General A crack in the dashboard

[Gagan]

My Fiat500 Lounge was bought in 2014. Its 4 Years and few months old. It developed a crack about 2 months ago. Fiat is only covering for 30% of parts and I have quoted overall $3000 by the dealership for 70% of parts and Labour... its shocking !!

 

[Gagan]

Yes, it has happened to my Fiat500 in Australia

 

[PuntoHowTo]

It’s worth noting this is not just a fiat problem, many manufacturers have the same issues including ford, Mazda and even expensive cars like Lexus.

The problem is the whole dash has to be replaced as will the air bag it’s self. The airbag will cost in the region of £500 from the dealer and the dashboard will be hundreds if not over £1000.

The issue with the cost is the amount of time taken, it takes hours and hours to carefully strip an entire dash out and remove all the parts from the dash, transfer them to the new one and put it all back together.

 

[Rsidky]

I actually just googles this issue bc I am having the same probably with my car Fiat 500. I am sure the dealer will give me **** about this especially being that I am In Cairo and the customer service isn't the best.. Any Ideas on how i can get them to change it for me?

 

[puntodad19]

For the uk, would that be an MOT fail??

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Most likely not, these are not normally cracks as described but a bulge along the line of the built in weak spots which allow the airbag to burst through the dash. Even if it were slightly cracked it would still likely be fine. Maybe an advisory.

Also the worst effected cars live in very hot climates way hotter than we get here in the U.K.

 

[badboy20cm]

Hy, how i remove the airbag? or dashboard, something is rong there and pus up.

 

[bebius]

Any kind of solution for the issue?

 

[varesecrazy]

Any kind of solution for the issue?

Ship it to the UK..

The sun isnt strong enough to warm your body.. so no danger of cracking your dashboard

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Any kind of solution for the issue?

Replace the dash/steering wheel airbags if it happens

 

[bebius]

Replace the dash/steering wheel airbags if it happens

It's the dashboard that's opened up at the airbag area on the passenger's side.

 

[varesecrazy]

It's the dashboard that's opened up at the airbag area on the passenger's side.

Cracked:split..?

Or just distorted out of shape?

 

[bebius]

Cracked:split..?

Or just distorted out of shape?

The airbag cap has been split from the rest of the dashboard on its top long side.

 

[cebixd]

Hello everyone.

I own a Punto Evo 2010 and I would like to share a small story with everyone, which after will result in a small question.

A few months ago I noticed there was a crack in my dashboard, on the cover of the passenger air bag. You could see the air bag area was a bit inflated and that a crack had appeared on the top.
After 3.5 months of fighting with the official Fiat importer here in Israel, they replaced my dashboard free of charge.
There was one other guy before who had done this, also free of charge, to his Fiat 500.

While i was fighting with them, i started a topic in a major car forum in Israel, only to find out that me and the first are not alone, not alone at all!
We had people commenting about their Fiat cars from various years, and all of them stated they have the same problem.
Eventually, I started looking at Fiat's for sale online, looked at pictures, and on alot of the cars, the dashboard was inflated.
I also started looking into Fiat's while walking the street, and I could barely find 1 Fiat that *DIDN'T* have a cracked or inflated dashboard.
I started looking at other cars made by Fiat, such as Alfa Romeo.
By now I wasn't surprised to see that in the Giulietta the dashboard was inflated as well.
Its important to mention that all the cars that I saw that had inflated or cracked dashboards were 2 years old and older, so my guess is that this issue is age related.

I contacted Fiat's Customer Service by E-Mail, and the bottom line of what they said was that this is not a major issue and that they don't really care. They sent me to deal with the company who imports Fiat's to Israel, which i did of course, and the end result of this story has already been written in the first few lines of this post.

So this is my story, and now to my question.

Has anyone heard of such an issue somewhere else in the world?
I am interested in knowing if we are the only country who suffers from such an issue or is this a global issue?
I uploaded 2 images so you can see what i'm talking about. One of the pictures is my car, and the other one is a Fiat 500 owned by one of the people who commented in the topic i started in the Israeli car forum i mentioned previously.

Thanks in advance!

Hello everyone.

I own a Punto Evo 2010 and I would like to share a small story with everyone, which after will result in a small question.

A few months ago I noticed there was a crack in my dashboard, on the cover of the passenger air bag. You could see the air bag area was a bit inflated and that a crack had appeared on the top.
After 3.5 months of fighting with the official Fiat importer here in Israel, they replaced my dashboard free of charge.
There was one other guy before who had done this, also free of charge, to his Fiat 500.

While i was fighting with them, i started a topic in a major car forum in Israel, only to find out that me and the first are not alone, not alone at all!
We had people commenting about their Fiat cars from various years, and all of them stated they have the same problem.
Eventually, I started looking at Fiat's for sale online, looked at pictures, and on alot of the cars, the dashboard was inflated.
I also started looking into Fiat's while walking the street, and I could barely find 1 Fiat that *DIDN'T* have a cracked or inflated dashboard.
I started looking at other cars made by Fiat, such as Alfa Romeo.
By now I wasn't surprised to see that in the Giulietta the dashboard was inflated as well.
Its important to mention that all the cars that I saw that had inflated or cracked dashboards were 2 years old and older, so my guess is that this issue is age related.

I contacted Fiat's Customer Service by E-Mail, and the bottom line of what they said was that this is not a major issue and that they don't really care. They sent me to deal with the company who imports Fiat's to Israel, which i did of course, and the end result of this story has already been written in the first few lines of this post.

So this is my story, and now to my question.

Has anyone heard of such an issue somewhere else in the world?
I am interested in knowing if we are the only country who suffers from such an issue or is this a global issue?
I uploaded 2 images so you can see what i'm talking about. One of the pictures is my car, and the other one is a Fiat 500 owned by one of the people who commented in the topic i started in the Israeli car forum i mentioned previously.

Thanks in advance!

Same car, same problem

 

[Asteris]

Solution #1

Solution #2

 

[Gypsy Chick]

AUSTRALIA : I plan to buy a Fiat 500 in the next week or so. All the ones that I have viewed to date have the dashboard crack. I have checked the ACCC website but could find nothing relevant. Is there anything new to report?

 

[Bambolina]

Ship it to the UK..

The sun isnt strong enough to warm your body.. so no danger of cracking your dashboard

My Fiat 500 dashboard has just cracked and bulged and I’m in the UK. I bought my 500 Cult as new in 2014 and presume there won’t be much help from the dealer in getting it fixed?

I’ve seen the option of covering the crack with a mat which covers the eye sore but is the car safe? Is the airbag trying to inflate? I have images of the pilot in the Airplane movies suddenly inflating…

Thank you.

 

[The Panda Nut]

Thanks a lot AndyRkett. I contacted the local dealer and arranged to take the car next week to them. They will fill a claim to Fiat. They are not optimistic since the car is more than 5 years old.

Point out that non functioning nad potentially faulty safety equipment is topic that I and I am sure many many others would be very interested in seeing pursued. It is a legitimate topic of pulic interest. Failure of reputation worldwide on such a basic safety issue is something I think they would do well to address promptly or questions regarding the overall safety and therefore fitness for sale ay all, of their cars worldwide must be in serious question!!!