Yesterday evening, we drove away with the lights on and the yellow triangle warning light glowed at me. I guessed it was a lighting problem, stopped the car and found the off-side number plate light out. I thought no more about it but planned to get a new bulb today.

However, I dropped Mrs Mick F off and tried to open the boot to get her bag out. The boot lid wouldn't open! I switched the engine off - the lights then go off - and was able to open the boot easily. I took out her bag, closed the boot lid, scratched my head, started up - lights come back on - and drove away still with the warning triangle showing.

Back at home, I experimented and found that the boot lid performed normally unless the lights were on. With them on, the boot steadfastly refused to open, but turning the lights off, it was fine.

This morning, I pulled out the off-side bulb, tested it, and surprisingly found it ok. Next, I pulled our the near-side bulb and fitted it into the off-side, switched the lights on, and it came on. So next I fitted the original off-side bulb into the near-side and that too worked.

I refitted the covers, closed the boot, and switched the lights on again. The boot lid opened and continues to be absolutely fine.

I can understand that there could have been a bad bulb connection, but why did it affect the boot lid operation?

Wots goin' on?

Any ideas?
Mick.

Mick F said:

Wots goin' on?

Any ideas?
Mick.

Click to expand...

Sounds to me like the dreaded 500 hatch wiring issue.

............. but only one bulb? Surely they're in parallel and fed from the same wire?
I can understand a poor bulb connection and my moving it sorted it.

I'll continue to monitor this, and report my findings ........... if any!

Cheers,
Mick

Interesting report.

I expect something is earthing through something else as a result of a broken tailgate earth wire. Perhaps if you had tried the rear wiper as well, you'd find that would make the tailgate unlock (or not).

The number plate bulbs will have separate wiring - FIATs have always had separate wiring for left and right side/tail lights.

There may be a body computer involved, too. The 500 seems to lack many of the body computer features common on other cars (winding down the windows when unlocking the doors, for example), but I notice some items such as daytime running lights, interior/boot light timing, passenger airbag enabling, and rear wiper timing are operated through the body computer.

Once a computer is involved, anything is possible. The radio turning itself on in the night, number plate bulbs that glow dimly at all times, windows that wind themselves down in the rain, high level brake lights that come on a few seconds after the other brakelights, interior lights that turn themselves on, windscreen washer running when the heated rear window is turned on - are all situations I have enjoyed in cars with body computers.

-Alex

alexGS said:

Interesting report.

Click to expand...

Yes, and it goes on ..........

Just been into town for a spot of shopping and a lunch. When starting up and leaving, the mileometer started to flash.

I know I've read something on this forum about why this happens, so I must do a search!

Either way, the yellow triangle remained out and I even tried putting the lights on to see if it came on. Thankfully it didn't, and everything remains fine ............. except for the flashing odometer.

Hey ho, such fun.
Mick.

Just been out to the car for a checkout.
It seems that the Blue and Me has stopped working, but everything else is fine.

The odometer is flashing as soon as I switch to MAR, and it even flashes before the engine runs, and it won't stop unless I switch completely off.

After searching this forum, it says that the CAN bus needs a "proxy alignment" - whatever that is.

The car has done 15,560miles and is well out of warranty. What's caused this alignment problem? Could it have been the rear number plate bulb, or was that just a symptom?

I don't really want to take the car to Fiat for this.

The nearest dealer is over 20miles away, so is there a DIY fix for this because I'm sure it will happen again in the future.

Help please,
Mick

You can all relax.
I've fixed it.

Reading the many posts and threads on here and on other fora, disconnecting the battery completely for an hour may or may not work ............... but it did for me.

No flashing odometer, B+M working, both number plate lights on, and the boot opens in all permutations.

Phew.

Meanwhile, I've downloaded this to my iPad:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/eobd-facile-car-diagnostic/id713921569?mt=8
What does the team think?
Is it worth my buying the WiFi dongle thingy to go with it?

Thanks,
Mick.

Mick F said:

Meanwhile, I've downloaded this to my iPad:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/eobd-facile-car-diagnostic/id713921569?mt=8
What does the team think?
Is it worth my buying the WiFi dongle thingy to go with it?

Click to expand...

I think you'll be better off with a laptop (an old one will do, £100?), a regular ELM327 cable (£15?), coloured adapters from Gendan.co.uk (£15?) and a registered version of MultiECUScan (£35?). I suppose it must seem like quite an outlay, but they're essential tools for me.

MultiECUScan replicates almost all functions of the genuine FIAT/Alfa dealer software, whereas a generic fault code scanner and information reader works with all models/marques but does not include vehicle-specific adjustments, procedures, or calibrations (such as the proxy alignment).

Meanwhile, I think perhaps your battery is on the way out - or there is an earthing fault as we thought earlier

Cheers
-Alex

alexGS said:

Meanwhile, I think perhaps your battery is on the way out

Click to expand...

That's probably the one thing we can rule out - Mick bought one very recently after an epic thread.

Just some of the fun you missed while you were away .

alexGS said:

Meanwhile, I think perhaps your battery is on the way out - or there is an earthing fault as we thought earlier

Click to expand...

Battery????? :bang::bang:

I don't blame you for suggesting this, and knowing what I know now, it's what I would suggest to someone with a fault like mine, but as JR says, I've got a NEW battery ................... not that I can find anything wrong with the old one.

I think that there must have been some sort of earth with the number plate light. My chunky fingers had a great difficulty getting the "defective" bulb out, and I think the bulb holder could have been lose. Either way, it it possible to push the holder inwards off its clips and mine was but I don't know if it was me pushing my fingers in that dislodged it, or it was dislodged to start with. Anyway, the holder was clipped back in at the end.

I eventually sussed out that I needed tweezers to take out/replace the bulbs and that worked great. This is a good tip as there's not much room to do anything.

So maybe, that was the fault initially, but the odometer wasn't flashing when we drove to town, (20 minutes) but it was as we left for home. Maybe it took time for the computers to misalign.

Thanks for the info AlexGS, I'm going to give the PC idea some thought. I know NOTHING about PCs as we're 100% AppleMac in this household, and have been seemingly forever. One G4 iBook, two Intel MacBooks, one MacBook Air, one huge iMac, and one iPad. The iBook dates back to 2002 and still works perfectly.

I may investigate running Windoze on one of the laptops. I wonder if I can get it to run on the old G4 iBook? It would give it a new job!

Thanks to all,
Mick.

alexGS said:

I think you'll be better off with a laptop (an old one will do, £100?), a regular ELM327 cable (£15?), coloured adapters from Gendan.co.uk (£15?) and a registered version of MultiECUScan (£35?). I suppose it must seem like quite an outlay, but they're essential tools for me.

Click to expand...

Just ordered a PC Laptop from the internet. Paid £49.99.
http://www.cashgenerator.co.uk/product-laptops/dell-latitude-d420-notebook-free-postage-BL24102

Hopefully it'll work!
Next thing is to buy an ELM327 and coloured adapters.
Will this do?
[ame]http://www.amazon.co.uk/ELM327-USB-Interface-Diagnostic-Scanner-Cable-Car/dp/B00IWLLX1Y[/ame]

Which adapters do I need?

Thanks muchly,
Mick.

Mick F said:

Just ordered a PC Laptop from the internet. Paid £49.99.
http://www.cashgenerator.co.uk/product-laptops/dell-latitude-d420-notebook-free-postage-BL24102
.

Click to expand...

Good move on the laptop purchase. I fully subscribe to Mac's (iMac, iPad, iPhone). But there are a couple of gizmos I have with lifetime updates which are not supported by Mac so did the same as you via a popular trading site.

Mick F said:

Will this do?

Click to expand...

Be careful Mick - that one is a cheap Chinese import, shipped from HK so it'll likely be months before it arrives, if it arrives at all.

Also there have been issues with clone ELM interfaces not working, though some have got them to work after dismantling them & modifying the internal circuitry.

The cables you need depend on what you want to do with it; I'd suggest you have a good read of the MES forum before proceeding further.

I'm actually looking forward to getting the PC.
I've never ever operated one and it's going to be a steep learning curve as AppleMacs are so simple and straightforward and I've heard many horror stories regarding PCs.

jrkitching said:

Be careful Mick - that one is a cheap Chinese import, shipped from HK so it'll likely be months before it arrives, if it arrives at all.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that.
I have ordered cheapo stuff from HK in the past without a problem, but you only ever get what you pay for of course! I'll try and find a better one based in UK/EU.

jrkitching said:

The cables you need depend on what you want to do with it; I'd suggest you have a good read of the MES forum before proceeding further.

Click to expand...

Pardon my ignorance, what is the MES forum?

Cheers,
Mick

Mick F said:

Pardon my ignorance, what is the MES forum?

Click to expand...

The MultiECUScan forum .

For advice on using MultiECUScan, it's probably best to go straight to the horse's mouth, so to speak.

I must get round to having a proper look at it, one of these days.

Ah!
I'm already on that forum!

I joined last week with a rather "unusual" post asking if it were possible to run Multiecuscan using an old Mac. We have an old iBook unused these days and though it could be possible to get some software for it to run Multiecuscan.

As of now, I not received a reply.
http://forum.multiecuscan.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4472
Pointless now as I'm buying a PC of course. I must get back to them.

Any road up, I'll read and inwardly digest about different cables.

Thanks,
Mick.

Mick F said:

Next thing is to buy an ELM327 and coloured adapters.
Which adapters do I need?.

Click to expand...

The adapters I mentioned are:
http://m.gendan.co.uk/product_FESCBL.html
These will be useful with any ELM327 cable and also with KKL cables for vehicles older than the 500.

I agree with jrkitching's advice - there is a note at MultiECUScan.net about how to fix faulty ELM327 interfaces by removing one or two of the 120ohm resistors. I have had to do this on one cable I've purchased - it was a success, but there are many varieties out there, and you may or may not be in luck.

The resistor fault prevents connection to the body computer, but the cable will still connect to the engine ECU, so you will know whether you have everything else working (computer, drivers, software). Often you will need to download FTDI virtual COM port drivers (Google search finds those) - you need a COM port to appear in the Windows Device Manager after you've plugged in the cable and before you run MultiECUScan. Once you have that, you're most of the way there. Start MultiECUScan and press F9 for settings, choose the same COM port, and you're away.

Short answer is, don't spend too much on the ELM327 and give it a try - if unsuccessful, it is probably worth investing in the ELM327 versions available from gendan.co.uk, which are known to work.

-Alex

Thanks Alex.
I spent an hour or two searching for info and ELM327 and saw the issue regarding the resistor.

One thing I did find though, was the situation regarding Muliecuscan registration. You pay £40 or so .................. but that is only for twelve months!
How many times would I actually NEED to use it to make it pay for itself every year?

I've purchased many software items over the years and one payment is for life! With Multiecuscan, it means you pay £40 a year - every year. For the price of an hour's labour at a Fiat garage - £60? - on the odd occasion that the OBD needs accessing, it hardly seems worth buying Multiecuscan plus all the connectors.

I found this that would fulfill all my needs.
https://www.gendan.co.uk/product_FESCAN.html
Nearly £100.
Considering that Multiecuscan costs £40, it means that the two connecting cables cost £60.

I'm seriously thinking that it's not worth it.

Regards to all,
Mick.

Mick F said:

One thing I did find though, was the situation regarding Muliecuscan registration. You pay £40 or so .................. but that is only for twelve months!
How many times would I actually NEED to use it to make it pay for itself every year?

I've purchased many software items over the years and one payment is for life! With Multiecuscan, it means you pay £40 a year - every year.

Click to expand...

It's not as bad as that; the €50 fee buys you a perpetual license to use the current version of the software, together with all updates for the first 12 months. You only have to pay another fee if you want to receive updates after the end of the 12 month period. Full licensing details here.

That's not much different to most software, where you generally have to pay more $$$ if you want a version upgrade.

oops.
I read that bit wrong!

That makes quite a bit of difference.

Cheers,
Mick.