Is the 20vt a ticking time bomb?
Such as dennisk 84k engine failing,after two weeks of purchase,but some going on so much further!Mines and 86 and would hate it fail anytime in the nxt year!!!but suppose thats the character of the car if you like think of it that way.
i know maintenance is the key and modding stress but it can just go pop from sound of things.wats the lowest miled engine you know thats gone pop?

All cars are ticking time bombs, ok it's not a coupe but i had a 56 plate VW golf 1.6fsi in the workshop last week with 3000mls on it with a misfire, thought it would be something easy coil, plug etc.... but had no compression on 2 cylinders, stripped it to find both pistons cracked and breaking up, 3 valves with holes in them, alot off internal damage to head and no real explination that'll be 1 new engine please.

Over the years i've seen cars with 3000mls on to 300000mls on and you can't really say when they will pop

Just prooves you can either pick a good or bad one in any situation

9k.

they pop when they like.

No rule, they just get in a bad mood.

I threaten to break mine when it plays up.

Soon behaves.

Now Mr Plus, you stop ya fccccccuking games, or no gliptone loving and you can be spread around the world in bits!

114k Still going strong. When it goes pop I will buy another one.

Well my previous car was a 1.8 Focus and the engine in that also went boom in the most spectacular way with 10 foot yellow flames and everything. A rod on piston no. 3 let go and punched through both sides of the block. The engine only had 46K on it at the time, fully maintained, never stressed from cold and not running silly mods.

It really is just luck of the draw - or perhaps its my driving???

Dennis this is good!

Keeps em going

I hope you lot realise how much I'm hanging to my wooden dining room table whilst writing this.

In my past lives I've had an Austin Metro (less said the better) that ended life on 3 cylinders and without much of a chassis, An Uno (that ran for 6 years without anything more major than wear and tear bar a carb rebuild), two MKIII Golfs both of which finished their lives (with me at least) without an engine within a couple of years (both were bought with about 40k on the clock), a 20V na that owed me nowt bar a bit of of maintenance (brake pipes, tyres etc) and my current turbo (needs a new turbo and some paint but nothing I didn't know when I bought it).

In short 6 cars of which 3 Fiats have been good and 3 other cars have blown engines.


So my conclusion is Fiat Fiat Fiat (sorry Carl do you have copyright on that name?) but then am I just lucky? I don't think so as many people's opinions would be that the 2 Golf's I had were good solid reliable cars (Full history etc) but were they FCCUK!!"!

So for me the Italians have always made the reliable solid motors and all the German stuff is dodgy as hell. Obviously that isn't the case in most peoples experience but it is mine.

And I'm not a hardcore FIAT fan either (can I say that on here ). Although I do like them a bit

I've only had one engine go bang, a Nova GSI. And a replacement engine cost £150 + £100 fitting. beat that !

My old engine went pop at 8k. got from 59000 to 67600 before it popped. so according to that i only have another 5k on this engine before it goes pop again!!

Ross

My 16v finally gave up after 124k, and then it was the belt, so not worth the cost repairing, so that was a good life.

Mind you I'm also convinced that all that playing under the bonnet to get more horses isn't going to helping some of you. Why not feed it some nice TLC, good oil and some V power with a regular service and leave it at that.

un-modified , the standard 20VT motor is bulletproof.
.

My Coupe will probably blow up at some point.

The only car I have had that actually went bang was a 1986 Mini. The crankshaft snapped clean in half. It was still running though but not very well

John

140K on mine and running sweet as ever (knocks on head).

You can probably reduced the likelyhood of an engine popping by mapping safely, make sure its not running lean.

That said I had a 2000 M5 with a standard engine, and that popped at 78k with a scored bore. Thank god for the BMW Warrenty!

I think a lot is down to maintenance and how you drive it. Guy a few doors down has a new Focus. Every morning he jumps in, stone cold car and does a banzai takeoff down the drive. Bets on how long that one will last?

Also mods don't help. More power means more stress = shorter working life, doubly so on an older engine IMHO.

TLC and oil & filter changes helps lots.

No more so than any other car, 2 people at work with 'if everything in life was as reliable as' VW Golfs have had 1) new engine 2) blown head gasket, multitude of other woes and neither are driven very hard

I really think it depends on how you treat it, the follow are all factors.

- regular oil check
- regualr servicing
- letting it warm up before any high reving
- if its modified
- driving style, short trips etc
- how much/hard you drive, trackdays etc
- luck

I'm on 96k and going fine.

Mine was at 114K and had never missed a beat so no complaints from me. I've heard that the FSI engines (as found in a lot of golfs) need a lot of TLC and have to be looked after according to specific instructions. If you don't then they misbehave in a big way

well good to here kinda.Will check belts every couple of journeys then

I can also be down to where in the production run your car was produced, as cars get old manufacturers get wise to weak points and revise various bits and pieces, therefore the very first of new cars (e.g. golf mk5) will probably have a lot more problems then the last of the previous series.

Oh S*it! I've got one of the first 20VT's. I guess I should expect implosion, either that or the bugs have been worked out over the last 10 yrs?

If its been looked after and Fiat have replaced parts they found to be problematic under warrenty at the start of its life you could be fine. Depends what they found and whether they could be a*sed to fix it! Don't really know enough about them to comment.