FIAT

[Jimk]

:-)

[ARW]

Today the FIAT badge fell off when I shut the door.

And to keep it on topic I used CT1 to fix it.

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

Many years ago I had a Fiat 124 Sports car. A little bit of (more) rust on the boot lid developed into a bloody big hole. The best part was when I was driving back from the pub, pissed as a rat. The off side front wheel fell off! Never again will I ever buy a Fiat.

[G r o g]

+1

[alan_m]

To reveal a Trabant badge

[John]

Rust on boot lids was often caused by people chipping the paint with the keys. A wheel falling off is poor maintenance.

[Steve Walker]

FIATs used to rust everywhere, often even before they were delivered!

SteveW

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

Well look on the bright side at least the door is still on. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

I suspect that Fiat may be better these days, but I can relate to the frustration. Back in the 1980s, a brand new Fiat Tipo Estate was hired by a friend of mine on the island of Guernsey. On collecting it, he caught his chin on the corner of the drivers door and it cut his face. Next about a mile down the road the stalk for the indicators and other stuff on the steering column broke off, revealing the moulding to have a void inside making it very weak. We repaired it with duct tape and drove it back to the rental company, who were not really very pleased as the first car we had had was an Escort, and some nutter had backed into the front of it and pushed the two plastic foglights into the edge of the bonnet meaning a new bonnet and lamps would be needed. However the third car, another Escort had a slight mishap whem we were going around a corner the mirror in the electric wing mirror on the off side fell out and was dangling on its wires. Not wanting to go back again we put some superglue on the double sided tape originally holding it onto the tilt and adjust electric mount and all was well. I just hope they never wanted to get it out again! I know Fiats and Dagenham Dustbins are expected to fall to bits... Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2]

Opels with the metal type insignia on them are regularly prised off by people also, as it seems they have some resale value to somebody. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2]

I was given to understand by a wonderful video many years ago made at the Turin factory to demonstrate the automation that all metal parts were dipped in some anti rust treatment before assembly by some strange overhead crane device. Were they telling porkies or was it an issue with the QA of such things. I've seen that sort of thing myself where the degreasing and cleaning stages have not been done well resulting in the coating not adhering very well in places and rust gets in under it. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2]

I was surprised to see that bloke from Land Rover getting a new Year honour, since many new upper end Land Rover owners are talking about poor finishes and some rust as well. Maybe its all the new owners fault.. who is running it this week? Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

No to reveal the rubbish glue which it was stuck on the paint by, or more likely the metal as the paint will have been on the badge. Brian

[Brian Reay]

Older Fiats certainly rusted, as did many cars.

I sold a 19 year old car a couple of years back, not a trace of rust on it. In the 70s that would have been pretty well unheard of. Even in the

80s, rust was generally accepted as normal on many cars and processes like Ziebart etc were common (regardless of how effective they were) in the hope they would prevent it.

Now, while you still see a few, recentish, cars with rust it is quite rare and generally due to damage not being addressed.

Certainly, if there is a QA problem at the manufacturing stage then it could show up years later but, in fairness, in it is companies' interests to monitor their processes and fix problems early. It is a basic tenant of manufacturing that the earlier in the process you fix a problem the cheaper it is.

[harry]

A lot of cars were made from re-cycled steel. The metal had contaminants such as aluminium and copper. Often the body panels had different contaminants leading to galvanic action and rust.

Using new steel (no contaminants) much reduced this problem. Or better processed scrap to remove this unwanted stuff.

[charles]

I had a trip round the Toyota works near Derby in the late 1980s. Their view was that rust was generally caused by human handling of the sheet metal and finger grease getting on to the sheet and som oaint not adhering. All handling of unpainted steel was done by electromagnets.

[mm0fmf]

Mrs. had two, one had delivery mileage and one had 22000miles, zero rust, zero faults, just usual wear items. She did 60000miles in them together. I was reluctant till I saw how many people I knew had Puntos with no rust and no faults. Spoilt the fine reputation FIAT had built up as rot box junk.

[Cursitor Doom]

Wow, Adam! Who'd have thought your seemingly mundane post about a car badge falling off would generate such a massive response on uk.diy! :-D

[bert]

In article <Qc4QF.1032770$ [e-mail], ARW [e-mail]> writes

As I've posted before. Sign on the back of a Fiat Driving School car Beware Sudden Breaking. (sic)

[bert]

All Land Rover owners talk about poor finishes and unreliability. Had a 19 plate Vogue out the other day, only 3k on the clock. It insisted that the washer water level was low every time I started it. D

To be fair though only the steel bits rust.

In article <qusko0$g4h$ [e-mail]>, "Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)" [e-mail]> writes