2002 Fiat Multipla ELX from UK and Ireland - Comments

X Reg bought last week in Dec 2002 from PIPERS of MAIDSTONE, delivered 1st week Jan 2003. Was a close call between Multipla and Vauxhall Zafira.

1. Leaking rear sun-roof. (No defect found, possibly not shut properly during pre-delivery checks).

2. Cracked boot sill - replaced.

3. Dented drivers door very small - dealer trying their best to ignore.

4.Passenger front door courtesy light intermittent, when you open door. Still intermittent so difficult to identify fault to dealer.

Faults 2- 4 spotted on fore-court and an extra week given to resolve these issues. Not done by dealer - warranting second trip to dealer.

Two weeks after delivery:

5. Cd changer jammed dealer claims warranty is void because I used a back-up copy CD. Solicitors are being contacted.

6.Engine Management faulty warning light on. Fixed.

7.Throttle cable jammed occasionally. This was apparently related to engine management as well as faulty cable.

8.ABS fault light on. Related to nos 6. Fixed.

9. No escalation procedure in dealership. Management don't want to know when you have a problem.

You would have thought that with all these mishaps, I would be put off. No.

Seating wacky, but practical. Both children can seat in front and mum stretches out along the length of back seat.

Weekly shopping fits comfortably in boot which is deceptive in size.

Took out all seats and able to honor long standing commitment to clear our garage.

Six and a half hour trip to Cornwall was ultimate test. Comfortable - even the children didn't mind. Chaos on M25 when leaving resulting in night driving. It wasn't that bad. I particularly like the high drive height and all round visibility.

When she goes she goes, and took the hills and dips in her stride. Overtaking not as sharp as a petrol engine. Very low ratio in gear one only good for 2 seconds after starting off.

At Today's diesel price of 78p /liter, I seem to spend about £40.00 every 300 miles of local driving - school runs, work local, shopping etc. Work out the math.

BUG BEARS.

1. Remote electric window controls for driver and passenger side windows only. Cannot control rear windows from driver side. How many times do you tell the children to wind up fully?

2. Back seat headrests means poor visibility through rear window.

3. Rear window wiper set to one speed only. Cannot do intermittent wipe like you can with front wipers.

4. Only one cup holder in the front!! It's molded into the dash board so can't take extra large drinks.

5. Front seat belts do not always spring back when you release. You know that horrible feeling when you have jammed the buckle against the frame when shutting / slamming the door.

Some one tell FIAT to bring out a long wheel base model as the boot space could be a bit better, and pls, pls an automatic model or at least fit cruise control. Would I buy a newer model later on?. I don't know, cos I have really been put off by the dealership. From what I have read, it seems to be a common problem with FIAT dealerships.

I agree with this reviewer, having experienced most of the good/bad things described (even the trip to Cornwall!). I have more or less given up with Fiat dealerships and now get my car serviced at AA Service Centre (was Halfords) although they appear to be unable to check any fault codes because the lack of a Multipla fault code reader.

I still like this car though, with all it's - mainly electrical - faults. It is amazing what you will put up with for such an outstanding design.

I have very similar views to the reviewer above. Multipla bought new in July 2002. The first two years had excellent support from my local dealer, although they had trouble narrowing down and fixing some of the electrical faults in the engine management system and ABS braking system. No cure for water in diesel filter on startup. I worked this out myself. If you jump in and start up immediately without letting it go through its pre-checks, it displays the error, even though there is no problem with the diesel fuel filter. Software glitch?

Problems with dealer now! The third year of warranty is dealer supported not FIAT. A leaking sun-roof is not covered by warranty! Surprise, surprise, I am out of the 2 year FIAT warranty period. Looks like glass is not bedding down on sealing rubbers properly. This gives us buckets of water out of the rear inspection cover for the sun-roof motor. Kids love avoiding the waterfall when we drive off! Any adjustment available I wonder?

Broken plastic seat trim where the seat belt has not retracted and my son has made sure the door was closed properly!

Excellent run-about as well as long distance cruiser. I enjoy driving it, my wife loves it and the kids are ecstatic about it. An excellent design that is let down by a mediocre car company. Buy another one? Yes, even though everything about FIAT and its build and customer service says do not!!!

It's amazing - I could have written all the above comments myself having experienced pretty much everything mentioned. My car is a JTD 110 ELX.

You might all like to know that the leaking sun-roof (my current problem, which looks expensive) may be the front one instead of or as well as the rear one. Although the water pours through the central inspection port when you move off, remember that the water is sitting in the roof cavity and may have come from either sun-roof. My local dealer has offered a leak test for about £70 which should give a firm diagnosis, but the fix is likely to mean removal of the sun-roof (s) which is very expensive (£500 - £600). Bear in mind that my car was fine for the first 3 years and has only developed the fault in year 4 so although one dealer suggested a warped sun-roof, I think it is likely to be the rubber seals breaking down where they fit onto the metal rim where the hole for the sun-roof has been cut, or it may be the hard plastic trim on the outside.

The intermittent rear-wipe issue is easily fixed if you go to the Multipla Owners web site where a guy is offering a D.I.Y. kit to provide that for about £20. They also offer a D.I.Y. kit to allow the courtesy light to stay on for 30 seconds after the door has shut - very useful!

I have also heard through such web sites that "engine faulty" warnings when you start are common and are sometimes erroneous (i.e. there's nothing really wrong or there is no fix for the warning so you may have to live with it). Not much good, but the dealership should be able to check it out on a service and put your mind at rest. I usually find the Diesel Filter warning goes away after each service.

Other common faults you can expect are the fold-in door mirrors failing (£120 each to replace, though it's a D.I.Y. job if you want to try it), rear courtesy light switch failure (easily replaced and cheap), loss of power on acceleration and hill climbs and particularly noticeable if you are overtaking, especially up hill. This is probably the Air mass/flow sensor (£100 and can be a D.I.Y. job, but my dealer fitted it for free when I queried how you take the hose clip off), or it could be the throttle potentiometer (a dealer job really though I've not had that problem). To diagnose, I suggest you disconnect the Air mass/flow sensor temporarily and see if the car suddenly regains it's original performance under acceleration, particularly below 2000 rpm before the turbo comes in). Remember to reconnect the sensor after the test, otherwise the engine management system has no way of monitoring air flow. I don't know if that's a problem but better safe than sorry.

Otherwise a great car, let down by poor manufacturing and QA. I would have another one though the new ones are uglier. If only it was made by the Japanese!

Anyone else with some useful, helpful information and hints?

I've had my Multipla since 2001 and have experienced most of the problems mentioned before. Both my sun roofes started leaking and pouring water in my lap. I did fix this problem myself though its not for the faint hearted. What I found was that the sunroof seal looks like thin black tape and it had pulled its self in on one of the cornersallowing water to enter. I fixed it by running some silicon sealer roud it before putting the sun roof back in. Bluming heavy they are too! Love the car - it still goes well after 60,000 miles, but build quality and dealer support are rubbish and I won't ever go near another Fiat. There used to be an old saying - its a Fiat worse than death...

We had a 52 plate low trim model that has not suffered most of the above listed faults, but has it's own set of oddities... part of the suspension wore out rather fast (the big castings / swing arm things under the front end... what the main dealer called track rod ends) - MOT failures by 60,000 miles and most worryingly, the driver's side door's weld to the upper hinge failed (cheap repair by non FIAT garage). Oh, the rear boot trim cracked, but they all seem to do that?

The car also failed it's first MOT because it had planed the inside edge off both tyres - turned out the car had been delivered with some serious misalignment of the front end. Problem was not spotted by the main dealers that had serviced it regularly - it started as a lease car and we bought it at the end of the lease as we were so impressed by the flexibility of the design.

Replaced the '52 plate with an 03 plate JTD ELX... we wanted the air-con. It also had a broken boot trim, same place and looks like a designed in weakness.

Generally our opinion after 5 years... superbly flexible layout, superbly practical car, mediocre build quality and a lot of the main dealers are worse than back street garages. No names, no pack drill, but our local main dealer appear to have messed up the rear brakes on the multipla and a month later messed up the rear brakes on my marea. If you find a good Fiat dealer you're lucky! We've now found one who know what they are doing.

Won't put location to protect the innocent... or not so competent dealer as they could be identified easily! Unfortunately that means no identification of the good dealer we found as well.

I have a 2003 Multipla which has had some of the same problems mentioned before. Have just spent a fortune with the dealer I bought it from because I thought they would do a good job - I have two daughters now driving. Should have checked this site out first! They kept it for 2 weeks and it still had a lot of the problems I had asked them to fix when I got it back - with some of their work failing less than a month later. After, through sheer frustration, telling them that I was considering consulting a solicitor, they agreed to take it back in and correct the issues without any cost. However after a week they have still not fixed the engine control faulty problem and have suggested that it may need a new turbo which I would have to pay for - I DON'T THINK SO FIAT! I've got it back and will take it to a local garage if necessary with some of the suggestions from this site. Never again.

We have just bought an 03 JTD and so far only one electrical problem; the indicators have stopped working. They stopped once and after switching on the hazard warning lights the indicators started working again, then about a week later they again stopped working and now won't work at all. Switching on and off the hazards doesn't do the trick and may have been a coincidence when It 'worked' the first time. Has anyone experienced this problem before or have any suggestions? Any advice will be welcome robinf@media-lincs.com.

Just brought a 2001 110 ELX JTD. Just one bug is a whine from the rear (no it's not the kids!).

No other faults, certainly none of the above, and mine is now 7 years old. Overall very pleased - not had any dealings with Fiat dealership (yet).

Hi, I have a 03 reg... having problems with the engine management light... have got both a back street mechanic and also a Fiat dealership to look at this, and they can't seem to find the problem. It's very annoying..

I also have the leaking sunroofs and had the whine in the rear of car... Brakes given a lot of trouble as well.. overall I don't think I would buy another FIAT car as they are more hassle than they're worth.

If anyone has any suggestions about above problems, please email me amsutts@hotmail.com. I am at my wits end as the MOT is due and I have a feeling it's not going to pass!!!

Bought Multipla 03 plate in April this year. We wanted to downsize from the 7 seater to a 6 seater. We bought the 1.6 SX. It had 40k on clock FSH.

Put it through an MOT; it failed on handbrake cables snapped, brakes completely worn and wheel bearing had gone in 1 wheel. Bill £800.

2 weeks later coil packs packed up (we had just had coil packs done on our Scenic as well), that cost £120.

Started squealing after all the brakes were done, and we thought they were perhaps bedding in and we had the mini heatwave... no it's the brake calipers, they are being done this week.

Our repairs have cost as much as we spent on the car. Saying that I do love the car.

The trims comes off the door, but I gather it's a common problem, and the seat trims have cracked and are broken from the seatbelts not retracting.

For me, I can get my 3 children in the back all in their car seats, can't do that with the Scenic and we couldn't do it in our 7 seater (well not in 1 row).

The car drives well and corners nicely, and I do feel safe in it.

The test is coming up, we are off to the South of France for our holidays at the end of August, let's hope it's trouble free... she's going for service this week, and I've got breakdown cover, so fingers crossed.

Just bought a Multipla 110 ELX. Got a few bits to get done on it. Firstly I've got an "air con faulty" message when I start up. Anyone got any idea how to get this fixed? Apart from going to the dealer of course, which is not my preferred option! Also, does anyone know where I can order patent parts from? Don't want to go to the dealer every time!!