Hi all,

First off Hi, looking forward to being part of the Fiat 500 community.
I've been involved with a Passat and TT forum so I know how useful / good they are!

My second problem is the dreaded oil degradation light doodah.

A little history.....
Multijet diesel, 09 plate, 40ish k on the clock.
Bought last year from BSM Citroen in Derby.
Just as we were moving to Bristol.
Sale included premiere(?) service plan at what ever a month.
(I know about the service plan, but GF bought it not me!!!)

Moved to Bristol from Derbyshire, bought house, blah blah blah.
6 months ago oil warning light comes up.
GF takes it to local indie who does oil / filter but can't reset light.

So she just drives round for 6 months with oil light on
I'm cross about this but I have to bite my tongue as it's her car
So, all going well, annual service now due.

GF books into local BSM outfit (Mazda?) for service as per her service plan.
She says about the oil degradation light being on.
They cheerfully announce they can't switch that off.
But the terribly helpful lady says "well theres a Fiat garage up the road"

i.e. either live with it or go get it done at your expense
(And having looked round here that seems to be between £20 and £40)

Now I am absolutely livid!!!!
Should I be?

I feel that the service plan should include resetting the light.
If they can't then they should take it to Fiat to get it done
I've checked the website and doesn't mention any exclusions.
When we bought the car we informed them we were moving to Bristol.
I feel it's false pretences, only being able to do half the job.

AAAAgggghhhhh

GF Fiat 500 Multijet said:

Hi all,

First off Hi, looking forward to being part of the Fiat 500 community.
I've been involved with a Passat and TT forum so I know how useful / good they are!

My second problem is the dreaded oil degradation light doodah.

A little history.....
Multijet diesel, 09 plate, 40ish k on the clock.
Bought last year from BSM Citroen in Derby.
Just as we were moving to Bristol.
Sale included premiere(?) service plan at what ever a month.
(I know about the service plan, but GF bought it not me!!!)

Moved to Bristol from Derbyshire, bought house, blah blah blah.
6 months ago oil warning light comes up.
GF takes it to local indie who does oil / filter but can't reset light.

So she just drives round for 6 months with oil light on
I'm cross about this but I have to bite my tongue as it's her car
So, all going well, annual service now due.

GF books into local BSM outfit (Mazda?) for service as per her service plan.
She says about the oil degradation light being on.
They cheerfully announce they can't switch that off.
But the terribly helpful lady says "well theres a Fiat garage up the road"

i.e. either live with it or go get it done at your expense
(And having looked round here that seems to be between £20 and £40)

Now I am absolutely livid!!!!
Should I be?

I feel that the service plan should include resetting the light.
If they can't then they should take it to Fiat to get it done
I've checked the website and doesn't mention any exclusions.
When we bought the car we informed them we were moving to Bristol.
I feel it's false pretences, only being able to do half the job.

AAAAgggghhhhh

Click to expand...

no nothing you can do about it its your fault that you pay for the service plan with them. nothing to do with fiat. pass by a bosch car service center, they have good diagnostic tools. either that or go to the fiat dealer and pay up.

So do you think they should have made it clear that they couldn't complete the service?

If you bought the computer program and the connection leads, you could do it yourself. Next time something like this happens, you can DIY again and again and again .................

You can buy Multiecuscan for £37 and some leads for another £25 just like I did. I had the added complication that I'm fully AppleMac in this house, so had to buy a secondhand PC laptop for £50, but if you have a PC laptop, you'll be fine.

http://multiecuscan.net/ for the software.
http://idiagnostics.co.uk/ for the leads.

If you have a PC, your total outlay will be less than £65 ....... perhaps what Fiat may charge you just to turn a light off.

Good luck,
Mick.

Hi Mick,

thanks for the info,
I too am Mac-tastic so would have to get a PC :-(

I did think about getting the leads (Ive got them for my Passat)

It's more the principle that they are only doing half a job thats grinding my peter griffin gears lol

Jez

I'm confused here.

The car was bought and serviced at BSM Mazda in Derby yes?

The fiat dealer up the road is BSM Fiat........THE SAME COMPANY...... they should have taken it and had it reset for you. It's only a couple of hundred meters for gods sake. you don't even have to drive on the road as they share the same facilities. I would play merry hell with them.

GF Fiat 500 Multijet said:

So she just drives round for 6 months with oil light on...

...AAAAgggghhhhh

Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly.

Not resetting the oil degradation counter is more than just fixing an annoyance - it's essential to preserve the engine's ability to properly regenerate the DPF. Running a multijet for more than a few days with the oil light on risks ruining the DPF. Replacement will cost well into four figures and it's unlikely to be covered by any kind of warranty.

Note also that the oil needs changing when the oil light comes on, not after any specific time or mileage - this will depend on your driving pattern and is independent of any routine servicing requirement for the remainder of the car. Oil changes on a modern diesel car do not necessarily happen at the time the rest of the service items are carried out.

Difficult one really. A service plan in my mind would be there to cover your servicing requirements for the car, helping spread the cost out.

The light coming on the way you described originally is indicative of a fault of some sort. So personally I would consider that an additional item that would need sorting, whether it be when you get the car serviced or at another time.

Whether or not BSM should be sorting it is all down to the wording of the plan. I understand you've looked for exclusions, but unless it specifically says that it will cover faults like that then I guess you would be expected to fork out for it.

Anyway - I had a quick look and Bristol Street Motors have a Fiat franchise in Cheltenham. Maybe you could ring them up and see what they say? You would imagine they would have the tools to do it...hopefully

Super Uwe said:

The light coming on the way you described originally is indicative of a fault of some sort.

Click to expand...

On a multijet, it's not indicative of a fault, it's indicative that the oil & filter need to be changed and the oil service counter reset. Every time the car regenerates the engine oil becomes a little more contaminated by unburnt fuel passing into the engine; the ECU monitors this and puts on the oil change light once it thinks the quality of the oil is compromised. If the oil is changed but the counter is not reset, the ECU will think the oil is still excessively contaminated by fuel and may inhibit DPF regeneration. If regeneration is inhibited, the DPF will eventually clog up completely and then replacement is the only answer; the bill will be over £1000 .

On a petrol car, not resetting the service counter after servicing is an annoyance; doing the same with the oil service light on a diesel could result in a very costly bill.

Modern common-rail DPF equipped diesels are a very different beast from the almost unburstable tank-like engines of years gone by and if not maintained correctly (and sometimes even if they are), they can bite you in the bum with some eye-wateringly expensive bills.

jrkitching said:

My thoughts exactly.

Not resetting the oil degradation counter is more than just fixing an annoyance - it's essential to preserve the engine's ability to properly regenerate the DPF. Running a multijet for more than a few days with the oil light on risks ruining the DPF. Replacement will cost well into four figures and it's unlikely to be covered by any kind of warranty.

Note also that the oil needs changing when the oil light comes on, not after any specific time or mileage - this will depend on your driving pattern and is independent of any routine servicing requirement for the remainder of the car. Oil changes on a modern diesel car do not necessarily happen at the time the rest of the service items are carried out.

Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more entirely with the above.

I change the oil on my Saab 9-3 1.9 diesel every six thousand miles without fail. Some may think that is stupid, it is not! 5 litres of genuine GM Dexos 2 low ash oil for instance, costs just £20, a new genuine GM/Fiat oil filter, £7, my own labour time, nil. The result is a clean engine that performs DPF regens without problems, EGR and MAP sensor, both require less maintenance time and stay less sooted for longer. A good mate of mine has a Mercedes estate that gets serviced every 20k miles, you should see the state of the oil on the dipstick, it is horrendous. My engine on the other, has relatively clean oil in comparison.

Never, ever drive around with the oil service light beaming at ya!

jrkitching said:

On a multijet, it's not indicative of a fault, it's indicative that the oil & filter need to be changed and the oil service counter reset. Every time the car regenerates the engine oil becomes a little more contaminated by unburnt fuel passing into the engine; the ECU monitors this and puts on the oil change light once it thinks the quality of the oil is compromised. If the oil is changed but the counter is not reset, the ECU will think the oil is still excessively contaminated by fuel and may inhibit DPF regeneration. If regeneration is inhibited, the DPF will eventually clog up completely and then replacement is the only answer; the bill will be over £1000 .
.

Click to expand...

Fuel only gets dumped into your sump when active regeneration fails or is interrupted for whatever reason. If your oil quality light is on, as JR has said it's failed active regeneration too many times and the ECU has triggered the light through its own algorithm. Driving round for 6 months with your oil quality light on is no good for your engine, if you check your oil level you'll notice it's probably risen, that's fuel contamination, leave it to get to high and your engine will use its own oil to run and then boom....

You need to explain to your other half the engine needs to be hotter for regeneration, on that 3 mile stretch to work keep it in 3rd or 4th and do 60, get it red hot every so often. Or take it for a spin yourself

Hi all,

just going through all the suggestions / indications...

Muttleysdad - car was bought from BSM Citroen in Derby
now being serviced by BSM Mazda in Bristol
Bristol Fiat is a different company but as someone pointed out Fiat Cheltenham is BSM

JRKitching
Yes, I know, it winds me up something chronic!
I didn't know that the engine wouldn't regen with it illuminated.
In her defence the oil / filter is clean.
Yes, I knew the light coming on is dependent on the mileage / style / type / etc and is not fixed (my audi had as similar system)

SuperUWE
Servicing plan covers the servicing of the car, inc oil / filter changes.
The light just indicates when the car wants fresh stuff (which was done by the indie 6 months ago)
If the light indicating an oil change is required is on, then surely part of the service is to switch it off once the oil change has been performed?

Presumably, even if the light is not on, they must have to reset the system so the engine knows it's got fresh? otherwise the red light would illuminate eventually regardless of the servicing schedule.

JRKitching
Yep, thats what I though about the light
but didn't know about the DPF, thanks for the heads up
Yeah, my passat threatened me with a new DPF and thats about £1200 min

Frupi the oil light is beaming but only cos it won't go off!
the oil / filters were changed so the oil / filters should still be be good

Maxwell yeah, i wish she would listen but then things would be very different!
the original light came on as i assume few miles round town, not hot, etc
so it's prob due fresh oil now (similar time period / mileage has elapsed)

and a huge thanks to everyone for their input, can see this forums gonna be as good as the others I'm on

Cheers

jez

Had a similar problem with mine. The local independent garage (about 50m down the road) did the oil change but their diagnostics equipment didn't have the correct option to reset the light. I know because I stood with the guy for a good 10-15 minutes looking through all the menus. There was an option that looked like it should do it but didn't, so I ended up taking the car to the nearest Fiat dealer to get the light reset. Can't remember how much it cost but it wasn't stupid amounts. It's an embuggerance that you're effectively having 2 garage visits for something that should be simple!

Hi Maisie,
thats exactly the situation we were and currently seem to be in.
Fiat in Bristol want £40.60 to switch off the light!

I confess I know little or nothing about modern diesel engines.

However, spending £40 to turn a light off is a bit daft when you can pay £65 to do it yourself, and then have the ability to do it again and again in the future, plus do other stuff too.

TTFN
Mick.

ok,

latest development is they have retracted saying they were not able to reset the light.
Apparently now they can???
Hopefully going to pick up the car soon........
Will update as and when!

For the more techie out there.....
Is there one reset for this system, or two?
As I understand it, when an oil change is performed, the car needs to be reset to say 'fresh oil, restart the count down' regardless of the oil degradation warning being on or off.
Therefore, if a garage can do that, why can't they reset the warning?
Or is it the case that the system can be reset if the warning isn't on, but to reset the warning is more complicated?

You are correct - there are two separate resets to do:

- one is the oil degradation index, which is important for the DPF regen process (as already described earlier in the discussion). This is reset by connecting to the Engine ECU and running the procedure to reset the index number. Easy to do in MultiECUScan (as already noted in this thread). I highly recommend MultiECUScan (MES) if you are the do-it-yourself type of person and likely to do your own oil changes - it's well worth the money. Among many other things, it lets you check the condition of the DPF and perform a 'forced regen' if necessary.

Although I have a petrol 500, I have worked on several diesel 500s and the DPF regen is quite a 'torture test' of all components (turbo, boost pressure valve, EGR valve, temp sensors, cooling fan) as a failure in any of these will show up during the regen process. The computer runs the engine up to a high speed to create the heat required. One time, an oil-softened radiator hose burst under the extra pressure! This was a bit exciting - steam and water everywhere - I had to cancel the regen and wait for everything to cool down before replacing the hose. Still, it was better to have it fail in the workshop than to go unnoticed and fail when out on the road.

I would then change the engine oil after performing a forced regen - then reset the degradation index.

- the other is the service reminder, which is not critically important - car can still operate when the reminder (spanner icon) is showing. This is reset by connecting to the "Service Interval" ECU (I think this is part of the instrument cluster, but it has its own ECU listing in MultiECUScan). There are a certain number of 'service coupons' which decrease from 9 down to 0. It is possible to disable the service reminder, or to do the opposite: reset the counter to 9 so that the reminder can be used again. The service interval in kms or miles can also be changed. I have set mine to 15,000km instead of 30,000km, so that it will remind me to do an oil change twice as often as specified (this is best in my opinion, when driving mostly short trips). Note that mine is a petrol engine, so it doesn't have an oil degradation index in the engine ECU.

I probably shouldn't say this here, quite off-topic, but one satisfying five-minute job on my 500 was to turn off the audible alarm for the seatbelt. I have a long driveway and I leave my seatbelt unfastened until I have checked the post box/put out the rubbish/turned around in the street etc. and then I (always) put my seatbelt on as I drive away. The loud and extremely annoying dinging sound of the seatbelt alarm was nothing but a nuisance and I have turned it off using MultiECUScan (by connecting to the Instrument Panel ECU). The red seatbelt warning light still functions. The alarm can be reactivated in MultiECUScan or even in the instrument panel menu before selling the car (the alarm is a condition of the NCAP safety rating...) note that the alarm cannot be turned off from the instrument panel menu (under Belt Buzzer) but it can be turned on there, if it has been turned off by MES.

This is just an example of how MultiECUScan is useful - though, the main benefit is being able to check for stored fault codes (if found) and act on these before they turn into bigger problems.

-Alex

GF Fiat 500 Multijet
Great stuff!
I look forward to the update!
Keep us informed.


Alex,
I'm following you off topic .........
We too have a long driveway and would dearly love to turn the annoying shriek off.

I have a paid copy of MES and the leads, but I've not done much with it yet only sort of checked it out.

Can the seatbelt alarm be turned off in any 500?
We have a Sept 2011 85TA Lounge.

Thanks,
Mick

Mick said:

Can the seatbelt alarm be turned off in any 500?
We have a Sept 2011 85TA Lounge.

Click to expand...

Yes.
Have a look in the Instrument Panel ECU - if it's not there, try the Body Computer ECU. The setting is on the Adjustments tab (once you are connected).

I shouldn't be advising to turn off a safety feature, but I hope readers are intelligent enough to make their own mind up on this matter. For the record: always wear a seatbelt and ensure passengers do the same. Take notice of the warning light.

-Alex

Thanks Alex.
Sounds like a nice little job. Maybe at the weekend or next week.

Thanks muchly
Mick.