Well, after buying my second 20VT coupe '97 model in my favourite sprint blue 3 weeks ago, i have reached a crossroads!
'You pays your money, you takes your chance' ..I was flying by the seat of my pants on this one...No m.o.t or tax, smoking on cold start up, oil leak, low oil pressure,injector light on, stiff gearchange (could hardly get the gears!) & no history !.....other than that, it was in superb order throughout and obviously been looked after most of it life by the previous two owners!..

This still could be a long story but i'll stick to the point............fixed gearchange (thanks to the forum how to do's) took it Fiat specialist, gave it a thorough service and health check/diagnostics etc..(much work done on suspension, runs great with good fueling, injector light now out, brakes service & brake pipes done, oil & filter sorted the leak out, cambelt/auxileries checked, passed the emissions plus much more...........Oh! I also contacted the previous owner who has all the service history/books up to 95K miles (really chuffed with that) also got all 3 sets of keys.

..Cost me £804 but now has 12 Mths MOT and iv'e taxed it ....It is running & driving & stopping great

I took it for its first major run out today, loved it but the oil pressure is still low on hot tickover (Although 3 bar when above 2500 rpm) and there is still smoke on cold start up! it completely clears after 10 mins driving

I was hoping the oil leak was the cause of low pressure..Not so
I was hoping the smoke was due to it being over filled when i looked at it or poor crankcase ventilation (the nrv is broken!!) but seems the seals are on there way out, i think!

My dilemma is i am now faced with £100's more to spend on it and i just dont have the funds (it is my second car/toy)

I am at a crossroads now! I feel i should sell it and try and return my money...

..What would you do?

I'd have never bought it in the first place, but in saying that you have to ask yourself are you going to replace it. And if you are, are you going to be looking for another coop. And if you are, is it best to carry on with this one and get it sorted out properly, which gives you the peace of mind that all the big jobs are done, or do you take a punt on another and find yourself back in the same boat.

It all deends on how much you like the car I suppose. If you really 'LOVE' it, you'll figure a way to get the fixes done and you'll be a happy chappy.

Or

You might simply 'LIKE' the car, do the fixes and then find you want to sell it immedately and get as much back as is feasible

Or

You might 'TOLERATE' the car, you like it but not enough to be bothered with the problems that lay ahead. If this is the case. Sell it now and save yourself the bother.

This what is going through my mind,,,The paranoia of long term expenditure is looming!

I understand your comment of 'not buying in the first place' some would say i was crazy but there is a little more to this story that made me feel optimistic about buying it.. oil in the sparkplug holes and oil deposits in the inlet side of the turbo pipe (from oil seperator) Made me feel this was causing the 'White' smoke from exhaust.. I had sorted all this prior to mot.. but to no avail.

also, i convinced myself the major oil leak from oil filter housing was causing the low oil pressure reading, it wasn't !!

I have spent quite a few hours under the bonnet of this car prior to taking it for a service/M.O.T and some expenditure,,,

..I am at the point where i could ask £1000 or so for it and put that towards a 'sorted' coupe but then again, would it be as nice as this one? I have seen plenty of rough examples, this one isn't.

ps, other factors on my mind, I have no paperwork of when cambelt was done (although it has been looked at by fiat specialist)
the aircon' is not working.

The £1000 is probably a goer if it looks the part...which annoys me slightly as my car is 100% mechanically. Pretty spotless interior and a well documented and fully receipted 78,000 miles. And through no fault of my own now has some major body work defects and I reckon I'd be lucky to get a grand for it. Mind you £700 would see my original purchase price back in full so I cant really complain.

I'm guessing you may well find a well sorted one with FSH etc or atleast extensive service history below average mileage etc etc for £2K in todays market....you may have to wait some but they'll be out there. You may not have to wait..I haven't looked at prices in a long time.

Maybe an idea to advertise it and see what interest/offers you get and decide a way forward when you get a feel for demand in the marketplace

Yes, it's a tough call on these coupe's we buy (how many threads are posted regarding the ups but mostly downs of Fiat coupe ownership?)

If an Alien came down looking for a car and read this forum , i feel a Fiat Coupe would be way down on it's wanted list!.

Back to my car, the previous owner (who was only the 3rd owner) had it sat in his garage for a whole year while doing a bit of work on it and only drove it in and out of the garage! Literally !

It then disappeared for 6 months where it did less than 100 miles !! (can tell by mot's)
I then bought it from a trader (who took it as a p/x) who knew nothing about the car at all! (so he said!)

I guess i could see the potential in it, it looked so nice, i feel it had been waiting 18 months or more for someone to inject some life back into it and bring it back to it's former glory .........

......i just didn't expect it would take all my spare cash to do it!

ps, i guess i am just a bit hacked off,despite the fact it can be used perfectly as a daily driver at the mo', it owes me around £1300 and i still potentially have all the obvious big jobs to do, certainly to get it up to the high mechanical standard i would wish for. (possible turbo, i personally would wish the belts done for piece of mind and then sort the oil pressure)

Ah! Decisions !..........anyone want a punt on it?

Im not being funny but at the end of the day you brought a 15 year old sports car for £804... you should have expected to be spending at least double that to get it to half decent standard

What is the oil pressure dropping to when warm?

I was going to say that , anything above 1 bar on idle is ok as long as its not making knocking noises and the oil pressure is lowering all the time.

Might need an oil change, mobile 1 helps with the oil pressure. What oil did you use when servicing ? Mobile 1 adds about .5 bar (I reckon) on hot idle.

Sounds like the turbo's seals have gone as well.

Your car looks absolutely superb. I'd keep it. The condition of the body is the most important thing IMHO.

A couple of oil things.

I lost about half a bar when hot going from one brand of 10W40 oil to another so the suggestion to go Mobil1 seems a good one. Costco do it for around £20 if you have a card.

The other thing that has been mentioned is that you can lose half a bar through a worn turbo. There's a thread on here somewhere about reconditioning the turbo using a kit that costs about £70 if you are handy.

No, I paid £804 on work/repairs just to get it through the M.O.T !

The oil pressure when the engine is up to correct operating temperature with the engine idling drops to half a bar!.. today i noticed for a brief period ,it dropped to '0' (although the red light did not come on)

while driving along, above 2,500RPM the guage reads 2.5 to 3 bar ( lower than 2000 rpm and it hovers between 1.5 to 2 bar)

prepare for a dead engine imo

The Oil i used in the service last week was Mobil super S 10W 40 semi-synth' (the correct grade oil as per manufactures spec')

Does anyone feel that if the Turbo seals are on the way out, this would contribute to a drop in oil pressure?


ps. thanks for all your comments, much appreciated.

yup, get it tested with a calibrated gauge (yours might be duff) if thats the true pressure then prepare for the worst.

sorry mate

I have been out in the coupe again today and it performs superbly, with turbine like power through all the gears up to way above the legal limits !!

However, i am getting 'the paranoia' associated with these cars!!!...
...as many no doubt have experienced, the absolute joy of driving these cars coupled with the realisation and dread of what the gauges keep telling me !

I appreciate your comments but it does no good for my soul to be preparing for the worst !!! and a 'dead engine'!!!

I think i might give the car one more chance and drop it down the road to JohnnyBravoTurbo at Midland car servicing and see what the man says.

OK - here's my recommendation...

1) get the oil pressure - 0 bar is dangerously low, but it could just be a dodgy sender or gauge.

2) Assuming the gauge and sender are reporting correctly, check the oil pump - mine was reading under 1 bar but a new oil pump took it back to almost 2 bar (hot tickover)

3) assuming the oil pressure reading is correct and the pump is OK, you now have two options:-

a) If the engine sounds OK and performs well, keep driving it until it expires, then do an engine transplant

b) Cranks cannot be re-ground, and are very difficult to get hold of, so running the engine until it dies will almost certainly render it as scrap. Consider having the bottom end rebuilt with new shells and mains, although this won't be much cheaper than an engine transplant (unless you do it yourself, of course)

Thanks for the recommendation Nigel

I have decided to give it a go and as you say, get the oil pressure verified to ascertain its true reading.

Of course it is very possible/likely the suspect Turbo seals leak is dropping the oil pressure, so maybe that needs doing first...

..But then again, i could have valve stem wear ! ...this would give the same symptoms as turbo seals wear, of smoke on cold start until all the excess oil was burnt off and then fine from then on !

I feel i have covered most bases on this subject of smoke on cold start up for 10 mins or so and the low oil pressure scenario......Thanks to the forum & members for this

I have done all i can do under the bonnet (i have plugged the pipe connection from the oil seperator that goes to air inlet side of turbo and cleaned out all crankcase ventilation hoses and checked the nrv, new oil of the correct grade is in the engine and full diagnostics says the engine is running spot on!)

It's time to take it to a specialist with the know how to come to the right conclusions that will give me the information on what this lot is going to cost me!
(Best case scenario is £250 for turbo oil seals, which then bumps the oil pressure up to the correct reading)

Valve stem wear and valve stem oil seal wear is very unusual on a coupé, sorry.

iv used that 10w-40 mobil s, its ok but id rather use
mobil 1 15w-50 my oil pressure is now around 1.5-2 bar when hot.

to be honest with you i bought mine for £600 with just mot and no tax and it never broken down since iv owned it and now 3k later, modiffied, i can still give it stick and it takes it.

stop fretting, drive the thing, at 95k miles a turbo will be needed soon, just buy a fully recon hybrid one and your be ok

I will take your wise words and "Stop fretting"

..Thanks, thats the best advice i have had since owning the car, i feel so much better now !! lol

ps.This morning i have just gone and put some wynns 'stop smoke' additive in the oil, i dont really expect it to cure the smoking,never been a fan of 'additives' but with the additive having the consistency of treacle (took me 5 minutes to pour it in the filler!!), i would think it may reduce the oil viscosity and could help with oil pressure.
...this is just a stop gap remedy until i get a full diagnosis.
I will let you all know the results when i drive the car in the morning.