Hi Folks,


Does anyone know any Coupe specialists around west central Scotland that they would recommend?

Looking to trailer the car to somewhere relatively close that can look at the car.

A lot of garages round here have said they won't touch a coupe

I’ve been recommended Chick at CM Garage in East Kilbride. He’s more of an Alfa specialist, but works on Fiats as well. I’ve never actually used him, but am told he’s a good guy.

What's wrong with it anyway?

JM Motors in Falkirk.

Hey u04pww2,

Have you come to own one of the two 'trailer-away' Gumtree turbo's recently for sale..?

I had recently had a very positive experience with MacLennan’s Garage, who are an Italian car specialist near Edinburgh (the city, rather than esteemed forum member, that is!) at Loanhead. I was really impressed with the service I received, most notably the ease with which they solved an electrical gremlin that had been preventing my radiator fans from coming on properly. The garage owner (Stewart) stayed past closing time so I could pick the car up after work, and was even sprucing up the unintentionally grey-looking side sills for me when I arrived!

Overall I had the impression the car had been treated very attentively (it was immaculately clean when I got it back) rather than as the piece of eccentric nearly-junk I fear some might see (bodywork on mine is long overdue for some attention). This means a great deal in my book, especially when one can’t easily get to any of the excellent coupe specialists south of the border.

I'd also second Edinburgh's recommendation of JM Motors -- they're good too, if Falkirk is convenient for you. They did happily replaced my brake pipes the other year (I think many would run a mile from the fuel-tank-dropping palaver that this entails!)

Hey,

No my engine died on me about 3 years ago (was losing boost then suddenly cut out under acceleration and the oil pressure light was on) after not long having had an engine replacement and refurbished turbo a few months earlier, after the amount of money that had already been spent on it previously we towed it home and sort of gave up on it, as i had bought another car it has just sat in the driveway since.

The car is actually my brothers and since he is back from abroad he's keen to see if we can get it back on the road now. First issue at the moment is that the car is immobilized because the key isn't linked to the ECU anymore because the battery has been out so long. Once that's fixed can start to see if the engine will run.

This may seem a little OTT but if it's that bad in your opinion it might be worth getting it trailered to one of the specialists down south who really know every inch.

(in no particular order)

FCSS (Countrycruising) at Upton upon Severn
MotorMech in Birmingham
Midland Car Servicing (Johnnybravoturbo) in East Midlands

Unless the rest of the car was something special it's almost certainly not worth rebuilding the engine and may not even be worth replacing the engine.

The immobiliser ECU can crash or become corrupted due to a drained battery so may just need a reset. To reset the immobiliser + ECU disconnect the battery for a minute and then try again. If still no luck then pull the 2 connectors out of the code box (small yellow box located inside dash, above fuse box in driver's footwell) and re-insert them.

If the key code light still doesn't go out then drop me a PM with your address and I'll send you a chip with the immobiliser disabled, assuming it's a 20vt coupe. If it still won't start with that then you probably have a failed cam or crank sensor or no power to fuel pump, or no compression due to whatever failed when the oil pressure dropped previously.

(Well done Graham...)

Brilliant info thanks Graham , i'll let you know how we get on.

Also thanks for the garage recommendations from everyone.

Would recommend Continental Garage in Greenock for a Fiat Coupe.

Quick update,

Managed to bypass the immobiliser and alarm thanks to Grahams advice, charged the battery and replaced the spark plugs which were pretty black with new ones. On the third try of the ignition it fired into life! Engine actually sounds ok but the amount of white smoke coming out the exhaust was too much so turned it off and have a mechanic coming out to look at it in the next week or so.