Fiat Comfortmatic Questions

DDJC

DDJC

Joined
Nov 22, 2018
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MH
Rimor Europeo 87
Exp
Seven years plus three tugging
Can't afford to get a new bus with a proper autobox, so we are sticking with comfortmatic. So far no problems, but we've only done 15,000 miles from new.

Couple of questions.

1 Why does the manual say you should never stop the engine or park it in neutral? Other than to prevent rolling way, that is.

2 Sometimes on halting, I get a slight smell of clutch occasionally, and for no reason, I can see. I don't drive mad, or accelerate quickly, or brake hard. How often should you get your comfortmatic checked over and fluid changed?

3 I was quoted "more than £10,000" to switch the comfortmatic to the 9 speed auto. Has anyone done it and if so, how much was it, and who did it?

Thanks in advance
 
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I’ve often wondered how difficult/expensive it is to convert it back to a manual box.
In theory, it’s just disconnect the actuators, fit a clutch pedal and gear stick linkage. Everything else is there.
 
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Jackd said:
I’ve often wondered how difficult/expensive it is to convert it back to a manual box.
In theory, it’s just disconnect the actuators, fit a clutch pedal and gear stick linkage. Everything else is there.
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Manual? Not for us! Or the future, come to that. Whether vehicles start using electricity or hydrogen, the manual gearbox is consigned to history!

Also Mrs DDJC has a couple of fused vertebrae following a lifting accident and can't use a manual.
 
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We had a comformatic on our 2019 Burstner. Not many miles as we bought it just before covid. When we did get away did about 8000 miles and had a couple of funny turns with the box.
Worst was when it threw up an error message on the motorway than would not select any gears at the exit roundabout. Left it a couple of minutes and it restarted and ran fine but we were never completely confident in it.
So, if we get another van it would be full auto.

I can’t see any reason not to stop or start it in neutral. It is only a manual box with robot changing.

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Mines coming up 43k and the comfortmatic works perfectly, although if anyone can suggest a competent place near Doncaster to have a fluid change I’d like to do that as a precaution and probably a calibration too👍
 
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Speve said:
For every reason on the forum there are probably ten that don’t have any problem no need to mistrust them just drive them correctly😊
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I agree that it’s only the problematic ones that get listed on here.
interesting to learn though, that people who have had problems are driving them incorrectly
 
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dunnah01 said:
The Comfortmatic is a great box and easy to sort out the gremlin if you go to the right person.
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Well you are correct other than it being a linkage not a box, l have had two MH’s with Comformatic one at 7.5t and worked fine,l did find you had to wait for the expectant change if you tried to push it hence the manual option on twisty climbs.
 
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Jackd said:
I agree that it’s only the problematic ones that get listed on here.
interesting to learn though, that people who have had problems are driving them incorrectly
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Drive mine like an old CAT dumptruck with powershift transmission 😁😁👌🏼

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Maybe in a few years when there's plenty of 9 speeds about we will start to hear more stories of problems with them, like I mentioned on another thread there's many many thousands of comfortmatics out there and as things get older you get more problems, just like clutch changes on manuals but there is that many clutch changes been done everyone's a expert but not so when it comes to the understanding of the comfortmatic and that's the main problem I believe is diagnosis.
 
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Littlewheels said:
Well you are correct other than it being a linkage not a box, l have had two MH’s with Comformatic one at 7.5t and worked fine,l did find you had to wait for the expectant change if you tried to push it hence the manual option on twisty climbs.
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F40 is a great box :LOL:
 
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Speve said:
For every reason on the forum there are probably ten that don’t have any problem no need to mistrust them just drive them correctly😊
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I was always respectful of the box and always let the systems initialise on startup. But I still had a couple of issues that self-righted in the end but would never trust one again.
 
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David and Sally said:
I was always respectful of the box and always let the systems initialise on startup. But I still had a couple of issues that self-righted in the end but would never trust one again.
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I think they are a bit like satnavs once they mess you around you loose faith in them but with a little patience and give them a bit of time they will sort themselves out however I never trust my sat nav😂😂
 
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We had a Comfortmatic box from new on a 5 tonne van and while it definitely has some faults it was a good bit of kit linked to the 3.0 litre 160 bhp Fiat engine (not like these horrible 2.3 things we have now ⚠️)
We had a few hiccups but nothing major.
One thing I learned was not to spin the wheels if stuck and I refused point blank to allow anyone to tow it .
It took me literally hours to dig the thing out , even had to dig a hole to get a jack under, but I eventually drove out where everyone else was towed 😂
We had another Comfortmatic that played up on a Iveco but luckily as we only ever use proper commercial truck workshops they had a gearbox specialist at the Sheffield main dealer so was quickly sorted.
I don’t think I would want to own any modern vehicle that’s not still under warranty, just had £4.5k brake repairs done on a brand new Fiat ⚠️
 
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Basildog said:
We had a Comfortmatic box from new on a 5 tonne van and while it definitely has some faults it was a good bit of kit linked to the 3.0 litre 160 bhp Fiat engine (not like these horrible 2.3 things we have now ⚠️)
We had a few hiccups but nothing major.
One thing I learned was not to spin the wheels if stuck and I refused point blank to allow anyone to tow it .
It took me literally hours to dig the thing out , even had to dig a hole to get a jack under, but I eventually drove out where everyone else was towed 😂
We had another Comfortmatic that played up on a Iveco but luckily as we only ever use proper commercial truck workshops they had a gearbox specialist at the Sheffield main dealer so was quickly sorted.
I don’t think I would want to own any modern vehicle that’s not still under warranty, just had £4.5k brake repairs done on a brand new Fiat ⚠️
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Wow £4500 for brake repairs on a brand new van, that’s incredible.
 
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What was incredible was them making the mistake of telling my wife that it wasn’t covered under warranty 😂⚠️

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Blimey, are you still flustered Charlie :rofl:

Edit: That’s cheating, removing the other two identical posts . 😋😋
 
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