Just tell me it will all be okay - ND2 Miata as a daily driver

In reply to Snrub :

I think you're right about the springs and shocks. The rear roll bar is supposedly thicker than the ND, not sure about the front. It seems the Classica wheels are the same dimensions as the ND Sport wheels 16x6.5. The Lusso and Abarth wheels are 17x7, same as the ND Club and GT. I am in no hurry since I have plenty of tread life left, but I will probably go to 205/50R15 when the time comes, and most likely a true street tire like Firestone Indy 500's, not a ridiculous 200TW autox-only tire. If I get the competitive CS bug, I would rather go all-out and have a dedicated set of 17x7 with autocross tires. Alignment is the low-hanging fruit right now.

For a car I really don't like the looks of, at least  that's really a great color. Glad you're enjoying it. 

Oh boy, my coolant disappeared after 3k miles! Noticed the tank was just below the "low" mark, so I topped it off with some distilled and will keep a closer eye on it. It took very little to go from L to H on the tank. This is typically a sign of the dreaded water pump issue that plagues this engine, according to the 124Spider forum, but I don't have the obvious tell-tale puddling under the car. I still have a year of warranty left, but hopefully it doesn't come to that. 

maschinenbau (I live here) said:

Oh boy, my coolant disappeared after 3k miles! Noticed the tank was just below the "low" mark, so I topped it off with some distilled and will keep a closer eye on it. It took very little to go from L to H on the tank. This is typically a sign of the dreaded water pump issue that plagues this engine, according to the 124Spider forum, but I don't have the obvious tell-tale puddling under the car. I still have a year of warranty left, but hopefully it doesn't come to that. 

Oh no! At least you have warranty. 

Coolant leaves nice white marks when it escapes and evaporates. You can also smell it. I'd be taking a really good look at the engine bay and sniffing the exhaust to make sure it's not getting into the combusition chamber if it's not leaking.

maschinenbau (I live here) said:

In reply to Snrub :

I think you're right about the springs and shocks. The rear roll bar is supposedly thicker than the ND, not sure about the front. It seems the Classica wheels are the same dimensions as the ND Sport wheels 16x6.5. The Lusso and Abarth wheels are 17x7, same as the ND Club and GT. I am in no hurry since I have plenty of tread life left, but I will probably go to 205/50R15 when the time comes, and most likely a true street tire like Firestone Indy 500's, not a ridiculous 200TW autox-only tire. If I get the competitive CS bug, I would rather go all-out and have a dedicated set of 17x7 with autocross tires. Alignment is the low-hanging fruit right now.

ND Miata has a 23mm front bar with a 2.4mm wall thickness. I think the Fiat Classica is the same. The rear bars are 11mm solids on the Miatas and 14mm solid on the Classica. I don't have Abarth numbers.

The Fiat has 100 lbs more weight on the front wheels than the Miata, so the stiffer rear may be there to help it rotate. Front weight percentage with a full tank and no occupants is 52.3% for an ND Club, 54.0% for a Fiat Classica. Fun fact, putting the top up and down moves about 0.3% on and off the rear wheels :)

Maybe it was a fluke, or maybe an incredibly slow leak somewhere? During cool-down after the next drive since topping off, it slurped down the expansion tank to L again and the turbo cooling pump sounded normal again. Presumably this means no more air in the system. So I topped it off again, this time with FL-22 concentrate to keep the total added mixture 1:1. A couple hundred miles and several cool-down cycles later, and the level hasn't budged at all. I'm thinking this is not the water pump issue, because everyone on the forum says the leak is very obvious and very dramatic. It is possible this tiny amount could have slowly leaked or burned out over the 3,000 miles I've driven, but that's not exactly a good thing either. I'll continue to keep an eye on it. 

In reply to maschinenbau (I live here) :

Nice looking car - in an ideal world a coolant system is pressurized and contained. Can you get a pressure tester on it? The coolant had to go somewhere, I'd be surprised that it would have air in the system on that new of a car unless they had to open up the coolant system before you got it? Have you looked up the service history? 

If it's still under warranty, I wouldn't touch it or bother adding coolant. Go to the dealer and ask them why your car is broken. 

Tom Suddard said:

If it's still under warranty, I wouldn't touch it or bother adding coolant. Go to the dealer and ask them why your car is broken. 

That's solid advice too.

Dealer appointment next week. Here's a timelapse of coolant tank loss, photographed only on a cold engine in the morning. I still can't find any coolant leaks, so hopefully the dealer can. This rate of loss roughly matches my experience of requiring two tank fill-ups after 3,000 miles. So it doesn't seem to be getting any worse, but it's always been happening.

4/9/21

4/13/21

4/21/21

Hopefully the dealer will find a cause and not just shrug it off saying "they all do that".  My 2006 MINI would slowly lose coolant from the plastic thermostat housing.  It would pool and evaporate from the transmission.  And indeed, they all did that.

In reply to JoeTR6 :

Some other 124 owners have had thermostats replaced instead of or in addition to water pump, for probably the same reason. I've also heard of dealers telling owners "they all do that". Which seems to be true...but doesn't mean it has to be that way.

Update from the dealer:

• They could not find any visible leaks or reproduce the issue of coolant loss over a few hundred miles (duh).
• Pressure tested the coolant system - no loss of pressure overnight.
• Checked oil for water contamination - no measurable coolant content in the oil.
• Recommendation from the tech: since no cause can be determined, they don't want to throw parts at it blindly. Advised to keep monitoring the coolant level and come back if it gets worse.
• Also learned the water pump had already been replaced once under warranty, but no leaks observed from it. The tray under the oil pan, which is known to pool from leaking pumps, was completely dry.

I'm relieved it's nothing terrible like a head gasket, block issue, or another water pump. But also a little disappointed that I will have to add coolant to an almost-new car every 1000 miles or so. If this is the "Fiat quirk" I have to live with, I'm okay with that and count myself lucky. I just wanted to rule out anything obvious that a trained technician could find. Warranty expires May 2022. The service manager commented that all these Fiats have coolant or water pump issues. They didn't seem thrilled about having another one show up, but I got the impression they gave it an honest effort.

I make absolutely no guarantees but, there is another OEM with mysterious coolant loss (as in, which of the many possible places is it leaving) that has their own flavor of cooling system sealant garbage.

In reply to maschinenbau :

Boooooooo. That sucks. I would expect some kind of online presence of this issue if it's so prevalent. 

Pretty much every new car since the early 2000s has a sealant in the coolant from the factory

In reply to accordionfolder :

Lots of 124 Spider owners on that forum swear a little coolant loss is normal on any car. Yeah maybe it is normal on a Fiat, but it's unacceptable in the 21st century. Some other owners claim no problems with coolant whatsoever, but the cars are so young and most of the owners put very few miles on them, that it's hard to get a good picture of the overall issue. 

In reply to maschinenbau :

Sorry you're dealing with it. That's crazy talk that "some coolant loss is normal" - I've been tracking my MS3 with the factory coolant and cooling system since I bought it at 8k miles and it has 70k miles today (good reminder it's due for a flush and swap...). But the coolant level has NEVER ever changed - and that's beating the living hell out of it on 100* days at Road Atlanta levels of abuse....

Do you want your sports car to have character or not? ;)

Maybe it's not going to be okay! Started hearing a nasty rattling noise from the engine and coolant temp started shooting up to 250. Waiting on AAA...

Well, on the bright side it will be hard for the dealer to say there is nothing wrong now.  

In reply to Sonic :

Exactly 2 weeks to the hour since the dealer said there's nothing wrong with the coolant system. 

Sorry to hear this. :(

I hope they can get to the bottom of this and you can go back to enjoying your very cool car.

Ugh. Good luck. I hope it's clear enough that the dealer will to have to fix it properly instead of just waving you away again.