Fiats pre juddergate?!

[euroserv]

So Discovery Leisure are to be acclaimed for 'allowing you' to walk away from a potential sale because you were not happy with the vehicle.

 

How very generous of them.

 

What should have happened is that the Sales Manager should have told you that it would be unethical to sell you that vehicle because it clearly has a defect and that he was going to send it back to the converter as not fit for purpose regardless of what the Fiat dealer said about it.

 

Instead they will wait for a less discerning buyer or 'sucker' to drive it away.

 

Very honorable.

 

I am glad that you did not get caught out though and it proves the validity of the cautionary nature of this and many other threads.

 

If you get a good one it is down to luck and nothing else; a pound on the national lottery is an acceptable risk, purchases of this magnitude are not.

 

Nick

[Guest Peter James]

Tracker - 2011-03-07 6:08 PM

Given all motor manufacturer's passion to reduce costs and increase unit profit I have to wonder where else corners have been cut - such as less durable alternators ?

My X2/50 has a 150amp Bosch alternator as standard

[Guest Peter James]

JudgeMental - 2011-03-07 3:57 PM

 

because of this experience we went for the new Transit the following year, and what a delight it was in comparison, you could hear yourself speak, listen to music comfortably, and although only 2.2 it pulls like a train....

Looks like the same engine as my X2/50 Citroen Relay - 2.2 litres with the word 'Ford' cast into the oil filter housing and other places

[Guest Peter James]

Rayjsj - 2011-03-09 12:28 PM

 

Tracker - 2011-03-08 10:37 PM

 

Colin Leake - 2011-03-08 9:27 AM

If yours is 2006 and you intend to keep it for a few years you may like to consider that a new timing belt is recommended at 5 years. If we had kept ours I would have had one fitted.

 

Good point Colin thanks - I'll check the handbook as it's about due for a service anyway - and MOT - and Tax - and tyres - oh dear there goes thick end of another grand!!

 

I am in the same posistion late 2005 2.2 HDI Peugeot, only 15,000 miles, i asked the Dealer about the Cam-belt, they said recomendation from Peugeot is NINE years or every 100.000 miles ? (they hadn't changed it !)

are they correct ?? The Handbook doesn't state a 'change by' date . Should i start saving my pennies for a belt change?

On here everyone says 5 years maximum. (any comment Nick ?).

I know that a 'Belt breakage' is a 'Catastroph' but is it likely ?

I have NO desire for an X250 based van, and 'Ad Nauseam' keeps the unsuspecting aware, that a problem DID exist and is not just a tale put about by 'nasty' anti Fiat folk. *-) Ray

 

the 2.2 litre X2/50 doesn't have a cam belt (only the 2.3)

[Guest Peter James]

PCC - 2011-03-09 6:34 PM

 

So how about chipping the 100hp engine up to 130hp?

 

 

Sounds a bit much. Citroen chip the 100 hp engine up to 120hp, even then it results in 10% less mpg (figures taken from their handbook) and necessitates extra engineering like a dual mass flywheel to cope with the extra vibration.

Can't see the aftermarket bods designing better software than the engine manufacturer.

[Guest Peter James]

peter - 2011-03-09 10:37 PM

 

So will a fully loaded 38 ton truck. That's if it could do it at all.

 

Good point. Commercial drivers wouldn't expect to be able to take their vehicles everywhere...

[rolandrat]

Well Nick,

You are probably right about the so called "sucker" that will end up buying the motorhome but what bothers me is thefact that just because a Fiat service manager has so called 20 years experience does it give him authority to say that there was nothing wrong with the transmission when clearly there is. If he thinks he can hoodwink me he is sadly mistaken having vast experience of HGV drivelines all my life.

 

[David B]

I have a 2005 Peugeot boxer 2.2l, but I have been following the juddergate postings on this and other forum for some time.

 

While I have seen some reference to rear overhangs and maximum vehicle weight as factors, I fail to understand why some vehicles judder and some don't - even the same model and same conversion.

 

Surely in these days with mass production to (I assume) quite tight manufacturing tolerances, you would expect all vehicles of the same specification/conversion to behave the same way. The fact that some do, and some don't, suggests to me that the reason for the juddering is not yet fully understood, even now following the application of the Fiat/Peugeot fixes.

 

Can anyone explain, beyond the too high reverse gear ratio, why X250s judder?

 

 

[euroserv]

Hi David,

 

I don't think anyone has been able to offer a definitive reason for the judder but it would seem to be a combination of the overly high reverse gear and over-optimisation in favour of comfort when going forwards.

 

Why it does not affect all vans, when there have been examples of panel vans, short, medium and extremely long vehicles with or without massive over-hangs all having the same fault, is something of a mystery. What is not so mysterious is the issue of manufacturing quality;

 

While it is undoubtedly true that the components that go into a gearbox are going to be very consistent from batch to batch, you must remember that the gearbox is assembled by hand. At the final stage after fitting the cover of the box there is an important measurement that has to be made, and if it is not within a very fine tolerance, the cover comes back off, and shims are added or removed to achieve the correct tolerance. The shims are in steps of 0.02mm.

 

I don't think they ever do that though....

 

I have dismantled about 7 of these 6 speed x250 gearboxes and without fail they have always had exactly the same thickness of shims, yet all have been out of tolerance and almost certainly left the factory like that. If there is not enough 'end-float' this will lead to over tighness in the output shaft and premature bearing wear. If too much you will get a 'rattling' going on that will probably be audible and this can lead to bearing wear or ovalisation of the bearings. The synchromesh's will not like that either.

 

My guess therefore is that the assembler of the gearbox is not doing it properly; and i think that this really is the only inconsistency that can cause some vehicles to judder and others not to. It also suggests that vehicles that are not affected from the outset probably won't ever show the problem.

 

There are also a very large number of variants of gear ratios for the various different weights, sizes, engines and applications; it's not just as simple as Maxi or not. There could be a certain set of ratios that perform worse than most others. The ratios in the differential vary more than those in the box. It probably is not the 'specially selected for motorhomes' ratio's that are worst, but who knows?

 

Another problem is that we have had about 5% of our new vans delivered with clutch or flywheel faults that have been fixed quickly under warranty. I suspect that some of the judder faults have actually 'only' been clutch faults and have been fixed as a part of the re-work jobs and are therefore better regardless of any altered ratios that may have been fitted.

 

Before anybody asks the question; No, you cannot check the clearance described above while the gearbox is in situ. Not impossible, but very, very tricky.

 

Bottom line is to check thoroughly before you buy. Even on the vans that have had the 'fix' done make sure that all is well before you part with your money. The dealer's did not receive new bearing kits and shims with the modifications so I would suspect that many may still not be set up correctly, even after the official work was done. It takes a very good dealer indeed to do work that they are not being told or indeed paid to do; in fact, they don't exist!

 

Nick

[Brian Kirby]

It was fairly commonplace for vehicle manufacturers to source their bought in components from more than one supplier, so that supply difficulties with any one supplier did not bring vehicle production to a total halt.  If that is still the procedure, it seems possible that particular combinations of parts may exacerbate the judder problem, while other combinations diminish it.

Doesn't answer what may be the actual cause, but might possibly explain its variable severity.

What causes it?  It has been denied it is, truly, a clutch judder, which seems reasonable enough to me.  Ours is Transit based, but shares the engine, as Peter points out above, with the Citroen/Peugeot SEVEL output.  The Transit reverse is too high for comfort, and I do not know how the overall gearing compares with the SEVELs that use the same engine, but it does not judder in reverse. 

However, it has a rather interesting characteristic that may shed some light.  The torque falls off sharply below 1,500rpm, but is pretty flat from there to 3,000rpm, after which it reduces again, but less abruptly.  The characteristic appears if one lets the revs drop below 1,500 and then asks for power.  I don't mean flooring the pedal, but just a bit more - for example, in a town, on a slight rise, in traffic, where one really should have dropped a cog, but had failed to notice how low the revs had fallen.  It tells you in no uncertain terms that it is unhappy, wakes you up, you then change down, and all is well!

What it does, under those circumstances, is to "pogo".  The effect is that the cab starts bouncing, and it appears to come from the injection electronics getting their knickers in a twist.  It seems to be a low frequency vibration, or oscillation, in power delivery, when the engine is running at, or just below, its lowest operating margin.  The odd thing is that under different circumstances it will pull gently, but quite smoothly, from just above tickover.  The only difference is in that small bit of extra load on the engine.

If the clutch were being slipped, rather than being fully engaged, this would not happen, because the anti-stall program would keep the revs just high enough.  However, once the clutch is fully "in" the anti-stall drops out, so allowing the engine speed to fall into its "no fly" zone.  (Incidentally, I think this may be why the problem does not show on the automatics, in that once the engine gets into this low speed zone, it downshifts, or if moving more slowly, just feathers the clutch while keeping the revs that bit higher.)

So, if I try to reverse slowly, against resistance (hill or similar), gently engaging the clutch, the revs rise gently to match demand under the anti-stall.  But, if I fail to get the vehicle up to sufficient speed by the time the clutch is fully engaged, so that the engine is running below 1,500rpm, one of two thing happen.  If the engine speed drops below 600rpm as the anti-stall drops out, the electronics just shut down the engine, which feels like a stall.  However, if the engine speed is somewhere between 600 and 1,500rpm, it protests as above, which causes me to dip the clutch sharpish and start again.  If I did not drop the clutch, and persisted trying to drive back against the load with the clutch fully engaged, I suspect the oscillations would multiply though the clutch springs, engine mountings, and driveline bushes, into something quite violent.

Given a higher reverse ratio, as the SEVELs appear to have, the need would be to slip the clutch for longer before it is fully engaged, meaning the temptation must be to engage more quickly, and then continue trying to reverse against the oscillations.  This, I rather think, may be the reported judder.  If correct, the solution will be to re-engineer the electronics to develop smooth power from about 600rpm up, and the fact that no-one yet seems to have achieved that may indicate that there are other reasons for not doing so, or that the logic misreads the various load/demand factors involved, with even more undesirable results.

[colin]

As I've posted before, whilst the change in gear ratio's appears to help iron out most judder, the fault will not be entirely fixed until a completly new design of front end of van is made. Playing with the electronics would be very simple to do and take only days to test, this has been done but couldn't solve the problem. Redisigning the gearbox casting to accomodate an even lower gear considering the large numbers of production would be relativly simple.

[Rayjsj]

Peter James - 2011-03-16 1:19 PM

 

Rayjsj - 2011-03-09 12:28 PM

 

Tracker - 2011-03-08 10:37 PM

 

Colin Leake - 2011-03-08 9:27 AM

Ray

 

the 2.2 litre X2/50 doesn't have a cam belt (only the 2.3)

 

We were talking about our 'Pre-Juddergate' (as per the thread title) Peugeots/Fiats. 2005/6 2.2's which DO have a cambelt. Ray

[silverback]

Nick

as an engineer in a factory which produces grinding m/s for cams and cranks, (i might add there are no probs with, i hope!) (cos our m/cs are in the GIANT sevel factory), i have to agree with you regarding the tolerances and shims you describe, it will be human error!! this is why some vans have it and some vans dont..its the old monday morning syndrome, Brian you also have a point..but i think everything will be produced on site not contracted out, but im not sure on that point, agree also with the clutch point also, im not a gearbox expert but would have thought it would be the same box in 2.3 as the 3.0 its just the 3.0 is auto/semi auto the electronics take over and make it smoother, so therefore on the 2.3 its slipping clutch time which obviously does it no good and is not as good, i will add i have never driven these x250's just the old 2.8jtds , but i could get that to judder if i wanted 8-)

also the box on the 2.8 is nothing to shout about having spent £1300 getting mine sorted with 5th, 2nd, 3rd, syncro probs, in short... nothing is perfect you buy a MH at 50k but the van part is 14k so there is the prob..you go on car forums and see they too have the same probs, but there car is 7k to 20k that is the prob we as MH's think it as a 50k problem, that is why fiat dont recall them as a 14k car manufacturer doesn't either.. cos they dont have the length and weight to cause judder, (but you could judder a car if you wanted to!) at the end of the day they are gearboxes they are much the same as they were 50 years ago, you can only go so far in mechanical engineering design before electronics kicks in, hope that puts a prospective on things 8-)

its not right but there you go :'(

jon

[Derek Uzzell]

Brian Kirby - 2011-03-16 7:54 PM

It was fairly commonplace for vehicle manufacturers to source their bought in components from more than one supplier, so that supply difficulties with any one supplier did not bring vehicle production to a total halt.  If that is still the procedure, it seems possible that particular combinations of parts may exacerbate the judder problem, while other combinations diminish it.

Doesn't answer what may be the actual cause, but might possibly explain its variable severity.

What causes it?  It has been denied it is, truly, a clutch judder, which seems reasonable enough to me.  Ours is Transit based, but shares the engine, as Peter points out above, with the Citroen/Peugeot SEVEL output.  The Transit reverse is too high for comfort, and I do not know how the overall gearing compares with the SEVELs that use the same engine, but it does not judder in reverse. 

However, it has a rather interesting characteristic that may shed some light.  The torque falls off sharply below 1,500rpm, but is pretty flat from there to 3,000rpm, after which it reduces again, but less abruptly.  The characteristic appears if one lets the revs drop below 1,500 and then asks for power.  I don't mean flooring the pedal, but just a bit more - for example, in a town, on a slight rise, in traffic, where one really should have dropped a cog, but had failed to notice how low the revs had fallen.  It tells you in no uncertain terms that it is unhappy, wakes you up, you then change down, and all is well!

What it does, under those circumstances, is to "pogo".  The effect is that the cab starts bouncing, and it appears to come from the injection electronics getting their knickers in a twist.  It seems to be a low frequency vibration, or oscillation, in power delivery, when the engine is running at, or just below, its lowest operating margin.  The odd thing is that under different circumstances it will pull gently, but quite smoothly, from just above tickover.  The only difference is in that small bit of extra load on the engine.

If the clutch were being slipped, rather than being fully engaged, this would not happen, because the anti-stall program would keep the revs just high enough.  However, once the clutch is fully "in" the anti-stall drops out, so allowing the engine speed to fall into its "no fly" zone.  (Incidentally, I think this may be why the problem does not show on the automatics, in that once the engine gets into this low speed zone, it downshifts, or if moving more slowly, just feathers the clutch while keeping the revs that bit higher.)

So, if I try to reverse slowly, against resistance (hill or similar), gently engaging the clutch, the revs rise gently to match demand under the anti-stall.  But, if I fail to get the vehicle up to sufficient speed by the time the clutch is fully engaged, so that the engine is running below 1,500rpm, one of two thing happen.  If the engine speed drops below 600rpm as the anti-stall drops out, the electronics just shut down the engine, which feels like a stall.  However, if the engine speed is somewhere between 600 and 1,500rpm, it protests as above, which causes me to dip the clutch sharpish and start again.  If I did not drop the clutch, and persisted trying to drive back against the load with the clutch fully engaged, I suspect the oscillations would multiply though the clutch springs, engine mountings, and driveline bushes, into something quite violent.

Given a higher reverse ratio, as the SEVELs appear to have, the need would be to slip the clutch for longer before it is fully engaged, meaning the temptation must be to engage more quickly, and then continue trying to reverse against the oscillations.  This, I rather think, may be the reported judder.  If correct, the solution will be to re-engineer the electronics to develop smooth power from about 600rpm up, and the fact that no-one yet seems to have achieved that may indicate that there are other reasons for not doing so, or that the logic misreads the various load/demand factors involved, with even more undesirable results.

FWD Mk 6 and Mk 7 Transits with 5-speed gearboxes are over-geared in 1st and reverse gears. This is a mechanical design drawback and impossible to overcome satisfactorily merely by 'tweaking' the electronics. The 6-speed gearbox fitted to later/current Mk 7 FWD chassis has significantly lower 1st and reverse gear ratios (though reverse is still higher than 1st). It's much more challenging to hill-start (forwards or backwards) a 5-speed Transit MK 6/7 than a 6-speed Mk 7 and, if you have to reverse a Mk 6/7 5-speeder slowly up a long steep slope, you'll probably destroy the clutch doing it.The simple fact of life is, if a motorhome has uncomfortably high 1st/reverse gearing, it's going to be a beggar to drive very slowly on hills.

[rolandrat]

Nick, You have said that you have worked on 7 x250 gearboxes so can you enlighten us on the reverse gear ratio that is fitted as standard and the uprated one that is fitted to the modified ones. What I would like to know is how many teeth are there on the gears and if possible can you letme know how many teeth there are on the diffs that you have repaired for example 3.99 to 1, 4.5 to 1 or whatever. It will be very interesting to know.

[euroserv]

So.

 

With Silverback's comments somewhat acknowledging my theory, I believe that at least some of the juddering vans could be significantly helped if the gearbox was stripped and set up correctly.

 

It will not affect the high gear ratio which will always be an issue but I am now sure that the variation between some vans having judder and others not is down to shoddy build at worst and poor attention to detail at best.

 

There have been some iffy clutches and flywheels around too, but I do believe that is your answer.

 

If Fiat are reading this; sort out your quality control (near enough is not good enough) and hurry up with a re-design for the gearbox so that we don't have this silly high reverse gear. Must try harder. E- for effort on this matter.

 

Thanks

 

Nick

[euroserv]

rolandrat,

 

I am afraid that you will have to trawl back through the postings from about this time last year on the defect thread. I have never seen one of the modified reverse gears so I don't really know but lots of people posted very specific details of their fixes.

 

All of the gearboxes that we have worked on have been our own 2.3 6 speed Maxi vans, and i don't keep specific details on what is in them; I just order the gears, synchro's and bearings that my Fiat parts DVD tells me are fitted to our gearboxes.

 

The data supplied regarding the ratios in the brochures has largely been discredited in the past too.

 

Nick

[rolandrat]

Ok Nick, will do.

[rolandrat]

Ok Nick, will do.

[rolandrat]

Ok Nick, will do.

[rolandrat]

Ok Nick, will do.

[rolandrat]

OooooooPs!

[silverback]

euroserv - 2011-03-17 11:50 AM

 

So.

 

With Silverback's comments somewhat acknowledging my theory, I believe that at least some of the juddering vans could be significantly helped if the gearbox was stripped and set up correctly.

 

It will not affect the high gear ratio which will always be an issue but I am now sure that the variation between some vans having judder and others not is down to shoddy build at worst and poor attention to detail at best.

 

There have been some iffy clutches and flywheels around too, but I do believe that is your answer.

 

If Fiat are reading this; sort out your quality control (near enough is not good enough) and hurry up with a re-design for the gearbox so that we don't have this silly high reverse gear. Must try harder. E- for effort on this matter.

 

Thanks

 

Nick

 

 

exactly Nick, ive never posted on this "juddergate" thing before, but i did because i'd had enough >:-( slating fiat off, what the posters on here dont realise after toyota, fiat is prob the next biggest company, they all have problems with their gearbox even porsche!!! and i agree E is not good enough.they need to be better!!! but they have to sell stuff, the volumes of gearboxes and cams ...engines etc are astronomical there are bound to be rogues, and i might add after my mother ad the 1st fiat panda nigh on 40 yr ago with the pull lever to start the engine..then it never started *-) i vowed never to buy a fiat!! but inthe end i had to! market forces and all that, credit has to go to andy stobart for highlighting the prob, i dont know if his probs have been sorted? and i think it was "coyne" from about a year ago who took this to court "unfit for purpose" dont know his outcome cos he hasnt posted (unless people want to tell me otherwise!) so in summary.. every van/car manufacturer has this problem it will never go away, its just unlucky...so if you can .. stop reversing up hills (!) i'll get my coat ...and duck!!

jonathan

[jhorsf]

I wonder if certain people have gone quiet as they are now SORTED OUT and gagged?

[Derek Uzzell]

rolandrat - 2011-03-17 11:42 AM

 

Nick, You have said that you have worked on 7 x250 gearboxes so can you enlighten us on the reverse gear ratio that is fitted as standard and the uprated one that is fitted to the modified ones. What I would like to know is how many teeth are there on the gears and if possible can you letme know how many teeth there are on the diffs that you have repaired for example 3.99 to 1, 4.5 to 1 or whatever. It will be very interesting to know.

 

These are questions that, logically, should have been answered with certainty years ago but, to the best of my knowledge, never have been.

 

The type of data you are looking for are given on:

 

http://www.italiaspeed.com/new_models/2006/fiat/ducato/technical_specification.html

 

However, it's very questionable how much of the Italiaspeed gear-ratio data can be trusted, particularly the information relating to the gearbox fitted to the 2.3litre motor.

 

In that instance, the Italiaspeed website shows 1st and reverse gear-ratios as (respectively) 3.727:1 and 4.083:1 - that is with the reverse ratio significantly lower than 1st. I pointed this out when the 'juddering' issue reared its head 3 years ago, but Andy Stothert assured me at the time that ad hoc experiments had proved that the reverse ratio of 2.3litre X250's was much higher than 1st (10%-20% as a guesstimate if I remember correctly). I've no reason to doubt what Andy said - most drivers will immediately be able to tell whether 1st is higher than reverse (or vice versa).

 

I've also suggested in the past on this forum that (as it seemed to be so difficult to prise believable gear-ratio data from Fiat/Peugeot), when X250 gearboxes were being repaired/modified, a 'tooth count' be made to ascertain exactly what the standard and modified gear-ratios were. If nothing else, this would have allowed a comparison to be made between X250s and their competitors.

 

If it transpired that, say, a 2.3litre X250's overall gear-ratio in reverse was no higher than, say, a FWD 5-speed Transit's (itself too high for comfort), then Fiat's original stance of 'blaming the driver' might not have seemed too unreasonable. Conversely, if it turned out that a 2.3litre X250's overall reverse ratio was massively higher than, say, a FWD 5-speed Transit's, then it might have been credible to make an 'unfit for purpose' case when the X250 chassis was being employed for motorhome usage.

 

It would also have been sensible to have set up a simple website summarising the juddering issue, where X250 owners/buyers could easily access information (including technical data) about the matter and be confident of its accuracy. This was another idea floated on this forum but, as far as I know, was never implemented.

 

As far as I'm concerned, although there's been an enormous amount of yelling and gnashing of teeth about this on UK motorhome forums (which, with hindsight, may well have been the optimum strategy for getting Fiat/Peugeot(UK) to address the fault), plus 'juddering' references in UK leisure-vehicle magazines, little effort has been made by the UK motorhome community to focus on the type of straightforward questions you are asking. Too late now I'm afraid...