I have just totted up what I have spent on my car this year and I though I would bore everybody with the last 3 months with my Coupe.

This year in March was time again for the bi-annual TUEV (MOT) test for my 11 year old 20V. In that time, it has only ever failed once on a stuck rear brake pressure distribution unit lever. After freeing and a 10€ retest, all was fine again. In the last four years, the FIAT has cost me next to nothing to run except for oil, filters and petrol. This year, the picture started to look a little different, but the majority were items that do wear regularly, if not very often.

The exhaust was looking brown and sorry for itself after 5 and a half years and the second battery died, also after 5 and a half years of use. So I had to start sorting the car out and thought I would also do all those jobs that I probably should have done years ago. So I got the tool kit out and fitted:

- Moll M3 Plus battery (ADAC test winner instead of the ATU one (Halfords-like chain in Germany. Lets see if it is worth the extra).
- IMASAF Steel Exhaust
- Zimmerman Drilled Brake Discs front and back
- ATE Brake Pads front and back
- Handbrake Cables (Non-Fiat)
- Rear Numberplate Light Unit

Passed test but with a slight loss of braking power on the rear left. (My fault, I expect, as I did not line up the protrusion on the inner pad with a hollow on the caliper cylinder - since corrected).

So now to do a service and change all those other fluids that I have ignored for much too long. I replaced:

- Spark Plugs (Beru Platinum 4 Electrode)
- Engine Oil (GM 10W-40 API SL Semi-Synthetic) and filter
- Power Steering Fluid (GM Dexron III)
- Engine coolant (GM Long Life)
- Castrol Synthetic 75W-90 Gearbox Oil
- Fuel and air filters
- Brake fluid

I only came across two problems - one of my own making and the other just a typical piece of Italian engineering. I thought I had dropped the vent plug while attempting to
bleed the coolant system. I did not hear it fall and could not find it anywhere. I then had to wait 3 days for a replacement to arrive at the dealers. Then, as I was about to fit the new one, I found the original one wedged behind the pipe it came off. Why do these things always happen to me!

The other pain is the gearbox drain plug. 12mm hex, in such a position between the gearbox and the sub-frame that I could not get any allen key to fit. I had to buy a special
tool and wait for it to be posted from the UK before I could get the plug out.

2 years ago, I bought some 20V wheels, which really needed refurbishing, so got left in the shed. I also got round to getting these done-up and they turned out very well indeed – a sort of liquid silver paint with a good thick lacquer coat.. Added some Goodyear Eagle F1 GSDs as the old 15" tyres are no use anymore.

Until now, I was unable to work out whether there was a strut brace to fit the 20V. The Sparco 16V version nor the one for the 20V turbo fit the 20V. However Stan assured me that the OMP one could be made to fit with slight modifications. Thanks ever so much for that Stan. The OMP brace is in and the modifications to the fuse holder were easy and has not left many wires hanging unprotected.

The end result - a car that is running and stopping as smoothly as new again. The Beru spark plugs seem very good. They replaced Bosch Super 4s which were not this good when they were new and after about 10k miles still looked good. It is also so nice to have discs that are not grabby anymore. The fronts had rusted to the pads once after a 3 week Christmas break without use. No amount of heavy breaking eliminated the rough patches completely and they behaved like warpped disc but only at high speed. At low speed, they just sonded and felt rough. The strut brace has massively reduced the twisting of the front end as it goes over bumps and the car feels much tauter and somehow less old. I wish I had known this 10 or 11 years ago. I have spent about 1300 Pounds on the car this year, of which only about 650 was essential. The rest was wheels, tyres and a strut brace. Considering I have not spent anything on it for 4 years, I can't complain. The other fluid changes did not show any earth-shattering improvements, but the gear change might be a touch better and the power steering a little smoother - or it might just be psychological. The car is so nice to drive now, the Jaguar has been consigned to the garage for the last 2 months. So a FIAT Coupe can be cheap to own, with a bit of luck and as long as it is not used enough to wear out expensive parts. Mine is mainly a winter car these days. Not the idea use for a Coupe.

Now that I'm so pleased with my new again toy, I'm in the process of replacing the speakers and adding a little, self-contained subwoofer/amp. The speakers are actually in place and working and are a real improvement over the originals. The sub has yet to be fitted and connected. I will report back when it is in and let you know if such a small sub suffices or is a waste of space! I’m not extreme enough to fill the boot with sound equipment, so it has to be small and hidden in the side of the boot or nothing.

Interesting post - thanks. Especially interested to hear your comments on the strut brace. Why did you fit an OMP one rather than an OE part from Fiat?
Hmmm...it's my birthday in August and I'm tempted by the strut brace. Is it easy to fit? (bear in mind I have the mechanical capabilities of a donkey with three legs)

AlanW

There was no OE 20v strut brace I believe, hence the need to use the OMP one and move some fuses around.

PM Truffle - he'll sort you out with the do's and dont's of fitting a strut brace

Alan, I fitted my strut brace in about 3 minutes, well, I would have done if I'd had a 16mm socket handy, so 3 minutes with a half hour break in the middle

neil_r, seems to only be the turbo models that are money pits, the N/A running costs are lower

I'd agree that - apart from normal servicing (and accident damage covered by insurance) it's only cost me twenty-one thousand quid in thirteen years - and eighteen and a half of that was buying the beast

Seventeen hundred after a cambelt break, and eight hundred to drop in a scrapper engine when the bits Fiat didn't fix the first time killed the remainder.

All the rest was normal servicing.

Currently I am spending more money on my push bike than my coupe. Recently I have replaced the chain, cassette, cables, brake blocks, handlebar tape, headset bearings, chainring and seatpost and I do the same mileage on the bike as the coupe!

I don't know of an original strut brace for the 20V N/A. For the 20V Turbo, the FIAT part should probably take 5 mins to fit as it is just 2 bolts off, brace on, tighten bolts. This one does not clear the intake manifold on a 20V N/A.

Mechanically, the OMP strut brace is also very easy to fit:

- Remove the 2 inner strut bolts from each strut
- Align the length of the strut brace to the holes
- Screw the two "legs" nearest the windscreen down with the original bolts. These do not fit the front legs as they have a captive washer that is too large in diameter.
- Buy alternative bolts and washers and fix down front legs.

That is it.

The time consuming bit is removing the cables that are in the way.

On the left looking from the front, there are some cables in a holder, these have to be freed from the holder and moved aside. I covered them with cable tidies to give them some extra protection and tried to place them away from sharp edges.

On the right is a fuse block bracket containing three fuse blocks that is too high for the strut brace to clear. I removed the fuse blocks from the bracket. Removed the bracket from the car and bent the middle fuse block mount forward until it would clear the bottom of the strut brace. I then bent back the two mounts on either side so that they would be horizontal again when the bracket was bolted back to the car. Replace the fuse blocks and job done. There are two cream coloured connectors, one on each side of the car. These are clipped to brackets that I could not reuse. I just tucked these away in as safe a place as I could.

Job done.

It is not difficult but having a bit of time to pull things apart and have a think about meant that I damaged the least possible number of original pieces.

My decision not to buy the Turbo was that I wanted a car I would probably keep for a long time, and turbocharged cars are more highly stressed and I did not want to trade reliability for speed. With the world policing speeding so heavily these days, it was not such a painful decision after all

The only extra things that I have needed to repair/replace have been a leaking clutch cylinder/pump and one coil pack. Not bad for any FIAT in 11 years.