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General Twin air lounge 500

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General Twin air lounge 500

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Unimpressed

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Have had this car since June 2012 Since then the stop start has not worked properly. I have been told by the dealers a variety of things as to why it is not working: the radio was on, the heating was on, windscreen wipers and radio on phone is charging and various other reason the latest being it will only work if you coast while driving. Has anyone else experienced this. The car has been back to dealers on a least 12 occasions and still no clue as to what is causing it. Dealers now say there are problems but fiat tell me that there are no problems
 
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scout500 said:
Mine is three months old and will stop/start even before the car is warmed up :eek:
Click to expand...

I am lucky if it works at all the dealer I purchased the car from even told me when I complained that I couldn't, expect it to work until I had driven 7miles or more !
 
Stop start is a fickle fiend,

most cars need to be warmed up, the external temperature needs to be above a certain point the battery needs to be in a certain state etc etc

however, a 500 should still stop start with the air con on, and with the radio on, a good friend of mine has a 500 lounge and has no issues at all with the system but i have heard a few storied similar to yours where the system won't work and the dealers are not interested
 
On Top Gear last year, Clarkson was talking to a guest about Stop/Start and said you don't need it, you just turn the key off, and then back on again. I can remember my Dad doing that years ago if in a heavy queue of traffic, and this was when petrol was valued at pence (d) per gallon. But, the argument against this, and the reason he stopped doing it was the wear and tear on the battery.

As a kid I can remember him having a Ford Consul (must have been early '60s) and going to see the illuminations in Blackpool. On the Preston By-Pass (M6 to you sunshine) at 60 - 70 the wipers were like things posessed sweeping back and forth across the screen as if they were on speed. Conversely, as we trundled along the Front at 5 mph they almost stopped.

Although cars now have alternators, if Stop/Start worked from the moment you started the engine, and with heater, HRW, wipers, lights and stereo working, the battery wouldn't last long. Plus, the Catalyst needs to be at a certain temperature in order to work as designed. If the engine kept switching off it would never reach that optimum temperature.

So I think it's only reasonable that (a) the engine is up to temp. and (b) that the load on the battery isn't too large or it wouldn't last long.

I hired a Punto Evo MJ a couple of years ago in Italy, and even in ambient temperatures in the high 70s to mid 80s F it took a few miles before Stop/Start would operate, and then you had to put the gearlever in neutral. There would obviously have to be a few seconds between selecting neutral and letting the clutch up to allow for the possibility of you needing to move off again straight away.
 
Odd I had a twin air plus as a courtesy car last year and the stop start wouldn't bloody stop working. It no fuel in it according to the gauges or trip pulled up at the first set of lights 30 seconds from the garage in neutral clutch up and it died. Started bricking it cos I thought had no petrol but restarted when I pressed clutch in.

Has got all the latest versions of the software and a good battery?
 
AndyRKett said:
Stop start is a fickle fiend,

most cars need to be warmed up, the external temperature needs to be above a certain point the battery needs to be in a certain state etc etc

however, a 500 should still stop start with the air con on, and with the radio on, a good friend of mine has a 500 lounge and has no issues at all with the system but i have heard a few storied similar to yours where the system won't work and the dealers are not interested
Click to expand...

Coolant temp above around 60 deg. External temp above -23 (particularly the battery, as the IBS has a temp sensor within).

If your car has ATC, the difference between temp set point and the actual interior temp cannot be greater than +- 4 deg, as this will inhibit stop/start.

On the 'older' BCU software (pre Jan 2013), if the wipers are on full speed, or the HRW is on, the stop/start is inhibited. The way you can know the 'new' software is installed is by disabling stop/start and then turning the ignition off, if you then find you have to disable it again when you turn the ignition back on, you're on the old software.
 
Unimpressed said:
Have had this car since June 2012 Since then the stop start has not worked properly. I have been told by the dealers a variety of things as to why it is not working: the radio was on, the heating was on, windscreen wipers and radio on phone is charging and various other reason the latest being it will only work if you coast while driving. Has anyone else experienced this. The car has been back to dealers on a least 12 occasions and still no clue as to what is causing it. Dealers now say there are problems but fiat tell me that there are no problems
Click to expand...

There's a huge thread on this subject & I don't want to duplicate what's there; suffice it to say that for the system to work correctly, all the sensors need to be adjusted within limits & the battery must be adequately charged & in good condition.

If it's not working now, it's unlikely that the software update alone will fix it; the root cause of the problem needs to be properly diagnosed & sorted. There are many 500's on here with correctly working S/S systems, both with & without the update; my best suggestion with a car under warranty is to keep badgering FIAT until it's properly fixed.
 
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scout500 said:
Mine is three months old and will stop/start even before the car is warmed up :eek:
Click to expand...

Same.

The other day I started her drove 200 yards down the road with climate on full (was a hot day), Interscope sound system on 24, iPhone charging and 1 notch on the temperature gauge. Start stop worked flawlessly. 1 month old twin air lounge.
 
jrkitching said:
There's a huge thread on this subject & I don't want to duplicate what's there; suffice it to say that for the system to work correctly, all the sensors need to be adjusted within limits & the battery must be adequately charged & in good condition.

If it's not working now, it's unlikely that the software update alone will fix it; the root cause of the problem needs to be properly diagnosed & sorted. There are many 500's on here with correctly working S/S systems, both with & without the update; my best suggestion with a car under warranty is to keep badgering FIAT until it's properly fixed.
Click to expand...

He makes a solid point, and I will go out on a limb here and say I'm 99% sure your problems will be related to insufficient battery charge from day one. When the car is PDId, the battery must be bench charged with a smart charger to at least 80% of capacity before the IBS is reset (by being disconnected). Otherwise, the calculations about battery state are hopeless, and the system won't work. And don't think the alternator will recharge the battery - it won't, and can't due to the way it senses system voltage (and/or is 'guided' by the EMS). All an alternator does on a modern car is run the electrical system when the engine started and running, responding to those demands.

That said, if the battery has a fault, these issues will appear also.
 
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bgunn said:
He makes a solid point, and I will go out on a limb here and say I'm 99% sure your problems will be related to insufficient battery charge from day one.
Click to expand...

And the problem would be more common if it were not for the car's popularity. If new cars are left standing for months before delivery, the battery will quite likely be ruined unless it is fully charged and disconnected before storing the car. At least most 500's are delivered to customers within a month of leaving the factory.
 
jrkitching said:
And the problem would be more common if it were not for the car's popularity. If new cars are left standing for months before delivery, the battery will quite likely be ruined unless it is fully charged and disconnected before storing the car. At least most 500's are delivered to customers within a month of leaving the factory.
Click to expand...

Mine was standing/ in transit for 7+ months and S/S works fine.
 
The Start-Stop on my Parents 12 plate TwinAir Lounge works fine. Occasionally it'll stop and if I've not re-started it after a few minutes it'll beep and say Start & Stop Unavailable, but on the whole it's fine.

My Parents always de-activate Start-Stop but I leave it switched on. However, i'll not let it kick in until a few minutes of gentle driving if I've been on a 70mph run, because I don't think it'll do the turbo any good long term if the engine cuts out straight after a fast run.

Last weekend I took it to London and had it switched on, it cut out at some lights so I thought i'd test the theory about it being linked to the Climate Control - I switched the CC temp up a few degrees and the car re-started automatically, which I thought was really smart and confirms that if the cabin temp is more than a few degrees away from that on the climate control selector, the Start-Stop won't cut in. So definitely no issues here. I'd take issue with an earlier post that Start-Stop should work with the AirCon on. Given that when AirCon is running, most cars will activate the engine fan (at least intermittently) I couldn't expect a battery the size of the 500s supporting the AirCon compressor and the engine fan without getting any charge from the engine, so don't expect it to cut out in this situation.

However, I will say that taking a car back to a dealer 12 times just because the Start-Stop isn't working seems borderline obsessive, and I suffer from fully diagnosed OCD! If the engine was hanging off its mounts I could understand, but it seems like the car essentially works fine, it's just the Start-Stop that doesn't cut in. It saves negligible fuel in most situations & to me seems to be fitted to cars just to satisfy the EU leaf-munching, tree hugging brigade, so I really wouldn't be getting that anxious about it. The only thing i'd do, since the dealer is obviously a bit clueless, is request the battery is replaced under warranty & see if that works. If it doesn't i'd just forget about it. If it does work then happy days, but I would hope that after 12 visits either yourself or the dealer would've thought about a new battery anyway.
 
JTD_Liam said:
I'd take issue with an earlier post that Start-Stop should work with the AirCon on. Given that when AirCon is running, most cars will activate the engine fan (at least intermittently) I couldn't expect a battery the size of the 500s supporting the AirCon compressor and the engine fan without getting any charge from the engine, so don't expect it to cut out in this situation.
Click to expand...

The a/c compressor is engine driven, so won't be running when the engine stops. The cooling fan coming on intermittently when a/c is on will be because the pressure sensor in the a/c circuit detects a pressure rise, which indicates that some cooling air needs to be drawn across the a/c condenser to ensure the refrigerant is cooled and re-condensed into a liquid to ensure efficient cooling.
 
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