do clog up eventually. On my Mk1 Punto, it clogged and then started leaking at 8 years old - SWMBO discovered it when she'd taken the car to Birmingham for three months on a work secondment.
The filter was fitted inline on the fuel feed from the tank, at the top of the rear wheel arch on the filler cap side, as I recall.
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