Lancia Motor Club

Our Limited Edition 1.2 Ypsilon has gone well over 50,000 miles now and when it had its MOT in late Summer although there were no rattles or bad handling, the rear dampers needed changing.  Well not really it was just the top mounting bushes were completely shot.  If you can find bushes to fit, then you could save buying new dampers.  The inner metal sleeve was floating about loose in a very weak rubber bush, not up to the job I am afraid.  Anyway, it is a very easy job to change the whole damper so that was what I did. See the attached picture.  Other than that she is a little beauty and still a pleasure to drive.

When I had a similar problem a few years ago on a different make of car my garage turned down some nylon bushes on the lathe to form a replacement which worked well.

Robush might be able to help!! I am not sure if they do voided bushes, but I am not a fan of them anyway .... they always seem to fail prematurely!!!!

                                                  Andy

Not a Fiat part then???

Here are some pictures of my failed bushes. Just wonder what people think? They don't seem anywhere near as bad as Chris's, or is any separation rubber/metal unacceptable? I'm not really happy with the fail and the subsequent £450 paid to the garage, who I won't be using again.

.....

you could have re-bonded.....

How on earth did the garage manage to spend £450? Are the replacement shocks made of sterling silver?

£200 was made up of the new spring! The Ypsilon front springs are allegedly unique (ie not Panda/500). FCA only sell them in pairs and I/the garage couldn't find any non-lowered aftermarket ones. £79 each plus VAT.

I now have a somewhat unwanted spare......

I didn't think the £100 charged for labour was unreasonable, I just think that they could have given me another year with those bushes.

For reference if you knew the spring spec (spring rate, un compressed length and internal diameter) then I can recommend DFaulkner for springs that are top quality and %of Eibach prices. Most off the shelf springs are c£30-40. I am having some specials made for my B12 (only special as I wanted a spring outside their normal range) for £80 ea.

If you clean up the old parts and take them to Hills Rubber Company in Reading, they would probably be able to fill them up with new rubber.
 Regards, John

Ah, a pair of OE springs as well as the shock absorbers makes a bit of difference.

Our Ypsilon has now clocked over 64k miles and we have just had another front suspension failure, I had not mentioned the previous near side strut top bearing failure at about 30k as I thought maybe it was a one off due to our very poor roads but no, it has happened again and the OSF was on its way out too so I had the pair replaced.  It is apparently quite a common failure, the garage I use now (Ignition Motorsport) have done a few S2 Ford KAs which use the same Fiat floor pan.
The fault appears as a bit of dull clonking as you turn the steering, which due to the car being very quiet normally, you will notice.
It is a job you could do yourself if you have a pair of spring compressors but I don't so I was happy to pass on this one.
The bearings are available from a local Factor, £19.48 each and then 3 hours labour.

The FIAT group cars seem to have a weakness in the springing department as our 2015 500C has had new front springs fitted under warranty and a rather elderly Stilo I ran a couple of years back ate front springs for fun. The problem I have found when replacing coil springs is you need to do them in pairs or even 4s depending on the setup as the old springs are usually a lot lower than the new ones resulting in an uneven ride. I changed the front springs and shocks on a Prisma a while back and the improvement in the braking department was illuminating to say the least.
Clarkey
Clarkey