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Juddergate Again


rolandrat

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I've just been reading the Hints forum and I'm surprised at how a person can order a new motorhome then ask about the JUDDERGATE problem, surely the first thing you do is roadtest the vehicle. I have recently trialed an unregistered x250 2.3 and on a slight hill in reverse it JUDDERED and JUDDERED and WHINED its head off and I was told that it had all the latest mods done. The service manager at the local Fiat garage said there was nothing wrong with it, he must have been brainwashed by FIAT. Needless to say I walked away from it and I am having second thoughts about letting the Fiat garage loose on my present vehicle if thats his attitude.
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How is it that 'Common sense' doesn't seem to prevail in the higher echelons of Fiat HQ ??? A commercial vehicle needs to be able to be to do 'slow speed actions' Fully Loaded. ie. creeping foward in heavy traffic (sometimes for hours on end). and REVERSING SLOWLY up an incline. Without shaking itself to pieces OR Burning out the Clutch/Flywheel. That means LOWER first and reverse gear ratio's (bigger cog's) preferably reverse being the lower gear (as no-one has eyes in the back of their head, and hence the need to go even slower.) I can't see the financial or any other advantage of ruining your reputation by producing vehicles that find it difficult doing either of these Actions ?? am I missing something ?

This really is becoming tedious, i thought this 'problem' had been 'tucked up in bed' by Fiat engineers with a modicum of engineering sense (they keep them 'locked away' for when things go wrong, evidentley). *-) *-) Ray

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Anyone who is a member of the Autotrail club will have received the latest magazine and there is an article about an owners experience regarding JUDDERING and the response from Fiat. His clutch failed at 12000miles and he had complained about the motorhomes transmission from day one. Even after a refund of 50% he was still saddled with a bill for £1000 and then if it goes again after a further 12000miles he will have to fork out £2000. Fiat have a lot to answer for and untill the gearbox is completely redesigned the problem will be around. ANYONE THINKING OF BUYING AN X250 MUST THOROUGHLY ROAD TEST IT BEFORE PLACING AN ORDER. YOU WANT PIECE OF MIND NOT AGGRO.
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Guest Tracker
Rayjsj - 2011-04-05 10:34 AM

How is it that 'Common sense' doesn't seem to prevail in the higher echelons of Fiat HQ ???

 

How is it that common sense does not seem to prevail in the minds of some cash heavy buyers swept up with the delusions of a new van being so perfect in every way that they don't need to test it thoroughly?

 

If buyers became more canny and refused to buy any suspect vans the converters would soon respond to yards full of unsaleable vans by using different base vans and Fiat would be forced to rethink it's own attitude.

 

It seems to me that as a breed Motorcaravanners get the vans they deserve and those who do our research and testing thoroughly get good well tried dependable vans - if we are lucky - and those that don't, don't - unless they are lucky!

 

Do you feel lucky?

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Although I fully agree that any vehicle should be driven beforehand,I think what we have to keep in mind is that not everyone spends the same amout of time on Motorhome forums or reading the Mags that we do(..not that the Mags have had all that much to say about it until late,other than the odd "..the one on test reversed without drama.." type of remark )..

 

I don't think it's that unreasonable for someone who is new to motorhoming and is therefore unaware of any issues,to expect a brand new vehicle to be able to reverse properly...as it's just not *really* something that they'd think needs checking...:-S

 

If people were buying a new car,in many cases they'll only drive a demonstrator beforehand,not the actual vehicle...

 

I must say it's disappointing to see that it still isn't fixed properly.. :-S

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Hi Roland

 

You said

 

Even after a refund of 50% he was still saddled with a bill for £1000 and then if it goes again after a further

12000miles he will have to fork out £2000.

 

Just to correct a small error.

 

The member referred to, me, only received a 50% reduction off the parts from Fiat. The original cost was around £1350 inc vat of which about £700 was parts. The labour was still 8.6 hours. The total cost was just under £1000.

 

Good advice to road test ANY vehicle, new or used before signing on the dotted.

Make sure road test covers some motorway/fast dual carriageway as my clutch only slipped under load. It would NOT slip moving off from a standstill or around town. You need to be travelling at 50-60 mph and then floor the throttle to see if it slips. watch the rev counter for any increase in revs without any noticeable increase in speed. If the rev counter does not shoot up by 500+ rpm, the clutch is OK at that moment in time. The engine does need to be warm.

There are vans around on dealers forecourts with slipping clutches. BEWARE!

OH and the judder. STILL there after a new clutch and dual mass flywheel replaced 500 miles ago. (!) (!)

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Hi Dennis, thanks for correcting me I've just reread your story, it's still a lot of money that you shouldn't have had to fork out. Fiat have a lot to answer for in many respects and they seem so smug when you put questions to them. I spoke to them at length at the NEC show recently and they did their best to convince me that all was now well with the 2.3 but after that intensive roadtest I was far from convinced.

Roland.

Will see you at the factory rally.

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Guest 1footinthegrave
One forum member seemed to think anyone insisting on a test drive ( as I did) was deluding themselves, as they are not likely to have a "demonstrator" and really took me to task about it, basically calling me an ill informed idiot that knew nothing about the motor trade. So I'll stick to second hand, let someone else have the big depreciation hit ,and find out the problems first if that really is the case. *-)
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Tracker is right in that when buying a Motorhome as with any other object on the planet you get what you deserve if you've not done your research.

 

I read about too many potential M/H owners and past buyers talking about their 'dream'. There is no such thing as a 'dream' object, thats just fresh air waffle and means nothing. Buying an object is a hard fact and it costs money.

 

Many buyers are persuaded by their ladies cos it looks pretty or has the colour scheme they like, regardless whether it works as a piece of engineering.

 

Damn it all, tell the ladies to get lost and it aint no good cos its a FIAT.

 

art

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Hi All, the one point for me ( a non fiat man ] is, I am now looking to replace my Hymer s 650 on a Mercedes 416 and there is less and less choice especially for some one like me who is probably looking to downsize, (NOT TO MUCH ) because well into 90% of Motorhomes/Campers are built on Fiats. My plan is to go to Dusseldorf and have a look at all non Fiats. Barrie
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Guest JudgeMental

I'm picking up my new van over the weekend....will be looking for a hill! *-)

 

was under the impression that since mid 2009 that all of the production line had the revisions...and although far from perfect a lot better :-S mine was built December 2010

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More and more converters are moving to the latest Renault base vehicles or Ford Transits to replace that market previously dominated by Fiat. Up market motors tend to have the Sprinter base.

About time to!

 

C.

 

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Clive - 2011-04-06 3:23 PM

 

More and more converters are moving to the latest Renault base vehicles or Ford Transits to replace that market previously dominated by Fiat.

C.

 

Both far to narrow for a practical panel van conversion I looked and tried them at Dusseldorf.....Fiat will still have it all there own way for a while...

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hymer1942 - 2011-04-06 4:00 PM

 

Judge has it right, although Mercedes are wider than they used to be, still not wide enough in my opinion. Barrie.

 

 

P S Hope things are spot on with your new van Judge.

 

Thanks Barrie! its the Adria Twin SP which is the best of the panel van conversions from what I have seen...... It also came out as panel van of the year 2011 recently in the MMM awards :-D

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JudgeMental - 2011-04-06 6:03 PM

 

Thanks Barrie! its the Adria Twin SP which is the best of the panel van conversions from what I have seen...... It also came out as panel van of the year 2011 recently in the MMM awards :-D

 

Since you are about a week ahead of me taking delivery of a Twin SP, I hope you will be updating us on your judder findings.

 

I know you thought long and hard before selecting this model, whereas I think other forum members assumed that I just bought the first van I happened across, without having the first idea what I was buying.

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Guest JudgeMental
JamesFrance - 2011-04-06 7:43 PM

 

JudgeMental - 2011-04-06 6:03 PM

 

Thanks Barrie! its the Adria Twin SP which is the best of the panel van conversions from what I have seen...... It also came out as panel van of the year 2011 recently in the MMM awards :-D

 

Since you are about a week ahead of me taking delivery of a Twin SP, I hope you will be updating us on your judder findings.

 

I know you thought long and hard before selecting this model, whereas I think other forum members assumed that I just bought the first van I happened across, without having the first idea what I was buying.

 

 

 

Will do, but away in Germany for nearly a week.........

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rolandrat - 2011-04-05 10:14 AM

 

I've just been reading the Hints forum and I'm surprised at how a person can order a new motorhome then ask about the JUDDERGATE problem, surely the first thing you do is roadtest the vehicle. I have recently trialed an unregistered x250 2.3 and on a slight hill in reverse it JUDDERED and JUDDERED and WHINED its head off and I was told that it had all the latest mods done. The service manager at the local Fiat garage said there was nothing wrong with it, he must have been brainwashed by FIAT. Needless to say I walked away from it and I am having second thoughts about letting the Fiat garage loose on my present vehicle if thats his attitude.

 

Bit strange this. I assume from your unregistered bit it was a new van, if so why would it have been modified, it would have the new gearbox. How did it end up at the local Fiat dealer for him to give an opinion on it. Is it April the first again?

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Clive - 2011-04-06 3:23 PM

 

More and more converters are moving to the latest Renault base vehicles or Ford Transits to replace that market previously dominated by Fiat. Up market motors tend to have the Sprinter base.

About time to!

 

C.

 

Really Clive, where did this information come from, not from any market share figures that is for sure, and not from the evidence of my own eyes at the NEC in Feb.

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The brand new motorhome that I was interested in was road tested by me at Discovery Leisure, I rejected it because of what I considered to be a bad JUDDER and gearbox whine. I then went along to my local Fiat garage with the chassis number and asked an employee I knew to run the chassis number through the computer to see if it had been modifide, this he did and said that there was a recall on it concerning the gearbox so then I rang the dealer back and he arranged to have the recall done. It was whilst it was at the Fiat garage that I asked if it had been modified and they said it had and that they weren't prepared to do any further work on it so I rang the dealer and said that I was no longer interested in it. As I have mentioned before, I am not interested in paying a lot of money for what I consider to be not to be up to a standard required. If anyone goes along to a showroom and sign's up for an expensive motorhome without roadtesting it, fool them. This was brand new and unregistered, a 2.3. My present one is a 3.0 manual which is trouble free probably because it is a Tracker EKS and very light so I can talk with a little knowledge about the X250 and even if I had little knowledge, to me a gearbox and clutch should be able to reverse without shaking the motorhome to bits no matter what make it was.
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When the previous model Fiat had the modified gearbox we all knew about it because it was fitted to an updated cab, this x250 could probably end up the same. I'm not aware of a public announcement as yet or can someone with factual knowledge enlighten us. I am of the opinion that the latest x250's coming off the production line are only fitted with heavy duty engine mountings and not different gear ratios.
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