Technical Throttle Position Sensor - Replacing

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Technical Throttle Position Sensor - Replacing

As a positive you've helped the community and you know for future should you have an issue again :)


Absolutely. This forum has helped me so much over the last couple of years. I like to give back. Hopefully it will help others in the future. I've just changed the curtain airbag on my latest acquisition and filmed that too so I will be uploading that soon.
 
Another update on this. I bought a replacement ECU from Club500Italia on eBay. They told me that if I get one that has the same part number it would be plug and play, and someone on here suggested the same. It is not the case.

I took the ECU to the garage yesterday, they fitted it and said the car will not even start now. I did think it was too good to be true. They've had the car for 2 weeks now. They are trying other diagnostics today. Hopefully some sort of relearn will work. If not they are getting a dedicated auto electrician in next week.

I can see this costing me an arm and a leg. What a 'mare!!
 
A quick update on this thread.

Wife's 500 threw up the same P1220 code again yesterday when the engine management light came on. The car has been absolutely fine since I last reported on here in June, no problems whatsoever.

Now here is the interesting bit. Turns out that exactly the same process occurred to trigger the engine management light. My wife had to brake quite suddenly and then applied the throttle quickly after to get going.

We explained this to the auto electrician and he said that it was actually surprisingly common for that particular code to come up under those circumstances, whatever the make of car. What he did think was odd was the fact that it triggered the error and that the warning light stayed on. Whether there is a weakness with the 500s system or not, I'm not sure. But the theory seems to be that braking and then applying the throttle will trigger that code if you are unlucky!

Upshot is that the code has been cleared and all seems OK again. But his advice was to try and give slightly more time between completing the braking manoeuvre and then opening the throttle again.

It seems plausible to me, and I don't have any massive reason to think he was talking crap either (he has a good reputation locally to be fair, and only charged us £10 as the diagnosis and code reset took him ten minutes, so I can't say I distrust him). So it's maybe something else for people to look at before they empty their wallets!
 
The "moose test" slam on the brakes then floor the throttle (and steer round moose) ?

No moose involved thankfully! But yes, I think that would be possible.

Just to correct my other post slightly as I misunderstood the situation earlier this week; this particular error code appears to have been triggered due to the accelerator pedal being clipped by accident when applying the brake (so not actually accelerating as such, but the accelerator pedal moves ever so slightly).

Either way, it managed to confuse the car sufficiently to throw up the error code!
 
Its interesting... These days all cars are too much dependent on computers I think. My car had a tantrum- didn't fire first time and then taken 3 minutes to 'boot' and start:confused: Also, it would not start if the conditions are not perfect! (I left it in first gear:() But all things change...
 
These days all cars are too much dependent on computers I think.

Swings and roundabouts.

It's frustrating (and may be expensive) when you turn the key and the computer says "no", but OTOH the car's computers will likely save you £1000 in fuel over the lifetime of the car, and may save your life should you be in danger of losing control (of the car).

Sometimes I'm left tearing out what little is left of my hair when faced with an obscure problem that's being further obfuscated by the computers, but on balance I don't want to go back to the days of no powered brakes, steering, ABS, A/C, central locking, HRW, rear wipers, ICE, Nav ...

Today's cars also only need about 1/20th of the servicing of cars built 50 years ago, yet in real terms, the cost of that servicing isn't much different :rolleyes:. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
 
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It's all very well when you plug in MultiECUScan and it gives you the correct code. Unlike when I had to change my throttle body, pedal and then ECU because the code couldn't be specific.

Yeah your prob was slightly different wasn't it. Touch wood, the issue with my wife's car is just a simple glitch related to that code. Again no problems since the other day.
 
Well, 10 months down the line and the same P1220 fault came up again today. Twice.

First time we managed to get a local mechanic to reset it again (like last time). Took the car for a spin and about 2min down the road it came on again.

Left the car for a couple of hours and since then I've managed to do the 40 mile round trip to Plymouth - no engine management light, limp mode or anything at all! As if nothing was ever wrong in the first place...

A random glitch that just crops up every now and then I guess!(y)
 
Well, 10 months down the line and the same P1220 fault came up again today. Twice.

First time we managed to get a local mechanic to reset it again (like last time). Took the car for a spin and about 2min down the road it came on again.

Left the car for a couple of hours and since then I've managed to do the 40 mile round trip to Plymouth - no engine management light, limp mode or anything at all! As if nothing was ever wrong in the first place...

A random glitch that just crops up every now and then I guess!(y)



Sounds like the same ECU fault I had although mine cropped up within 10 seconds of driving after resetting.
 
Yeah, I'm not sure what the cause of it is to be honest. No other issues with the car, but it does seem prone to throwing up this error if you are unlucky.

The mechanic yesterday was quite surprised, he said it was a common fault on VAG cars but had never come across a Fiat with it before. We've never had this problem on any of our other 1.2/1.4 8v cars.

Regarding limp mode - the car was driveable up to about 2500 rpm, then the power really tailed off and I struggled badly going up a steep hill (whacked the hazard lights on!). Sure I've read some people on here barely being able to drive more than 5-10mph in limp mode, which makes me wonder if there are different levels of limp mode? Does anyone know?
 
Now here is the interesting bit. Turns out that exactly the same process occurred to trigger the engine management light. My wife had to brake quite suddenly and then applied the throttle quickly after to get going.

That sounds like a wire or connection issue somewhere.
I'm surprised that your auto spark didn't twig.

This sort of electrical trouble after sharp braking, driving over bumps and traffic humps etc is quite common and more often than not down to a connector or wiring issue somewhere.
 
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