Hi everybody,
I was in touch with the dealer last week. He promised to come back to me, but failed to do so. I rang them today, and they again denied any knowledge of an update. They wanted me to book the car in for another diagnostic and then they would tell me whether the car needed an update - as if they didn't know that the previous attempts had failed! It would be another 4 hours wasted.
We have tried to get Fiat to generally announce that there is a fix for the problem if they have one, but they haven't responded. I want to get rid of the car after all this trouble with it, but the dealer won't have it back, and I can't in all honesty sell to a private buyer. I have emailed CS to express my disgust at the way they have lied to us over the phone (but never put anything in writing) and later on tried to pretend that the problem doesn't exist, it is just our lack of driving skills. The engine hasn't got enough power low down to do hill starts without cooking the clutch, and allowing it to do a self launch will only get you about a yard before it stalls. If you allow it to self-launch on the flat it is likely to go into the back of the car in front before it slows down again.
I will follow the advice of trying to get a number for the update.