My Fiat Coupe 20vt
Discussion
TVR Moneypit said:
Five months in, how are you finding life with the Fiat?
Sorry to ask, but any reliability or build quality problems? Does it use much oil? What have been the highs and the lows so far?
In the 13 months I've owned it I'd say that on the whole, it's been a great experience. It's a great feeling being part of such a close-knit community (FCCUK) and it's always nice knowing you're driving something a little bit out of the ordinary (to me anyway). It is a never ending journey though. I'm always looking to improve the car which at times, can be frustrating. If money was flowing I think it would enhance the ownership experience and making the car truly your own but I'm having to complete the car very slowly and sometimes I'd just like to throw the towel in and buy a 20vt Plus. Sorry to ask, but any reliability or build quality problems? Does it use much oil? What have been the highs and the lows so far?
The majority of the money spent on the car has been making it mechanically solid. There are a couple of little jobs to do in the near future such as an annoying steering wheel wobble at 70-80mph and an annoying squeak from the air con belt on start up but other than that, she's a very solid car (touch wood
). It passed it's MOT last month with no advisories. I've had no reliability problems as of yet but I've had to replace wear and tear items as per the norm. As for build quality, well I'd be lying if I said the interior didn’t rattle a little bit but on the whole it's a very good package for what you pay. The bonnet is a heavy item and it sometimes gives me some panel alignment issues as it sags on the hinges over time. It's just an aesthetic thing really and I like to have the car look at its best as often as I can. I've never had any electrical issues but the headlights are very poor as standard and will need upgrading before the winter months and it can be genuinely scary driving at speed at night with such poor illumination up front.
I've never compression tested my engine but it seems a healthy unit and doesn’t use much (if any) oil and I drive it hard, often.
High points are whenever it's clean really. Its nice to look at and it always puts a smile on my face without fail if I go for a good drive. It's very pleasing to drive well and does a great job of a GT and a B road rocket combined. The pedals a positioned perfectly for heel and toeing and with the stainless exhaust, it sounds superb. In fact, that's probably the main high point, it really does sound great. The car also gives you a real shove in the back under hard acceleration which is very pleasing.
Low points are whenever another wear and tear item needs replacing really. It's a pain because there never seems to be a few months where the car is perfect and it's just more money to spend. It's not in anyway un-reliable, it's just getting old. I also regularly long for a re-spray as the paint work isn’t perfect. The annoying part is, I have lots of plans to make the car a completely mint example but I always hang back because the actual value of these cars is low on the general market. I would only go ahead with everything if I were to keep it forever. When I think about that, I long to own a Plus with that amazing recaro interior.
Overall owning this car has been a joy because it dispels all the negative points of owning an Italian performance car but in the long run, I'll always be fettling it until its perfect. That's where the downside is. I'd recommend one to anyone.
TVR Moneypit said:
I (or rather the wife), hopes to be joining you as a 20VT owner within the next couple of months.
The only problem is that she is only interested in one colour, and that's yours. Which should no doubt make the challange of finding a good one for our £2500 budget that little bit harder. Oh, and it must gave either tan or black leather, and air-con.
I understand that to get full use out of the FCOCUK, you need to pay a yearly sub of £15? Do you consider that £15 to be value for money?
Where do they rust? Besides accident damage what else must I really look out for on them?
Cheers.
You can use very nearly all of the FCCUK for free and it's a very useful resource. However, for £15 you get a 10% discount on parts from selected retailers which makes the club membership great value. Definitely worth paying if you intend to spend any money on the car. The only problem is that she is only interested in one colour, and that's yours. Which should no doubt make the challange of finding a good one for our £2500 budget that little bit harder. Oh, and it must gave either tan or black leather, and air-con.
I understand that to get full use out of the FCOCUK, you need to pay a yearly sub of £15? Do you consider that £15 to be value for money?
Where do they rust? Besides accident damage what else must I really look out for on them?
Cheers.
These cars aren’t too bad for rust but check the rear arches, around the Pinninfarina badges on the sides of the car and the slam panel where the bonnet locks down. Check the boot floor and if you can get underneath the car, have a good look at the boot floor underside. Check the B pillars where they meet the sills. Any rust repair in this area is VERY costly to repair although I've never had any experience of this. Check the sills and any other areas that would usually rust on any car.
Have a look at this post that I wrote a while back. It covers most of the areas that you need to look for.
gj88 said:
I've owned my 20vt for 8 months now and so far it’s been good to me. Fuel consumption is average. The lowest I've seen is 16mpg and the highest is 27mpg although they can achieve mid 30's on a long drive and it costs roughly £65 to fill the tank.
Buy one with good bodywork as most of them come with dinks and dents. The rear three quarters of the car are prone to scrapes because the mirrors are close to pointless. They're tiny and you can barely see anything using them. If you can, get a sorted example. Brakes cost roughly £300 all round for a cheap set. Tyres cost anything from £220 upwards all round on standard 16" wheels. Cam belts are the downfall of the car so make sure you get a car which has had this replaced recently along with the tensioners and aux belts. A change can cost anything from £400 upwards with aux belts costing £180 upwards.
When you test drive a 20vt put your foot flat to the floor in 3rd and 4th gear. It should pull like a train but if the revs jump the clutch will be slipping. That will cost £300 minimum to replace with a standard item.
Cooling is vital on these cars. If you can, get underneath the car and check that the oil cooler and pipes are fairly new as the pipes can break causing your oil to overheat. The 20vt engine is sensitive to this and does not respond kindly. The oil pressure must not dip below 1.5 bar after a very hard drive. If it does there will need to be some investigation to determine the cause. Ideally the hot pressure should sit at around 2 bar after a heavy workout.
The handbrake is prone to freezing in this cold weather because the rubber seals under the car perish letting in water. Check in the history to see if it has had genuine Fiat cable as a replacement. Locks freeze constantly which is a real pain and the central looking can be temperamental so check these.
The Pinninfarina badges on the side of the car can let in moisture causing the car to mist up very quickly and stay like that for ages. Take note of this on the test drive.
Check sills and arches for rust although these cars aren’t too bad for this.
Boost should come in at around 3k rpm. It should pull hard and fast with maximum power at roughly 5k rpm. If it doesn’t pull hard it might have a boost leak. Not too expensive to repair but worth looking out for.
There is a coolant hose that runs along the back of the engine. It is subjected to massive changes in temperature and can split dropping all of your coolant. It’s known as the coolant hose of death. Check for low coolant levels and water marks under the bonnet. This should be replaced as a matter of pre-maintenance.
Check that the car ha an under tray. This helps to direct the flow of air under the car and also protects the belts. These are becoming rare and not many 20vt's have them. Mine does biggrin
The car should come with 3 keys. A silver, blue and red key. Make sure these are genuine. The red key is required to reset the alarm so if you don’t have it you'll need a new lock set if the worst happens. A security card can take the place of the red key so check for this if the car doesn’t come with a red key.
Do any other checks that you would on any car. Take it for a good test drive and look out for anything dubious. A mint condition standard 20vt should set you back £3000. This will need nothing doing. Don’t buy a cheap one if you can avoid it. I'd set a budget of £2500 for one if you want relatively hassle free motoring. A £1500 coupe will need £1-2k to make it perfect. An LE or a plus is the pick of the range but you pay a premium for these. Buy on condition, not mileage. There are many high mileage cars around but they should have had lots of the above jobs done to them.
They really are great cars and get plenty of attention. Insurance isn’t cheap so be sure to get lots of quotes.
Other than that, get over to FCCUK to get a buyers guide and loads of useful info. There are lots of coupes for sale too at the moment with some real beauties up for grabs. That forum is a must for any coupe owner.
I've probably forgotten a few things. If so, sorry thumbup
If you have any other questions feel free to pm me smile
There's also a great buyers guide on the Fiat coupe club website.Buy one with good bodywork as most of them come with dinks and dents. The rear three quarters of the car are prone to scrapes because the mirrors are close to pointless. They're tiny and you can barely see anything using them. If you can, get a sorted example. Brakes cost roughly £300 all round for a cheap set. Tyres cost anything from £220 upwards all round on standard 16" wheels. Cam belts are the downfall of the car so make sure you get a car which has had this replaced recently along with the tensioners and aux belts. A change can cost anything from £400 upwards with aux belts costing £180 upwards.
When you test drive a 20vt put your foot flat to the floor in 3rd and 4th gear. It should pull like a train but if the revs jump the clutch will be slipping. That will cost £300 minimum to replace with a standard item.
Cooling is vital on these cars. If you can, get underneath the car and check that the oil cooler and pipes are fairly new as the pipes can break causing your oil to overheat. The 20vt engine is sensitive to this and does not respond kindly. The oil pressure must not dip below 1.5 bar after a very hard drive. If it does there will need to be some investigation to determine the cause. Ideally the hot pressure should sit at around 2 bar after a heavy workout.
The handbrake is prone to freezing in this cold weather because the rubber seals under the car perish letting in water. Check in the history to see if it has had genuine Fiat cable as a replacement. Locks freeze constantly which is a real pain and the central looking can be temperamental so check these.
The Pinninfarina badges on the side of the car can let in moisture causing the car to mist up very quickly and stay like that for ages. Take note of this on the test drive.
Check sills and arches for rust although these cars aren’t too bad for this.
Boost should come in at around 3k rpm. It should pull hard and fast with maximum power at roughly 5k rpm. If it doesn’t pull hard it might have a boost leak. Not too expensive to repair but worth looking out for.
There is a coolant hose that runs along the back of the engine. It is subjected to massive changes in temperature and can split dropping all of your coolant. It’s known as the coolant hose of death. Check for low coolant levels and water marks under the bonnet. This should be replaced as a matter of pre-maintenance.
Check that the car ha an under tray. This helps to direct the flow of air under the car and also protects the belts. These are becoming rare and not many 20vt's have them. Mine does biggrin
The car should come with 3 keys. A silver, blue and red key. Make sure these are genuine. The red key is required to reset the alarm so if you don’t have it you'll need a new lock set if the worst happens. A security card can take the place of the red key so check for this if the car doesn’t come with a red key.
Do any other checks that you would on any car. Take it for a good test drive and look out for anything dubious. A mint condition standard 20vt should set you back £3000. This will need nothing doing. Don’t buy a cheap one if you can avoid it. I'd set a budget of £2500 for one if you want relatively hassle free motoring. A £1500 coupe will need £1-2k to make it perfect. An LE or a plus is the pick of the range but you pay a premium for these. Buy on condition, not mileage. There are many high mileage cars around but they should have had lots of the above jobs done to them.
They really are great cars and get plenty of attention. Insurance isn’t cheap so be sure to get lots of quotes.
Other than that, get over to FCCUK to get a buyers guide and loads of useful info. There are lots of coupes for sale too at the moment with some real beauties up for grabs. That forum is a must for any coupe owner.
I've probably forgotten a few things. If so, sorry thumbup
If you have any other questions feel free to pm me smile
For your money you should get a good coupe if you can find one. If I were to sell mine it would be around your budget. Wine Red (Rosso Winner) is a hard colour to find any parts for and is difficult to colour match if you want any paint work done.
If you have any questions, feel free to PM me
Update;
The interior fan hasn’t worked in the time that I've owned the car. It's never really bothered me as I always drive with the window(s) open anyway but I thought I'd better get round to fixing the issue.
Turns out the cause was this burnt out resistor pack
A new one is on order
An established member of FCCUK put up a stack of parts for sale including a Sparco strut brace. The same item as found on the Plus and LE models. It was a bit of a bargain so I got in early and snapped it up.
It's got a few marks on it but that doesn’t bother me. I'll probably end up painting it at a later date when I've done my rocker cover. The brace was previously used on a 457bhp coupe
I managed to sheer a bolt when fitting it. I don’t know my own strength
A bit of a pain but the knackered bolt was drilled out this morning. With the hole re-tapped, the brace is now fitted.
With that out of the way I'm spurred on to tidying up the engine bay. I've etch primed my spare rocker cover and I'll wrinkle paint it when I can find a stockist. Once it's fitted I'll do a full engine bay detail to get it up to scratch although I wont go mental with it as it'll be filthy within the month no doubt.
Finally, I'm taking part in the Pembrokeshire Country Run for classic and special cars again in early September so I'll be doing a full, proper detail on the car with photos to follow. This year a couple of friends will be joining me. One in a Corrado 16v and the other in a fully re-sprayed MkII Golf GTI with an ABF conversion. Should be fun
The interior fan hasn’t worked in the time that I've owned the car. It's never really bothered me as I always drive with the window(s) open anyway but I thought I'd better get round to fixing the issue.
Turns out the cause was this burnt out resistor pack
A new one is on order
An established member of FCCUK put up a stack of parts for sale including a Sparco strut brace. The same item as found on the Plus and LE models. It was a bit of a bargain so I got in early and snapped it up.
It's got a few marks on it but that doesn’t bother me. I'll probably end up painting it at a later date when I've done my rocker cover. The brace was previously used on a 457bhp coupe
I managed to sheer a bolt when fitting it. I don’t know my own strength
A bit of a pain but the knackered bolt was drilled out this morning. With the hole re-tapped, the brace is now fitted.
With that out of the way I'm spurred on to tidying up the engine bay. I've etch primed my spare rocker cover and I'll wrinkle paint it when I can find a stockist. Once it's fitted I'll do a full engine bay detail to get it up to scratch although I wont go mental with it as it'll be filthy within the month no doubt.
Finally, I'm taking part in the Pembrokeshire Country Run for classic and special cars again in early September so I'll be doing a full, proper detail on the car with photos to follow. This year a couple of friends will be joining me. One in a Corrado 16v and the other in a fully re-sprayed MkII Golf GTI with an ABF conversion. Should be fun
Reading this has made me miss mine, I had it for 2 years until last year when an old dude ran into the side of me and I made the difficult but sensible decision to get something cheaper to run for a while. 
They're great little cars and superb value for money if you're willing to keep on top of the maintenance. One of the best bang-for-buck cars at that price range and quite good looking too.
You're clearly looking after this one well.
Maybe I'll re-join the fold one day.
P.S. FCCUK is really a great club isn't it, those guys saved me so much money and hassle with their advice. I went to a rolling road with them at one point and was pleased to find my 12 year old 20VT was still putting 216bhp+ out at the flywheel! (220bhp originally) which I was pretty proud of.
Oh and MotorMech is such a brilliant place to take Coupes, Paul and co really know their stuff, they're honest and extremely reasonably priced too. I often took my car on a 60mile round trip to go there and would come home and find they'd repaired little 'niggly' things that I had not mentioned at no cost!
They're great little cars and superb value for money if you're willing to keep on top of the maintenance. One of the best bang-for-buck cars at that price range and quite good looking too.
You're clearly looking after this one well.
Maybe I'll re-join the fold one day.
P.S. FCCUK is really a great club isn't it, those guys saved me so much money and hassle with their advice. I went to a rolling road with them at one point and was pleased to find my 12 year old 20VT was still putting 216bhp+ out at the flywheel! (220bhp originally) which I was pretty proud of.
Oh and MotorMech is such a brilliant place to take Coupes, Paul and co really know their stuff, they're honest and extremely reasonably priced too. I often took my car on a 60mile round trip to go there and would come home and find they'd repaired little 'niggly' things that I had not mentioned at no cost!
Edited by StradoZ on Wednesday 18th August 23:10
gj88 said:
yazza54 said:
Like the coupe, always had a soft spot for them.
Not sure what you mean about the second cam on your rover though..
The Rover's engine was a twin cam unit. The second cam gave the litle thing a decent amount of shove above 4000rpm. Not sure what you mean about the second cam on your rover though..
A solid exhaust cam and a solid inlet cam working together........ No variable valve timing, all you could feel was the general powerband of the engine.
Edited by yazza54 on Friday 20th August 11:14
yazza54 said:
gj88 said:
yazza54 said:
Like the coupe, always had a soft spot for them.
Not sure what you mean about the second cam on your rover though..
The Rover's engine was a twin cam unit. The second cam gave the litle thing a decent amount of shove above 4000rpm. Not sure what you mean about the second cam on your rover though..
A solid exhaust cam and a solid inlet cam working together........ No variable valve timing, all you could feel was the general powerband of the engine.
Edited by yazza54 on Friday 20th August 11:14
Quick update;
I've been thinking of having the car resprayed at some point, probably next summer as it has a few annoying marks here and there. The only trouble is they're not localised to one panel and with one being on the bonnet, by the time they're painted I might as well spray the whole car.
I've been looking at improving the paintwork until next year so I spent most of the afternoon giving the car a thorough clean. Here's the results;
I'll be machine polishing it in November to see if I can improve the final look of the original 13 year old paintwork. If I'm not happy with it then the car will be resprayed in time for next years sunshine
Next job is to refurbish the headlights.
I've been thinking of having the car resprayed at some point, probably next summer as it has a few annoying marks here and there. The only trouble is they're not localised to one panel and with one being on the bonnet, by the time they're painted I might as well spray the whole car.
I've been looking at improving the paintwork until next year so I spent most of the afternoon giving the car a thorough clean. Here's the results;
I'll be machine polishing it in November to see if I can improve the final look of the original 13 year old paintwork. If I'm not happy with it then the car will be resprayed in time for next years sunshine
Next job is to refurbish the headlights.
Update;
Last weekend I refurbished my headlight covers. I didn’t take any photos showing the condition of them before as I was pressed for time but they were humming to say the least! The lacquer applied at the factory was crusty and yellow with patches peeling off so it was time they were freshened up.
Here are some shots taken during the refurbishment process;
The lacquer was sanded off using 800 grit wet and dry with a small amount of car shampoo added to a jug of water used as a lubricant. Once the lacquer was completely removed I went over the lenses with 1000 grit paper.
I polished the lenses using three stages of Auto gleam Metal Polish followed by three stages of Brasso with a final three stages of PlastX. Here's a few comparison shots;
In these photos, the polished lens was due a final buff.
Here are some shots with the lights re-fitted to the car;
Last weekend I refurbished my headlight covers. I didn’t take any photos showing the condition of them before as I was pressed for time but they were humming to say the least! The lacquer applied at the factory was crusty and yellow with patches peeling off so it was time they were freshened up.
Here are some shots taken during the refurbishment process;
The lacquer was sanded off using 800 grit wet and dry with a small amount of car shampoo added to a jug of water used as a lubricant. Once the lacquer was completely removed I went over the lenses with 1000 grit paper.
I polished the lenses using three stages of Auto gleam Metal Polish followed by three stages of Brasso with a final three stages of PlastX. Here's a few comparison shots;
In these photos, the polished lens was due a final buff.
Here are some shots with the lights re-fitted to the car;
With winter on its way, the car will soon be getting a top to toe going over. A refurbished, standard set of wheels will be fitted, the car will have a full service and a new rocker cover gasket is going on to stop a minor oil leak. I've also decided it's going to be lowered to reduce the gap between the arches and the tyres.
I'm looking forward to seeing it closer to the ground, that's for sure!
Oh, and just clarify I’ve changed my user name to something less... crap.
I'm looking forward to seeing it closer to the ground, that's for sure!
Oh, and just clarify I’ve changed my user name to something less... crap.
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff