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What have you done to your 159/Brera/Spider today?

856K views 11K replies 922 participants last post by  gtv6sa 
#1 ·
Hi all,

This kind of thread works well on several other forums I use and often sparks some great discussions / ideas. Just post up what it is you've done and feel free to comment on others posts, but be nice :lol:

Today - tracking set to zero toe as recommended on here. Needed doing as it's taken the inside edges off the fronts.
 
#7,363 ·
Yupee!
My baby passed her MOT today only 3 advisories, 2 of which were my fault and sorted at the time.
When I sprayed the rear subframes it seems I got some over spray onto the callipers that caused them to stick ever so slightly. A quick strip and clean, good as new!
Just need to get a front driver side tyre at some point, I’ll replace both as they were fitted at the same time.
Well happy with her, flew passed her emissions didn’t even mention it.
 
#7,368 ·
After reading a few threads when looking for how to replace the foglights I came across the suggestion of 156 foglights, so purchased a pair a month ago.
When they arrived I got a mix of an old and a new.
But the lenses were still flat on both versions (in comparison to the 159's dimpled lense) so when fitted they look ok behind the bezel but on closer inspection didnt look right, IMHO. Hence swapping the lenses.
I've got to replace the other yet, so will put up a guide as the only one I could find was for replacing Brera foglights, which is a different process to 159's. [emoji16]


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#7,370 ·
I won't bother then!
Just thought it would be nice for people that may have just purchased a 159 ( like I had) and may need to replace the foglights (like I did) to find some kind of reference on a forum to help them.
Rather than just blindly trying to remove items of trim with no idea how they are attached and risk damaging their new car.
How naive of me to think owner forums were here to provide people help, guidance and advice.[emoji848]


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#7,377 ·
Does not sound like good advice. The fronts do most of the braking and all of the steering.....so thats where I want most grip in the rain. It's also a lot easier to control a bit of oversteer (which is very unlikely to happen on a front wheel drive car anyway) than it is to control a wildly understeering car as it aquaplanes into a hedge due to there not being enough tread depth to displace the water!

That said I usually do have that issue as I rotate my tyres front to rear regularly to even out the wear. That way I replace all my tyres as a complete set so they always match (too often I've not been able to get a pair of new tyres that match the others) and also the rears last ages in these cars...so old rear tyres might have lots of tread but they will be hardening over time and cracks will appear on the walls and between the tread blocks long before they wear out.
 
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#7,378 ·
I know my thoughts about putting good tires on the front are exactly the same because the disks and calipers (not sure if calipers is the right english word ) are way bigger compared to the backside.
But maybe they gave that advice to me because i have only 3mm left on the front side and the backside tires are allmost like new.
You rotate them regular so they ware evenly witch i never did but i dont think allot of poeple do that (like myself ) buying new front ones would be better in my situation but i am no expert so i have to take advice from poeple that know more then me.
But i dont really know if it was good advice but i trust the guy that gave it.
 
#7,379 ·
I’m with AlfaItalia here, the fronts do the driving and the steering so you really do need the tread on there. Plus you have the benefit of being able to change all four corners together - I’m wanting to swap my Pirelli’s for Michelin’s next time.


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#7,380 ·
Plus one for having the best tyres on the front! I'm in a slightly different position, it looks like the rears are wearing at the same rate as the fronts on the Q4. Winter tyres on now and the Summers are about to be replaced as all are down to 1mm off the wear markers across the treads front and rear, I'm just pondering buying them now or in March.... When I change wheels over I put them on the same corners they were on the last time they came off (back of the centre caps are marked OSF/NSF/OSR/NSR) so that any uneven wear that's down to alignment issues can be seen early.
Guy
 
#7,381 ·
im not surprised your Q4 wears evenly as I think a smidge over half the power goes to the rear.

I tend to just keep tyres where they are fitted and replace as needed. Likewise switching between summer and winter tyres I label them and refit to the same corner they came off.

With camber and toe being different front to back, and front tyres turning and wearing differently, I wouldn't like to move that wear pattern or 'set' in the tyre to a different corner....reckon it gives less than optimal traction and tyre-road contact. If a tyre has spent 5k miles settling and wearing in to its position and role and usage it seems odd to suddenly move it to a different corner where the stresses may be different and act differently on how the tyre has worn to that point.

You are also changing the direction the tyre has gotten used to rolling in if you swap from one side to the other.
 
#7,382 ·
Unless they are unidirectional tyres its makes no difference if they change rolling direction....its not the 60s with old crossplies! In fact many 4 wheel drive performance cars have to have their tyres regularly rotated to make sure tyre wear stays even so no undue force or wear is put on the centre dif due to the fronts rolling at a slightly different speed to the rears because of the change in rolling diameter as they wear. My WJ Grand Cherokee (hardly a performance car I know!!) is one of those cars....the viscous centre coupling can be worn out fast with mismatched sizes....so the hand book says a 3000 mile rotation interval with a pattern that switches from side to side, front to rear and includes the spare (so a new spare cannot be put on with three worn tyres). This of course means that the tyres change direction every 3000 miles or so! I'm sure this would not be allowed if it put any sort of undue strain on them.

This is the recommended tyre rotation guide stolen from a tyre retailer web site....they should know what they are talking about!!
 

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#7,387 ·
hmm, yes tyres can roll both ways if designed that way, i.e. assymetric tyres with an outside marking have to be able to roll both ways....but that doesn't change that a tyre rolling one way for 5000 miles will wear in a certain way and I cant see how it beneficial to then force it to roll the other way against how the tyre has settled into its role. Obviously with special cases you mentioned for differentials etc it may be different.

I had a real problem with my car wandering across the road, esp under breaking. Got new tyres and it was cured.
The bloke at the tyre place said not to put the rears on the front as it can alter the driving characteristics. The tyre has worn in a certain way, then you're changing that by putting it on the driven wheels. I told him about the wandering issue I had and said story checks out.
yep, which is what I was saying previously. Hence I just leave each tyure where its fitted and then replace when needed :)
 
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#7,383 ·
Gave the old girl a quick wash and chamois....shes done about 500 miles in the last week including two runs to Gatwick so she's earned it! Yes the weather is horrible and it won't stay clean long....but as I said to my neighbour, I don't think they are forecasting any showers of brake dust or road grime this week so she will look a little bit better for a while at least!
 

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#7,384 ·
I had a real problem with my car wandering across the road, esp under breaking. Got new tyres and it was cured.
The bloke at the tyre place said not to put the rears on the front as it can alter the driving characteristics. The tyre has worn in a certain way, then you're changing that by putting it on the driven wheels. I told him about the wandering issue I had and said story checks out.
 
#7,386 ·
As much as it may sound to go into natural thought to have the best thread on the front, rears following the dry trail of the front ones by nature, it’s still best to keep new or “better” threads at the rear end.

Once you turn into a bend however, the rears starts to go off from the front dry sweeped trail into the full wet and the car then might tend to oversteer unexpectedly due to suddenly having less grip. Therefore it better to have the lesser ones at the front, you will be warned earlier and will have more ways to control aquaplaning etc.

Yet, just for the same reasons as written above by Alfaitalia I also swap front and back each season. Otherwise one pair will “live” too long indeed and the wear/grip left is more evenly distributed. The only uneven pattern left is when you need to break the bank for 4 shiny new ones at a time.

What I never would do (anymore...) is rotating from left to right, even when they are non-directional. If a tyre has been rolling into a certain direction only for a long time and you would load it all the opposite direction under accelleration, braking and steering, it simply feels no good to me with all the internal layers being stressed into another direction. In old owner manuals though, there usually was this advice to cross them from time to time.
 
#7,388 ·
Did some re-painting on a 2nd hand engine cover , my son cracked my original one when I had it off working on the engine a few month's ago , wasn't an easy part to find a replacement for...I was never a massive fan of the silver cover so did the new one in black like the GQV instead and added a chrome oil cap...
 

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#7,389 ·
After a recent MOT, one of the advisories was wear to the inner front tyres?
So I purchased 2 new tyres with the view of fitting and getting the tracking checked.
On visiting the first garage, I was asked why am I replacing the front tyres? He even brought over their MOT tester to ask if in his opinion they should have been picked up as an advisory. His reply was that he wouldn’t have even mentioned it as there was, in his opinion, plenty of tread left on both.
So I put the tyres back in the car and for a second opinion took it to another fitting centre down the road, surprisingly they said exactly the same but added if I tracked the car I should get months out of the tyres fitted!
So, why are MOT testers opinions so different?
I know they will need changing at some point but rather than adding it as an advisory would it have not been better to just mention that there is slight wear and I may need to check the tracking ‘before’ it becomes an advisory?
 
#7,392 ·
Bored at work....so ordered a new oil filter, a new rear brake piston wind back tool and a new red cover for the starter button.....the colour it always should have been!! Pics when its fitted......and if its any good I will post the link of where I bought it....if not....I wont!!!
 
#7,394 ·
4 wheel alignment

Right, a question on tracking!
Not to go into detail but I’ve just had the Brera tracked again on these all singing all dancing machines......Results below.
He did say that he could not adjust the front camber? Something about elbows bending the wrong way!!??
Any comments on the ‘AFTER’ results.........?
 

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#7,395 ·
Right, a question on tracking!
Not to go into detail but I’ve just had the Brera tracked again on these all singing all dancing machines......Results below.
He did say that he could not adjust the front camber? Something about elbows bending the wrong way!!??
Any comments on the ‘AFTER’ results.........?
Correct, front camber is not adjustable.

If you have gone for the factory specifications (as it would be in their database) you will probably have no more inside shoulder on your fronts in less than 8k miles depending on what tyres you have

your rear camber should be adjustable though, and although is green on your print out the numbers don't seem to match up....

Also, I would have expected your camber reading before and after to change a bit more given they adjusted the toe quite a bit .....
 
#7,396 ·
Its not bad....but with modern machines Id like to have seen a bit more symmetry....that said we are talking tiny fractions of a degree. Should set the toe to zero though for max tyre wear (I prefer to see a touch of toe out so that's its straight under power when most tyre wear occurs) .
 
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#7,398 ·
Hi Larry,
I asked him to try and set everything to zero, these are the results he eventually achieved? This idea was based on a previous post and a copy of their tracking details.
What results would you have expected or what in your opinion should the results look like?
Cheers!
Well I would expect the rear camber to match what the database says as the rears don't tend to wear unevenly so no problem, plus the rear suspension setup allows a small amount of passive rear steering effect so I like to leave as per spec since there is not tyre wear trade-off.

Front toe I would ask for zero/parellel so would expect to see 0.0....it will show as 'out of spec' as it disagrees with the databse figures but thats OK.

Also as alfaitalia says you could ask for some slight toe out as his suggestion (I havent done and tyre wear has been good but I will ask them to adjust to a smidge of toe out next time - nothing like as much as factory spec though).

Front camber will be what it will be as it cant be changed anyway.

So in short, rear as per factory/database spec, and front toe to 0.0 or slight toe-out if thats your preference.
 
#7,401 ·
filled the washer fluid up, my word that's a big tank.
It is indeed. I've never managed to fill it to the top - I give up after about 3 jug fulls of diluted screenwash.
 
#7,405 ·
Watched in horror, disappointment and mild amusement as whilst sat in traffic outside Brockenhurst, a livestock trailer passed on the opposite side of the road, with a jet of liquid **** issuing from some animal contained within, which coated the offside wing, bonnet and wheel of my 159. :grumpy:

Thank god it was miserable out so the drivers window was shut.
 
#7,406 ·
Jump started it.

Ok it was cold out, but shouldn’t have mattered that much in a dry garage. And no journey of the last few days has been less than 20 miles, so i’d expect the battery to be charged. But it was tha classic symptom of a minimal-charge battery: the lights all come on bright as usual, the engine turned over lively enough, fired, ran for a second or two, then stopped. Tried again. Same again. Not at all sluggish, but just wouldn’t run.

So with son’s help, opened bonnets, connected jump leads, started wife’s car, then mine, disconnected leads, shut bonnets, and off we go.

This afternoon after work: what going to happen? What happened was it started and ran with no problem but engine light on. Called my friendly independent, but they seem to have had a quiet day and gone home. Local (unfriendly?) Fiat franchise said, yes of course sir: leave it with us a few days and we’ll read the codes for you. Thank you, but I’ll leave it for now.

159 is in the garage on trickle charge, and we’ll see how it goes in the morning. Best hope: it was a blip; it starts ok and ‘check engine’ goes out.
 
#7,412 ·
Further to yesterday’ non start:
Started this morning no problem,... and this afternoon after work. Only thing I can think of is that I hit the Start button before the glow plugs were fully warm. Maybe nothing to do with it, but I’m waiting a few seconds more, and it starts. Happy with that.
 
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