1999 Fiat Seicento Citymatic from UK and Ireland - Comments

I converted my 1999 (30 thousand mile) Citymatic to a manual clutch (SX) equivalent, with ease. I bought the car specifically with a faulty clutch for £360 after reading all the comments listed here, just to find out what all the fuss was about. I purchased a secondhand three pedal assembly off a popular auction site for £15, and a clutch cable for a similar amount. A minor piece of fabrication was required to produce a fulcrum for the new cable, and a clip to hold cable in place. Simple modifications to the electronics were also required to start the car, and stop the buzzer from annoying me. The mods did not affect the immobiliser in any way, and cost nothing to achieve. There you have it, a perfectly drivable car for less than £400. May I point out that I am an engineer not a motor mechanic, and had absolutely no problem with this conversion. Any competent person can do the same.

I purchased a W reg Seicento Citymatic last summer, and the transmission failed in December 2006. I read the comments on this site, and am most grateful for the advice received. I called FIAT UK and asked them to convert the car to a manual transmission. They were not encouraging given the age of the car (mileage about 25K), but required me to take the car to the nearest FIAT dealership. The dealership confirmed that the actuator was broken, and that a replacement would cost a good % of the value of the car, as would conversion to a manual transmission. They undertook to take my case up with the regional manager, who turned down my request for conversion at FIAT's expense. At this stage I wrote a polite letter to FIAT UK, asking them to intervene, and also contacted the Guild of Experienced Motorists, with whom I have breakdown cover. Mr David Williams of GEM kindly undertook to support my case, and he and a colleague contacted the FIAT UK PR organisation. Within 24 hours FIAT UK informed Mr Williams that the conversion had been approved at their expense, and fortunately he told me, because FIAT omitted to do so, although the Dealership was instructed to do the work. It took around a week for the parts to arrive and the conversion to be completed (a two-day job according to the garage). The total cost to FIAT, according to the Warranty Invoice was £792.11, and the car is now running fine. I have written thank you letters to all involved. My advice would be:

1. State your position clearly and politely.

2. Escalate gradually.

3. If possible involve appropriate organisations (AA, RAC, GEM, trading standards, etc) if they are willing to help.

I believe that FIAT will offer resistance initially - any business will wish to resist unwanted expenditure, but a little perseverance will pay off. My experience indicates that FIAT are concerned to avoid negative publicity over the citymatic issue, so the greatest pressure is probably associated with one's ability to get some kind of 'press coverage'. Trust that this is helpful, and that you get your conversion completed by FIAT.

Hi.

My seicento is at the service now with the actuator problem, to change it would cost me £1000. I would rather have it converted and I am contacting Fiat, but if in any case I cannot sort it out through Fiat, Could you tell me someone in Kingston (KT1) area who can do the conversion for a reasonable price please?

Thank you.

Eniko.

Halaszcseni@hotmail.com.

ASAP as car is in Fiat service now.

Hi.

Just to add to this. My mum's car has had this problem time and again. It has cost a lot of cash. However, it once happened whilst I was driving it, I had the AA come out, and the AA guy gave me a useful tip for when the gear change problem happens..ie. you can't change gears.

The tip:

1. Engine off, but switch Ignition on.

2. Pump brake pedal a few times

3. Engine on

4. Select 1st.

REPEAT TILL IT WORKS (Hopefully). It did work for me. Apparently this process reboots the ECU.

Good luck.

Hi,

My parents bought me a 98 reg Citymatic at the end of January as my first car, I see in the history that it has had the actuator replaced twice once at 27,000 miles and again at 31,000. I'm now at around 40,000 miles and have been experiencing the same problems as everyone else it would seem. This has only happened in cold or wet weather and I can get it into gear after leaving the engine running for about half an hour to an hour. I have never experienced it failing during a journey only when starting from cold, but I'm getting increasingly scared to use the car at all.

I want to raise a case with Fiat to get them to convert to manual, but I haven't seen any mention on this message board of any conversions done on cars as old as mine or with as much mileage so I'm a little worried that they will refuse. There is a Fiat garage quite close to where I live, should I take it to them or is it better to take it to someone independent to get written advice to send to Fiat showing that the work is necessary? If anyone who has had it done wouldn't mind me referencing their case please could you email me at fairyhexxus@yahoo.co.uk.

Cheers all.

Kathryn.

I got a second hand seicento for my 18 birthday and the day after I got it, it broke down on a busy roundabout with gear failure after reading the comments on this site I have realised that it is the gear actuator. had I known about this I would not have bought it and am horrified at the price of repair. I am going to convert to manual instead which will stop recurrence.

Hello Everyone.

My mother is currently dealing with this problem as well (actually I am, but you know what I mean)

This is the second time that the actuator has failed and we have decided that the only course of action is to have the car converted to manual.

I have registered a claim with Fiat UK and I am waiting their decision as to who will pay for the repairs. The car is a '99 plated and therefore quite old however, my argument has been if such a device was fitted into a '07 car, it would still fail.

The garage that the car is currently at has been very good about the situation and are happy to keep the car there until a decision has been made.

I am in the process of sending a letter with copies of all servicing and repairs to Fiat to back up 'our' claim.

My next recourse will be to speak to my mothers insurance company and trading standards (or some such organisation) to get their support.

Let's see what happens.

Hi I wrote in about my car earlier and I was wondering if any of you had converted your semi automatic seicento's to manual.

If you have can you please send the details of the conversion and what parts are required to apocolypse_messenger@hotmail.com.

Thank you.

Hi.

Am having the same problem as everyone, if anyone has the details of the parts required for the conversion or details of someone who could do the swap in the guildford area I would be really grateful if they could send them to me (jamierose5187@gmail.com)

Thanks.

Go back a few pages and look at my comments I got my car converted to an sx for free by fiat!!! had no problems and sold it for nearly £500 more than I bought it. Cheers Jon

Jon_Bramwell@hotmail.com.

Here, here, to Jom Bramwell - if you look further up on site you will see that lots of us have managed to get Fiat to pay you have got to be persistent and not go away as they hope. It does not matter one jot if your car was not bought from your local Fiat dealer (mine wasn't) and this system would fail whether it was six months old (most of the vehicles are 99 plates). Do contact Slough Trading Standards office who have a person dealing solely with Fiat and also Fiat Head Office at Slough and if you are in RAC/AA or any other motoring organisation all the better get them involved as well and DO NOT GIVE UP!!!

Jill Bayliss.

Along with many contributors to this site, my wife has sufferred random incidences of the dreaded "no drive/no gear" syndrome. Shortly after purchasing the Seicento new, (it is a 2000 (V) reg vehicle with 32,000 miles on the clock), we had to return it to the local Fiat depot because she couldn't select any gear, we were told that a part in the gearbox had failed & had to be replaced under warranty. However, the next incident occurred in rain, so we attributed this to damp contacts. We realised later, after removing the ECU connectors & coating them with vaseline,it was something else. We never had a problem on the move, normally getting the ACS light & buzzer when starting and so resorted to carrying a 10mm ring spanner in the boot so we could disconnect the positive lead from the battery, leave it for 2-3 minutes, then reconnect the battery again. This simply re-booted the ECU & the car started OK.

In late June, after an attack of ACS-itis, we found that fifth and reverse gears could not selected, this turned out to be a failure in the plastic housing guiding the gear linkage, possibly due to my wife frantically trying to get the car ino gear. In early July however, the car started to show the symptoms in traffic and like other sufferers, a diagnostic check showed that there were "no problems". I phoned Fiat Customer services, obtained a case reference number and discussed the problem with the customer services rep. He didn't seem to be surprised and told me that there were three options available, one; for Fiat to buy the car back; two, for Fiat to give me a good trade in figure against a new Fiat car and three, to convert the vehicle to manual at Fiat expense. Now, after 8 weeks of regular phone calls to Fiat customer Services, I have had a call from Fiat telling me they will convert the car to manual at my local dealers, at their cost. I have asked them to confirm this in writing.

I guess, all I can do now is wait and see what transpires, shame really that Fiat have dug their head in the sand with this problem as my wife really loves her little Fiat and finds it most convenient, particularly for its ease of parking and economy.

We are to having problems with our Fiat seicento city matic it has only done 29000 miles, now cannot select any gears started off by not going in reverse and 1st now now gears at all. Cannot find any gear box specialised to look at it do not want to know after reading comments on this site would think about having it converted to manual, but do not know what parts are needed. If any one knows and who could carry out the work please contact us at andyc124@hotmail.co.uk.Would be most gratful.

I too am having the same problems luckily I bought it from a fiat dealership and it has an AA warranty. after much persistance they have admitted the problem and are getting in touch with Fiat, who have in the past offered a payment of £2000 towards a new fiat such as a Panda or free conversion to manual. I don't know what they are going to say for definate yet, but will keep you posted. I should be hearing tomorrow.

I've got a fiat citymatic engine and gearbox, but its not in a car, its in a road legal buggy I am making... everything was working OK in the donor car, but I have just got my buggy to a stage where I could try and start it and guess what... ACS is being a pain. Reading all the comments I can see that its not worth trying to sort it out and am better off converting to a manual gearbox. Problem is I doubt fiat would convert it now, and there are no dealers for miles around anyway. So if anyone has the details of how to convert to a manual box (especially the electrics side of things) I would be very grateful. please give me an email at andy.blaxill@ntlworld.com.