Fiats pre juddergate?!

[terryW]

I apologise if this point has been raised before but as a relatively new comer to this thread I have tried my best to catch up on the years of discussion. I have said before that I don’t appear to have a significant problem with my 08 X250, no worse that the previous two older versions I owned. If fact I had greater problems reversing my last Ford and suffered the smell of burnt clutch for 9 months after setting up on a difficult pitch.

 

With the talk of lower gear ratios it occurs to me that my vehicle appears to have a lower reverse speed, simply by virtue of the tyres fitted. A comparison of Sat Nav speed with speedo shows a 10% variation, with my part worn 215/70/15 tyres. I’m not sure if this is at all relevant but has this aspect been considered during the discussions?

 

[terryW]

I apologise if this point has been raised before but as a relatively new comer to this thread I have tried my best to catch up on the years of discussion. I have said before that I don’t appear to have a significant problem with my 08 X250, no worse that the previous two older versions I owned. If fact I had greater problems reversing my last Ford and suffered the smell of burnt clutch for 9 months after setting up on a difficult pitch.

 

With the talk of lower gear ratios it occurs to me that my vehicle appears to have a lower reverse speed, simply by virtue of the tyres fitted. A comparison of Sat Nav speed with speedo shows a 10% variation, with my part worn 215/70/15 tyres. I’m not sure if this is at all relevant but has this aspect been considered during the discussions?

 

[euroserv]

Going from memory, which is a 'one in one out' affair these days the reverse gear was swapped from something like 14 teeth to 15 teeth, but the main shaft was left alone. This was widely regarded as a bodge, and many believed that it would lead to odd noises but was as much as could be acheived without re-modelling the casing.

 

The damper thingys that were added to the clutch did not make it to the production vehicles, so they were (as suspected) a waste of time, and the new mounts may have masked some of the problems, but have also not been incorporated in production vehicles.

 

The gear replacement did make it through to production from April 2009 but the main shaft still remains unaltered.

 

The verdict is that new vans since April 2009 and modified ones will reverse slightly slower but may still have judder because I believe that this is introduced during assembly by the half man half monkey minimum wage slaves. I doubt Fiat could provide an inspection certificate for even a random sample of gearboxes; they do not have serial numbers.

 

It's a rollover this weekend. Much better odds.

 

Nick