Starting to regret my choice of Fiat Ducato 07 for base van

bob72

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Only had the van for a few months (see previous posts) and had LOTS of issues.

And now the paint is flaking off in large chunks on the A-Pillar near the roof. Not happy.

The supposedly 'fixed' central locking fuse blowing problem is not in fact fixed despite the full new lock set (ignition barrel was already damaged).

We also developed another fault upon getting it back from the garage, now after the first initial successful 'start' of the engine, any subsequent starts within a few hours the will result in 'limp mode' or a complete engine stall. If you retry and start the engine immediately after limp/stall it works OK but the problem will then occur again next time you try to start.

Not to mention the brakes(bought full new standard set for our road trip) are seriously poor. I will be looking to upgrade to aftermarket parts for our next alpine road trip.

I feel rather disappointed as I like the looks of the van and spent a hell of a lot of money getting the van converted the way we wanted :sad:
 
The brakes are pretty poor, they don't do well with heavy braking. I had a full new set and cables just before our trip. They are fine when used sparingly and do stop the van nicely. However on the mountain pass (Grosslochner high alpine road) I was using a mix of engine braking and the brakes to slow down the decent but still managed to produce smoke from the fronts and had virtually no feeling left at all (fluid was also recently changed) so I suspect the fluid may have started to boil. In fact it was so bad that we had to use a curb to stop the van from rolling down the hill!

Got to the bottom with the help of the many (thankfully) parking areas on the decent and second/first gear. This is very dissapointing for such a modern van in my opinion. Modern disc brakes should easily be able to dissipate the heat better. I have cooked brakes a few times on my old track cars and they were under extreme heavy braking so I know what it feels like :)

I'm not sure what had happened to the ignition barrel, I suspect someone had tried to 'fix' the fuse problem and caused the damage. It didn't look like the lock had been screwdrivered (which wouldn't have worked anyway, its a electronic coded key system)

The van also only has 74k miles on it!
 
You don't say which model of van. Mine has the optional 16" wheels accommodating larger brake discs, an option which would be recommended in hilly areas. Most are 15". From what you say it sounds like a fully loaded commercial vehicle and the brakes are bound to heat up much faster than a car - particularly a track car with far less weight. On a long descent you just have to slow right down and use your engine braking to do it all as commercial vehicle drivers are trained to do. This is not the first thread from a car driver who has been surprised how quickly his van brakes have heated up on an alpine pass, and cooked his brakes. I recall another one recently, and his van was brand new.

A van can get a lot of hammer in 74k miles. Lots of different drivers not used to driving it, all just trying to save time, and none of whom have any interest in the repair bills. Even the boss is not likely to care how they are driven if they are leased, as most are. (The reason why I chose to buy new, and economise on the conversion instead of the base vehicle)
 
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Alpine use

For Alpine use remove any wheel trims that stop air flow.Go down hill in the same gear you would need to climb the hill.
 
rickboy said:
For Alpine use remove any wheel trims that stop air flow.Go down hill in the same gear you would need to climb the hill.
Click to expand...

Good idea. I had forgotten about wheel trims restricting the air circulation to the discs as I don't have them. The advice to go down hill in the same gear you go up is what I was taught when I did my HGV test 35 years ago. Commercial vehicles have got far more powerful in that time. So perhaps now an even lower gear is to be recomended sometimes. In any event you have got to let the engine do all the braking, because that has got a radiator to cool itself down.
 
Hehe going up the hills were no problem at all second/third pretty easy :)

The van is a Ducato maxi lwb 3.0 (160bhp version). I didn't think of the wheel trims but come to think of it I'm not sure the van has any.

Yeh I think as the van drives so easy and is like a car I was just surprised how quickly it happened.

Im not too worried about the brakes at the moment but the flaking paint, fuses and the new odd engine start problem is rather irritating!

Still itching to go away again and sad to say its not going to be likely until early sept :sad:
Thanks for the tips though guys it's appreciated :)
 
HI,when i was importing vw parts i know one of the oem could supply 15 grades of pads . there is or was several companies making the brakes for vw.
now i run the mitsubishi there are still loads of companies supplying mitsubishi. i buy from a place in the uk that imports direct from japan so hopefully they use the right oem gear.
as to the alpine hills ,i used to regularly cook the brakes on my lt coming down from burgos in spain heading towards santander. and again coming down the atlas mountains near azrou. now have an exhaust brake hardly need to press the brake pedal.
the secret is know the road stop at the top and come down really slow . over heating is very common on those type of hills my vw just didnt have much engine braking it also revs very high.
gsf usually do very good parts . i still buy from them for my sons vw and anyone i know.good on merc clutches round here nobody touches them for price and quality.
cheers alan
 
Regarding the brakes have you visited a weighbridge and got the front & rear axle weights since the conversion?. I had a C class once where the brakes could be adjusted to suit the loading.
 
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