Mate asked about a Sprint ST....

Very nice, old 1999 model, in red with full three-piece Triumph luggage
and only 27k on the clock. Seller, in Yorkshire, wanted £2k for it,
which I thought was a tad strong, but....

I asked him to check if it had had the recall for the fuel connectors,
and also if it had had the major 24k mile service done, because that is
the expensive one.

"How expensive?"

"At least £600, and could be as much as £800."

So he asked the buyer, who confirmed that it hadn't been serviced for
two years-plus, and that the last place that serviced it was a Benelli
dealer. Right, so it won't have had the 24k valves and FI checks, then.
But buyer would take £1800 - but definitely no less.

I advised him to call Carl Rosner and ask for a price simply on the
valves and the FI service, and nothing else (except, obviously the
necessary fuel and air filters). Brakes and fluids and stuff he can cope
with himself. That'll be £420, then.

So he left it. Watch out for the major service intervals when buying
used bikes, kiddies, because a lot of people flog the bikes just before
they're due and they can come as a serious wallet-masher.

 

That was always the reason why you could pick up Fiat 20v Coupes for
reasonable money a few years back - they were almost all due a cambelt
service, which was the thick end of a grand from a Fiat dealer at the
time.

 

Same applies to most of the Fiat / GM TDI's at 40K.

 

Rubbish.

They're not due a belt at that age, so the only thing that could be
expensive on them is glow plugs. Which are pretty much a given on a
diesel. (Even belts are cheap to do on those - specialists will do it
for around £200.

Other than that, I can't see why that service would be expensive. It
certainly isn't at an Alfa dealer - are GM dealers making up some
extra requirement to bump up costs?

(Just checked - Alfa Workshop want £220 for a 48k service on a JTD, or
£155 for a 36k service, even a cambelt service at 72k is under 500
quid)

 

Due or not, lots have failed.

See above, a lot of people are now recommending new belt + water pump
around 40K, as a preventative measure.

 

1 link!?

I tend to trust the advice of Jamie at Alfa Workshop [1] - if he changes
his intervals, you can be sure that's when you need to do it.

If he reckons they're good for the mileage, then I'd trust that it's the
case, at least for the engines built by Fiat Powertrain. Can't comment
on those built by GM, which do appear to have a poor reputation.

[1] Not used him myself, but he has a good reputation, and Catman speaks
highly of him.

 

No there are plenty over the following pages, lots of vauxhalls have
suffered from it too.

I'd lumped all of them together as it's the same engine, so a flaw in
the design.

 

I had a look, most of them only come up because of the search terms and
are nothing to do with the 1.9JTD - many of them are links to 2.2TiD
issues.

Or shite parts being fitted by GM to the engines built in their plants,
given that the ones bolted together by Fiat Powertrain don't have such
issues.

 

I think most of it is down to shite water pumps to be fair.

 

Probably different suppliers.

What's the odds that it's a Bosch pump causing the issues.....