Measure the distance from the ground to the top of the wheel arch, if it's still out, back to dealer with tape measure, show them and get them to fix it?
Technical Large Wheel Gap Difference between near and offside rear
- Thread starter carpetmankent
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Technical Large Wheel Gap Difference between near and offside rear
Good point, but the spring pitches between coils are completely different!Rear Shock Absorber Thrust Ring 46843237
www.shop4parts.co.uk
Does it have one of those on the top of each spring?
Edited: to remove abiguity (I hope).
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Given how new the car is there's no reason that any of it would have been taken apart, and I can't believe it would leave the factory like that?
And are everywhere!!!
The pics are taken at different angles, but the nearside spring pan looks lower on the beam than the offside. If that is the case, it needs to be determined which is correct, to help assess why they are different.
There are lots of 500s about. Any car park will yield a comparison vehicle, and standing next to one with a tape measure is easy. Could also take an 'upskirt' pic to see the spring pans.
If the dealer is a Fiat dealer, when you return, park next to another 500.
There are lots of 500s about. Any car park will yield a comparison vehicle, and standing next to one with a tape measure is easy. Could also take an 'upskirt' pic to see the spring pans.
If the dealer is a Fiat dealer, when you return, park next to another 500.
And that could either be because the beam is bent, or because one of the springs is damaged or incorrect.
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
Great thought. May have been left off when built.Rear Shock Absorber Thrust Ring 46843237
Does it have one of those on the top of each spring?
Cornish Ian
Member
If the front gaps are the same and the drive is flat then that means the body is twisting 6cm.
Actually that's something none of us have thought of yet.
It's certainly possible that the bodyshell itself is distorted, which would almost certainly mean it's been crashed.
This needs looking at by someone who knows what they're doing. Once again, folks in bodyshops deal with this sort of thing every day.
Cornish Ian
Member
Agreed.
As I see it there could be three reasons for the 6 cm difference.
1 The drive is not flat. That could be simply checked by looking across two straightedges where the wheels sit.
2 A suspension problem (would need the body to flex 60 mm if the front was level and drive flat)
Front opposite corner should be slightly low but I would be amazed and very disappointed if a modern shell flexed that amount.
3 The body shell is permanently twisted.
My money is still on the drive or perhaps a combination of two or even three of the above.
If you have axle stands and tools I would do this.
It's surprisingly easy to remove the rear springs. No need for compressors, remove the lower shocker bolt each side, the axle swings down and the springs fall out.
There's a good guide on here showing the correct procedure, as always only get under a car if you know it's safe.
Whilst I agree the onus is on the dealer to sort out any issues, it doesn't sound like they're interested, and I would want to know what's going on. This is the easiest thing to check.
Oh and as Cornish Ian says, confirm ground is flat and level.
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Respectfully, not sure I agree.
Yes the pics are taken from slightly different angles, but on the right the damper is significantly more compressed and the bump stop is closer to the spring pan.
Which to me indicates either shorter/broken spring, missing spring cushion, or axle is bent (provided ground is level and nothing heavy in that corner of the car).
What has changed is they’ve now deleted the anti-roll bar that was installed from around 2009 on the rear beam to give the roll stiffness. It seems to coincide with introduction of the hybrid engine model.
I’m assuming they have engineered enough stiffness into the rear beam and changed the springs and dampers again for the driving experience not to be significantly altered.
Or perhaps a cost cutting exercise on what will be runout production on this generation of 500.
Hmmm... the top and bottom of the dampers are held fixed so with identical springs, correctly mounted against the spring stops, the dampers would be identically compressed.
But the right hand spring and damper seem to be more compressed than the left... although not by 6cm.
The things to measure would be the damper length and the height of each spring pan above the ground.
The damper length will confirm whether there is a spring problem and the spring pan height would confirm whether there is an axle problem.
It's very unlikely that they fitted the wrong springs.. all parts these days arrive at the assembly point via bar-codes... although if it's a second-hand car, it might have had a repair and a non-OE spec' spring fitted. However the springs seem to be OE and also have the same colour codes on them, so I think they're legit.
I also don't think the beam can be twisted... even by jacking the car up using the beam. I've done it, as an emergency measure and the beam is the proverbial brick sh&t-house... it doesn't even groan, never mind bend out of shape.
You could just remove the springs (easy to do) and then replace them (swap car sides maybe) just see whether re-seating them solves the problem... but in any case, once they're both out, you can compare lengths. Springs (even matching pairs) are quite often different.
I would also discount that the body isn't "true"... that's just not possible on a drama-free vehicle.. it wouldn't fit on the jigs when they manufacture it.
Ralf S.
On my (new from the factory) Stilo MultiWagon JTD someone managed to get painted doorhandles (as they should be) on one side of the car and unpainted ones on the other side...
gr J
Lounge lizard
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Could it have had a replacement damper one side that is not an exact match, or one is seized (have known of this before) and holding things out of kilter.
The rear dampers do seem short lived. Worn bush being common MOT advisory/failure...
The rear dampers do seem short lived. Worn bush being common MOT advisory/failure...
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