Yes that was nasty, but seems odd he was using aftermarket bolts on standard wheels.
Well I got it for £500, not bad for a mint coupe, the only issue is the turbo.
That's very cheap indeed, though it's like the start of a long and painfull wallet rape unless you are happy to do all the work needed yourself
It's all worth it though. You are being very optimistic if you think the turbo is the only problem on the car however. If it is, then it must be one of the best Coupes around.
The guy who I bought mine from suggested the turbo was a bit tired, and it certainly was. However, one of the pistons had also melted from being overenthusiastic with the manual boost controller.
My turbo has just passed 35k miles of very enthusiastic use since I rebuilt it with new bearings, seals and a 360 degree thrust. Just goes to show it can be DIY'd. Replacing the turbo isn't a very difficult job, though you really need to remove the front bumper, drain the cooling system and remove the radiator. None of this takes much time though.
Whilst you are at it check the following:
- Oil pressure. The oil pressure should go stright to 3 bar when cold, this will drop as the engine warms up but shouldn't drop below about 1.5 bar hot idle. Much less than this suggests a rather tired engine.
- Exhaust manifold. They are cast items that fail by cracking; every car will likely suffer this at least once and probably twice. They can be welded quite successfully however, just as well as a new one is about £400.
- Coolant hoses. There is a coolant hose that runs around the back of the engine known in FCCUK as the "Coolant hose of death". Being out of sight and out of airflow, then tend to degrade more quickly than the others without you knowing, until your car erupts into a cloud of steam. Pipe is about £20, fitting it is a bitch. You will make up new swear words as you will quickly run out of the standard ones.
- Radiator. Not really a Fiat or Coupe specific problem, but they rot and lose cooling efficiency.
- Thermostat. They all seem to eventually fail, fortunately stuck open. If the car takes ages to warm up and never makes it past about 85 degrees on the gauge it will need replacing.
- Oil cooler. This is mounted in front of the drivers side wheel (behind the wheel arch liner) with a duct to the front bumper. The hose fittings rot with age and eventually fail. They are usually impossible to remove from the allot cooler without destroying the cooler. New pipes + cooler is very expensive, when you can get them. ISTR close to £400.
- Front wishbones. Unless they have been replaced recently they will likely be very tired and it ruins the handling of the car, giving wild torque steer and instability under braking. Pattern ones are very cheap (<£20) but don't tend to last long. Genuine ones are more like £60-70 each IIRC.
- Track Rod Ends. Heavy engine+wide(ish) tyres give these a hard time. They are fairly cheap, but tracking will need to be set up after fitting. The QH catalogue as used by most motor factors lists the wrong part for the 20VT...at least for my 20VT (tapered part too small). The ones for the Marea 20V were correct.
- Brakes: They are very heavy on front discs and pads, but fortunately they aren't particularly expensive for decent quality parts (EBC, Mintex etc.). Lots of upgraded parts available if you want to spend £££. The Brembo calipers have stainless shims to prevent the pads digging into the alloy, but the alloy rots underneath these and it ends up pinching the pads and stopping them moving freely. This also seems to exacerbate the squeal these brakes are infamous for.
- Rear radius arms; the bearings in these wear and allow the rear wheels to steer slightly. Repair kit is cheap, fitting won't be unless you can DIY.
- Handbrake. They are all crap, some are just crapper than others. The cables have rubber boots at either end to prevent water ingress, and these rot and fall apart. The first time you learn about this is on a freezing morning when you can't release the handbrake.
- Engine mounts. The heavy engine does these in as well, and allows the inner CV joint to touch the subframe under load, and results in lots of driveline shunt and general vibration. No pattern parts available, Fiat will bankrupt you for new ones. They are just stupidly expensive.
That's most of the the common mechanical issues I can think of, I don't think the OcUK forum database is large enough to cover the rest.
When you start driving it, keep a cloe eye on the oil level. Most of these use a fair bit of oil (though mine uses none..apart from the little bit that leaks out of the sump gasket). Lots of poeple on FCCUK have blown up engines through running them out of oil.
Once you start driving it you won't care
