Rossocorsa

Hi They absolutely tried to sell the cars as from Detroit, perhaps you didn't see the tv ads? Fiat absorbed Lancia in 1969, the early cars beta, thema and delta had considerable independent design, from the dedra onwards and roughly coinciding with the absorption of alfa they started using shared platforms. From this point on it all got a bit confused they seemed unable to balance the different premium brands and spent so much time/money promoting alfa that they forgot Lancia was still there letting it fade outside of Italy. I think it would have been better to curtail Lancia without rebadging chrysler as Lancia and Lancia as chrysler. selling rather second rate American cars as Lancia in Europe was never going to work, the same applies to delta, if you couldn't promote the italian flavour of the car it stood no chance as it is very eccentric, this was further clouded by the premium list pricing combined with Chryslers cheap and nasty image. I'm not saying they should have brought delta in as a Lancia rather that if they felt they could only use the chrysler badge maybe they shouldn't have bothered at all? Lancia is now down to just the ypsilon and presumably that will be run down and not directly replaced, I will be glad if they let the brand go to be honest.

Are you sure that the key doesn't fit the lock? Because the locks are hardly ever used they can be stiff.

On my car someone has put black felt pads on the seat belt clips presumably because they were rubbing on the seat or console

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6upff7q1dgiof41/AABlESOX90pvF4kw9wNWZxNDa?dl=0

The footrest thing doesn't bother me now my feet have clearly got used to it although I do only wear size 8 so night do bad for me. The issue about a rest is I think to do with the air con and pollen filter, there is probably enough space to redesign it with one but it would make this very difficult to access, as said not much thought put in at initial design stage about RHD or they would have arranged it differently. Sad really as Lancia used to pay a lot if attention to it even swapping round the column stalks up to the Beta.

The marketing disaster of chrysler was always that the biggest selling point is italian design, how do you explain that when the ad men were trying to claim it originated in Detroit? Why buy a delta over a Giulietta? The more innovative but subtle Lancia style, the over fussy alfa interior details (dash looks like an accident), lashings more delta interior space and delta is £4 to 5 k cheaper second hand ......the final one rather clinches it! And who cares about cup holders, love the cooled armrest in summer though great for cans of pop!

I don't find the seat base too bad but the driving position takes a bit of adapting to, having had fulvias, 2000HF, prisma, Dedra turbo, Delta HF HPE etc. I am used to sitting quite low and long armed in an Italian car but found I need to sit a tad higher also the pedal layout is cranky I set the seat so that I can only just fully depress the clutch with tiptoe and find that fine ( the clutch disengages way before the end of travel anyway). Stuart's lhd 1.9 twin turbo doesn't seem to suffer so the pedals are a RHD thing.

If anyone is looking for a S momo design this looks a good buy http://usedcars.chrysler.co.uk/chrysler-delta/chrysler-delta--horsham-201412059462822?link=%2Fchrysler-delta Same place I bought my limited from back in early 2013, much more pro active than most dealers

The leather probably isn't worth the bother unless you can get the dash and centre console with the leather cover. Not sure if the leather option on cheaper models is poltrona frau or not. It certainly doesn't have the executive rear seat although in some ways that isn't a bad thing my back seat is too thick to fold properly and it doesn't have the slide function, if you do have rear seat passengers it is a lot more comfy than the rather flat standard issue seat though.

They adopted mopar as the official parts distribution, another nail in the Italian coffin

Do they have delta logo on? Mine do and came with mopar part number on bag, not super posh but look ok to me

There was a delta 1.6 auto for sale in hull with full leather

Yeah seen that before, he was very over optimistic the sales figures in Ireland turned out to be minuscule barely into two figures if I remember right. The UK in comparison did not too bad in the first full year of sales then fell off a cliff. The very negative press reviews I the UK probably didn't help and to be fair you'd have to be fairly eccentric to buy one but who wants to follow the herd?

It's not odd it's true! Check your handbook or alternatively have a look on eper at the parts....

re 18 inch wheels Deltas (and bravos) fitted with 18s at the factory have a different body code and a reduced travel rack, I am not sure if there are any other differences or not. Check your handbook on wheel sizes

With regard to wheels I think the momo design (bravo) ones are a bad fit for the design, most of the original alloys incorporate Lancia shield motifs which I find appropriate. Retro fitting 18 inch wheels isn't ideal as cars originally fitted with 18s have a different rack with restricted lock to avoid tyre scrubbing at extreme lock.

Pity that multiecuscan can't do it, I'm sure it is probably really easy to do but don't have a friendly local dealer that can do it. I might email the dealer I bought my car from, they seemed quite friendly but they are down south of London (I went a long way to buy a limited!) so it's not practical to go there

Just ordered airbag and grille, just hope try are ok when they arrive. Now does anyone know if dealers can change the sat nav splash screen?

You've done well with the airbag, haven't checked but I was under the impression that it might be possible to just replace the cover even though it is only supplied complete as a spare part(?) I think the black grille might be a good compromise on my car , same colour as yours, as it will blend in more. Did it come complete with badge?

Black grille looks great I reckon I'll have to fit one, did you have to take the bumper off or not to fit? Do you have any leads on cheap airbag covers really bugs me staring at that badge when driving.........

No not really, tbh it's just my day to day car I hardly ever wash it let alone pamper it. A few bits n bobs might be nice if cheap but I think nello must have spent the time to surf eBay and snap them all up!

The biggest problem of course is no car is ever really fast enough.....

They are fine especially for 20 quid, haven't fitted them yet I just thought a spare set would be handy if I keep the car a while

Trouble is there is constant pressure on emissions so maybe the old 5cylinder was well just getting too old, of course a lot of this emission stuff is nonsense, for instance stop start tech hardly saves a drop in the real world but reduces official CO2 figures so it's being adopted a lot. DPF is a good idea don't often see lots of smoke coming out of moderns because of them but it does cause headaches when adding tuning boxes and the like as regens may become too frequent. Good idea to use multiecuscan to watch the cycles and make sure the box isn't set too high for the type of use. Not sure about Marchione he does seem to have at least temporarily turned the business around but in doing so he has destroyed a key brand, I never believed that Lancia has no brand recognition out of Italy with the right product there was surely a profit to be made, with platform sharing and computerised factories your don't need to make huge volumes to make a profit. My son in law has a LHD Delta with the 190ps 1905cc twin turbo motor by the way, that should make you even more envious!

One thing you will get is better low end response compared to a limited as I suspect fuelling is deliberately restricted to help emissions giving a flat feel off boost. Is it a tuning box connected to fuel rail and map sensor or a pre loaded map via the obd2 socket? Somewhat different approaches