Just 45% of Fiat dealers are profitable, and they're angry about it

They've got to have more variety in their lineup - doesn't look promising for Fiat. Where's the Mazda Miata (MX5) fighter? I had a brown 77 Fiat Spyder in 1983 in Berlin for a couple of years - fun car. Cobblestone streets were hard on that car.

 

They made anyone wanting to be a dealer put up a free standing dealership......couldn't include it with other makes.........maybe not such a good idea?

 

I remember our Fiat dealer in East Point, GA back in the day when Fiat was here with a full line of cars including the neat little 850 and 124 spyders. Mr Paris who had the Ford dealer took a tiny triangle of real estate in between 2 main roads in downtown and fixed up an old building into a showroom with maybe a couple bays on the back for repairs. The Fiat requirements for physical plant this time are pretty extreme and when are they going to deliver a full line up of cars like I thought they promised? :confused:

 

All they have to do is take one look at that... thing... in the first post and then look at the pics above and say the x1/9 or even the sedans they offered before withdrawing from the US market to understand why. Instead of getting angry they should be getting a clue.

mike

 

COTD!

Marketing a car that Americans want to buy would be a good starting point.

 

The convertible and the X-1/9, like the Opel GT, were meant solely for the North American market. I worked at a SAAB-Cadillac dealership, in Detroit, who sold FIAT also. By then, the sedans disappeared. The FIATs sold for the American market seemed to have gone numerous times through quality control. The fit and finish weren't bad and they were all fuel-injected. The only problem with the X-1/9 was that the head had to get retorqued, after break-in. Even with the tool the dealership made available, nobody could get access to only one headbolt. The previous carboureted madels didn't pose this problem. The X-1/9 was also too small for average Americans. Except for kids. The Lancia division of FIAT, however, offered a vehicle based on a enlarged X-1/9 platform called the Lancia Monte Carlo which had the dual overhead cam FIAT engine where the X-1/9 had its:

 

In my college days I drove dad's 1100cc X1/9 quite a bit. I was well over 250 lbs at the time and had no trouble when I used the right technique (25 years, and a bunch of pounds, later I probably would have some trouble).

I agree that their reliability was not the best but gosh they were fun. One of the problems we had was that the air pump (remember those) was driven by the timing belt so when the pump seized.... Of course it was also an interference engine also so that one was expensive.

mike

 

Are you sure it was the timing belt that drove it? That seems far-fetched. I don't remember if those 128-based engines still had airpumps when they started getting equipped with fuel injection.
As far as reliability is concerned, the older models suffered from accelerator cable failure. It had to run all the way from the pedal to almost the rear of the car. I would hope they had remedied the problem.
That one headbolt I mentioned earlier was blocked by the intake manifold. To tighten it, you'd have to remove the manifold. Then, start scraping off the gasket. Nobody in their right mind would attempt removing an entire intake manifold just to tighten a bolt.
Here, have some Monte Carlo eye candy:



Right-hand drive:



A 1952 Lancia before they were FIAT-owned:



An unusual 10° inclined V-4 from a 1960 Lancia Zagato:

http://www.autodrome.fr/lancia_appia_zagato_sport.htm



The vehicle itself:

 

I am pretty sure it was the air pump. I remember those Lancias. Always just referred to them as Betas. They were intriguing but IIRC the testers pretty well agreed that it was almost good.

mike

 

Odd wording in that it sounds like it's the 45% who are profitable who are angry. I'm guessing these dealers are not actually angry, and it's the other 55% who are the angry ones.

 

This one's crankshaft-driven:



That alternator location was the absolute horror. The only other devices to get moved by the timing belt were the tensioner and the shaft which drives the distributor and possibly the oilpump:

http://xwebforums.org/showthread.php?t=22281

 

Originally Posted by wagonmaster
Just 45% of Fiat dealers are profitable, and they're angry about it

:banghead3::banghead3::banghead3::banghead3:I had to read it over but you are correct jaunty.

 

Did some further research. Apparently the air pump was driven from a toothed belt from the camshaft (in other words not the actual timing belt). My guess is that the frozen pump added so much load that the timing belt broke or slipped in response. I suspect that the timing belt was probably in a weakened state to start with.

mike

 

According to the image I posted, it's certainly a toothed belt. But, it's driven by a double pulley at the water pump. The engine failure mentioned earlier was likely due to overheating