Hi,
We've found ourselves in a situation in France...on a 4 month tour of Europe and our motorhome broke down in spectacular fashion on the autoroute last week - overheated, smoke, engine cut out. It's still running but sounding like a tractor. It's a 1998 Fiat Ducato 1.9 Turbo diesel engine with around 50,000 miles. We were towed to a local Fiat garage but they aren't interested in repairing the engine (or even diagnosing the problem properly), all they can/want to do is replace the engine with a brand new one. Which would of course solve the problem, only trouble is this would cost 6000 euros... I've spoken to a mechanic in the UK who assures me that it should be fixable.
We are now stranded in Arles (there are worse places to be...) and our breakdown cover is putting us up in a hotel but we are really struggling to find another mechanic nearby who will give us a second opinion. Have looked through the yellow pages and rung all the local garages but they are either not able to fix motorhomes, booked solid, affiliated with a brand other than fiat or off on holiday. Does anyone know of a mechanic in the Arles/Nimes/Avignon area who we could try? We have packed up our lives in the UK and are 1 month into our trip so really need to get it fixed out here rather than coming back to the UK.
thanks in advance!
We've found ourselves in a situation in France...on a 4 month tour of Europe and our motorhome broke down in spectacular fashion on the autoroute last week - overheated, smoke, engine cut out. It's still running but sounding like a tractor. It's a 1998 Fiat Ducato 1.9 Turbo diesel engine with around 50,000 miles. We were towed to a local Fiat garage but they aren't interested in repairing the engine (or even diagnosing the problem properly), all they can/want to do is replace the engine with a brand new one. Which would of course solve the problem, only trouble is this would cost 6000 euros... I've spoken to a mechanic in the UK who assures me that it should be fixable.
We are now stranded in Arles (there are worse places to be...) and our breakdown cover is putting us up in a hotel but we are really struggling to find another mechanic nearby who will give us a second opinion. Have looked through the yellow pages and rung all the local garages but they are either not able to fix motorhomes, booked solid, affiliated with a brand other than fiat or off on holiday. Does anyone know of a mechanic in the Arles/Nimes/Avignon area who we could try? We have packed up our lives in the UK and are 1 month into our trip so really need to get it fixed out here rather than coming back to the UK.
thanks in advance!