Sunday, June 12, 2016

FIAT Abarth Receives Major Update!

We have unofficial results from today's South Carolina Region autocross held in Darlington, and NMS is happy to say that Jason Rucker in the NMS Miata took FIRST PAX and Brian Nixon in the NMS Miata took 4th PAX out of all 53 drivers today! Congrats guys, great job in the over 100 degree heat!
New Battery

So, we've been blogging along and describing our autocross battles, working on the cars and improving various components, installing roll bars, upgrading wheels and tires, attending autocross driving schools, and basically doing everything we can to legally make the cars go faster. The other day Brian posted about installing a new muffler, and a new battery. His previous battery was still pretty new, so he got it replaced for free under warranty. Up north here, last week, I  made one more improvement to the FIAT that I'm going to reveal here, and you just never know how fast the car will go now.

About two weeks ago my car didn't want to start right away one morning, and in fact it told me in a dashboard message that the coolant temperature was too hot. Hmmm. Funny. How in the world would the coolant temp be too hot first thing in the morning? Now, I'll admit that after living in places like Oklahoma, Texas, and South Carolina, that the old garage can get mighty dang hot in the summer, but this wasn't anything like that! My guess was that there was some other issue with the car.  After waiting a few minutes, and checking that the battery connection under the hood was OK, the car started right up.

Fast forward a few days after that, and the car didn't start at all. Battery dead. Long story short, I took it to my local FIAT "studio", what most brands refer to as a "dealer", and had them check it out. Believe it or not, yes, the battery was dead, and the good news was that it was still covered under it's own little FIAT battery warranty! JACKPOT! A free car repair, complete with new battery, at exactly NO CHARGE! (get it, no "charge"?).

Anyway, that's my tale, so now I'm expecting the Abarth just might have another bit of power, and I will definitely defeat Brian in his Miata at the next autocross here on June 19th.

Oh, and one other lucky part of this story, was that one of the times that the car stalled out due to the battery, Michael and I pushed it to the side of the road and were going to get his truck to jump start it, but right then behind us was a friendly AAA guy! He jump started it for free, we told him thanks, and we went on our merry way to the FIAT studio. I'm not winning any big lotteries, so you can tell all my good luck has been used up with the AAA guy and the free battery!

Two free batteries for NMS in the same week. Go figure.

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