Purley Way retail traffic and the Fiat Dualogic gearbox
Anyone who has tried to reach the retail parks on a Saturday knows how the traffic backs up from the A23 Purley Way onto the approach roads around Beddington Corner. For a Fiat 500, Panda or Punto with the Dualogic automated manual gearbox, every creep forward in that queue means the hydraulic unit engaging the clutch for you. The pump, accumulator and actuator do a lot of work, and so does the clutch, which is why these cars tend to show their gearbox faults in exactly this kind of driving.
The signs are fairly consistent: a beep, a flashing gear display, slow changes, or the car refusing to select a gear and sitting in neutral. We diagnose before replacing parts, reading the gearbox control unit, checking the hydraulic pressure and fluid level, and looking at clutch wear values. Some faults are fixed with a calibration. Others need a pump, accumulator or clutch, and a clutch replacement must always be followed by a calibration or the car will not pull away cleanly.
Away from Purley Way, the quieter streets around St Mary's Church and the Carew Manor dovecote are more typical of how Beddington's Fiats are used: short, local trips. That brings the 1.2 Fire engine's timing belt into focus. It gives no warning before failing, and on a car that does a few thousand miles a year it often reaches its age limit well before its mileage limit, so we check the records carefully. If there is no invoice or sticker to show it has been done, we treat it as due.
Every job outside the scheduled service is quoted in writing before we start, and repairs carry a 3-month workmanship warranty. If your Dualogic has stuck in neutral on the way back from the shops, collection and delivery can be arranged. Otherwise, the 1.6-mile drive along Croydon Road and up London Road is about as short as a trip to a garage gets.