Fiat stops production of 1.3L Multijet diesel because of quality problem
Fiat has suspended production of their popular 1.3L MultiJet diesel at the plant in Poland where it's built. They also halted some production of the cars the engine gets installed in. According to Fiat, the stoppage was due to quality issues with some component provided by an outside supplier. This could be a major problem for Fiat, as a major proportion of the company's vehicles are diesel powered. The 1.3L diesel is used in the new Fiat 500, Panda and Punto, among others. So far there is no indication of when production of the 1.3L when will resume although they are no doubt working as quickly as they can on a fix.
[Source: Automotive News - Sub. req'd]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
eddy 4:48PM (2/21/2008)
NEWS: EARTH IS ROUND
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That would be more "news" , than Fiat having quality problems. Normally a Fiat is just a moving quality problem. Just remember the rusting junk buckets they built a few years ago.
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 8:42PM (2/21/2008)
not sure how many years ago you're talking about, nor how much of that was simply promulgated by simple hearsay such as this.... the fiats today have the some of the longest standard warranties. a few years ago they were the first European manufacturer (the Japanese came out with this first) to come out with 3 years in some markets.
you see that small symbol in the top left-hand corner? the COTY is, above all else, a quality award. perhaps one should be attacking the LCC or the EU instead....
tschuss!
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 8:51PM (2/21/2008)
hopefully there won't be any cars recalled.
even if they did, Porsche (whose vehicles cost about seven times the 500 pictured) just recalled 19000 Cayennes globally
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2008/02/19/afx4667630.html
"Porsche recalls 19,000 Cayenne SUVs to fix faulty engine fuel conduit"
Recalling 19000 vehicles is much more of a quality problem than halting production, yet with Porsche (who not only cost many times more but pollute three times more than the 500) this is quite OK...
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 2:40AM (2/22/2008)
i wonder if this production issue is going to affect the relevant Ford Kas, Opel Agila, Suzuki Splash, etc...
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psarhjinian 7:39AM (2/22/2008)
But diesels are more reliable than hybrids! How can this happen!? It's unpossible!
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Furion 9:20AM (2/22/2008)
@Karl-Uwe: remember the longish conversation we had way back, where you touted the superiority of french & italian engine technology?
Yah right. Fiat has long warranties because otherwise no sane person would gamble his money on their product. Not that anyone sane would buy a fiat anyway.
Nice catch on the cayenne recalls; but you do realize that they are pretty common occurrence in car industry, in far greater scale than that Porsche recall. Shutting whole plants because the engine is a POS is not common, but apparently the italianos managed to do just that. And of course, there will be massive recall for Fiat too ;-)
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 10:29AM (2/22/2008)
Recalls are not common at all. They may be with the German cars, but generally they most certainly are not. Production issues certainly do arise, but if your quality is good, then you'll do the responsible thing and halt production then and there. It's almost certain that Porsche had similar signs with their cars, but took a gamble and continued as normal. I find it more than a little strange that Fiat did the right thing, and Porsche, with the completely different price-range, did not.
In the conversation you refer to I pointed out that from a quality point of view the French and Italians never came out with a car, in all their automotive history, that would actually roll over and kill the driver because of something as outrageous as a curve. I am of course referring to the class A mercedes and it's infamous moose tests, after which all models were recalled.
Fiat wouldn't be able to come out with 3 year or 5 year warranties if the quality weren't top notch. Given the lower margins in the A segment it would be impossible to offer these if you weren't sure of what you were doing.
To have to recall that many Porsche cars is a sign of very poor quality in absolute terms. Relative to the price range (and the high-margin type of car) it's simply shocking.....
dunno if there will be any fiat recalls. probably not, as they were responsible and stopped production immediately (unlike Porsche). even if there will be recalls, the Porsche or Mercedes recalls are far more "curious" from my point of view
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eddy 2:14PM (2/22/2008)
Newer Fiat motors aren't good anyway. Quite low injection pressures, not very accurate injection managment (oldfashioned controling-unit) and needing longer time to increase pressure than most other european diesel motors shows definitly that that motor can't be "state-of-the-art"-technology. Furthermore Fiat had quite a lot of recalls the last 3 years: 2007 Fiat Stilos with braking front suspensions, 2005 motors of all modells with broken crank shafts after just 50.000 km and 2006 problems with motor electronics in all models. Or remember the first recall of the new Fiat 500 because of leaking break pipes.
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Steve 12:47PM (2/22/2008)
3 years? Are you serious? You guys barely even drive your cars, and you think 3 years is a good warranty? You may get better efficiency than us Americans, but it's apparently cancelled out by buying new cars all the time. Hyundai offers 10 year/100,000 mile warranties. Chrysler is now offering lifetime powertrain warranties. 5 years is about the least you'll see for a new car over here.
And I thought Europeans had it BETTER when it came to cars. LOL.
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 1:15PM (2/22/2008)
yeah right, if you weren't german (and your english grammar makes it all too obvious) you'd think this was a disney cartoon or something: its absolutely normal for porsche to recall basically all the cayennes globally, but then a simple production problem (without a single recall) can provoke all this..?
The new Bravo 1.6 multijet, the first Euro5 car available in this class, emits 129 g CO2/km ..... Multijets are used today by Ford, Suzuki, Saab, Tata, Opel and Daimler.....
Why is it NOBODY uses German engines. German cars are totally absent from the UKs under 120g CO2 list:
http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/information/how-to-use-the-data-tables.asp#petrol
Don't you find it a little pathetic that the first "German" car, way down in tenth position, actually has a Peugeot engine?
Besides the 1.6 multijet, there is the TST 1.9 to come out (already available on the SAAB 9-3 in 180hp format). Then there's the CNG engines....The camless petrol engine......
Herrn Eddy and Furion, if such a small thing as this interests you (and not the worldwide Porsche recalls) it seems you're really wasting your time.
If you'd rather focus your attention on something REALLY interesting, check this out:
January 2008 was the first month of the new French and Spanish car eco-rebate systems. In this first month sales of Audi and Mercedes dropped by 30% and 36% in France, and by 42% and 22% in Spain.
The French and Spanish overall figures were -5.5% and -12.7%.
http://www.ccfa.fr/IMG/pdf/Communique-01022008.pdf
http://www.anfac.es/global.htm (estadisticas)
France and Spain haven't done anything really special. They've simply started to penalize people who buy the most inefficient cars, which normally means Germans cars. This is something more and more countries are doing.
London have also announced that drivers of the most polluting vehicles (i.e. German vehicles) will be charged a new fee of 25 pounds. Instead of doing the right thing, the Germans are suing the EU and suing the City of London. Who's next??
Looks to me like you should be focusing your attention elsewhere.....
Tschuss!.....
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eddy 4:44PM (2/22/2008)
Well the first CR-Diesel-Volkswagens and Audis get better efficiency than any french/italian car of the same class. The new Audi A4 is a topseller in whole europe. Well there isn't the rating in the NCAP database yet, so I have no clue how save it is, but the mileage is quite impressive and it gets 140 g CO2 / 100 km which isn't bad for a 4,7 m long 145 hp car. Basically your list is old too. Where is the Fabia Greenline ? (The one at the Bottom of the list is the normal Fabia) Where is the Seat Ecomotive?
Calling the Peugeot Diesels French technology is not quite right: The complete common-rail-injection and pressure generation system, the electronics, the complete controlling and sensor systems were developed by Bosch. The rest of the motor is still the old primitive thing they had 10 years ago. Furthermore that is a technology alliance between BMW and PSA: BMW brings in good ride elements, their active steering system and big gasoline motors for the executive cars and Peugeot brings in small cheap diesel motors for small cars.
P.S.: Toyota, Lexus and Chrysler use VW Diesel motors.
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 7:25PM (2/22/2008)
Toyota and Chrysler. That's such an impressive list, and Chrysler was Daimler Chrysler only a few months ago. I'm impressed. Which Toyota model would this be?
I think you have trouble reading. I don't doubt audis sell very well in germany. but audi is not a top seller currently europe-wide: you can't call drops of 32% and 42% in sales something very "top".
Look, it's not very nice to say whatever comes to mind, without substantiating what you claim. Fuel-efficiency and emissions ratings are intimately related, and the fact that german cars come last in these performances is largely due to the motors being so outdated and uncompetitive:
http://www.transportenvironment.org/docs/Publications/2007/2007-11_car_company_co2_report.pdf
did you check out the January sales figures for France and Spain?
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eddy 5:25AM (2/23/2008)
If you would have the slightest clue how automotive sales and tax regulations work, your statement would be worth something. If there is a new tax regulation you have to look at the sales of the month before its introduced and the sales of the second month after introduction. Otherwise your data is just junk.
http://blogs.edmunds.com/GreenCarAdvisor/.eea1c0a
http://www.autospies.com/news/AUDI-AG-Starts-in-2008-with-Strong-Sales-Results-26273/
With an overall rise of 35% in the last month before introduction because of panic buying it sill is a top seller.
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 7:22AM (2/23/2008)
this has nothing to do with how "taxes work"...
what wold you know anyway about how such taxes work? Germany is the only country in the EU (for obvious reasons) who are not implementing a similar system....
this is the same difference between a steady-state jump and a spurious jump. one is occasional while the other becomes your baseline. I was quite aware of the December rush, but you fail to understand that December 2007 has been and gone. The January 2008 conditions, on the contrary, are the same as February 2008, March 2008, etc. etc.....
Monday week you will know, by checking the links above, if this is a steady-state trend or not.
tschuss
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Peter 7:56AM (3/03/2008)
Eddy, you obviously know very little about the Automotive industry and your opinions are based on ancient history. For example, did you know that before the Volkswagen Golf was introduced in 1974 that VW were on the verge of collapse due to quality and technology problems. Their cars were poorly made and relied on two stroke, air cooled engine technology.
Did you also know that FIAT held the patent for Common Rail Technology which meant that every single CRT engine in ALL the world's cars was built under licence from FIAT? The same with multijet diesel technology and direct injection. Also, FIAT's flexible manufacturing systems are used by 80% of the world's automotive industry. The company is called Comau Spa and is light years ahead of the Japanese. They produce BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, Ford.....you name it and they all use Comau Spa robots and FMS.
Therefore, questioning FIAT's decision to suspend manufacturing at it's engine plant has far reaching consquences since other manufacturers depend on FIAT for the diesel technology. If there is a fault found, they would have to ascertain whether it was down to production, components or design. If it was down to design, then it would affect not just FIATs, but anyone paying a fee to produce small capacity Multijets.
A word of advice, may be in order. It may be prudent to know what you're talking about before you come on a public forum with your childish jibes and technological ignorance. Stick to the Fast Ford Forum where you can talk about the latest Ford Ka (oh dear, it's being built next to the new Fiat 500 in the FIAT plant in Tychy, Poland because the Ka is mechanically identical to the 500!!)
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 7:35PM (3/03/2008)
... and there we have it folks
In Spain (+0.7% overall) Audi, Mercedes, and Porsche dropped by a mere -41.5%, -21.7% and -42% respectively as compared to February 2007.
In France the figures weren't nearly as bad in absolute terms, but they were still quite negative compared with the market trend of +9.8% (e.g. Audi -9.6%)
Q.E.D.
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barbara 6:47PM (4/22/2008)
I've just bought a Fiat Punto 1.3litre diesel. I am in Australia. The car complies with australian emissions laws but ours are softer than in Europe. Can anyone tell me, does the car produce more NOx than a common make petrol-powered car? does anyone know how much it produces, and does it comply with Euro II, IV or v.
I wanted a green car.
Thank you
]Barbara, australia
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