Well I suppose it had to happen sometime.
Went to visit some friends for a couple of hours, got back in the car, and turned the key to find the dash lit up like a disco.
Initial assessment is that I've got the orange warning triangle, flashing mileage, airbag & seatbelt 'do not drive' lights, S/S inop message & fuel cutoff inop message.
Faced with a 100 mile journey home, I do what any right-thinking 500 owner would do - utter an expletive. I could tell you what the expletive was, but then I'd have to ban myself.
I then do the second thing any regular reader of this forum would do. I disconnect the battery and go back inside for a cup of tea.
Half an hour later, with the battery reconnected and all the warning lights & messages still present, there's nothing else for it but to drive home; even more carefully than usual since the airbags & seat belt pretensioners most likely won't protect me if the worst happens. I keep off the motorways, just in case the donk decides to quit completely (I don't want an expensive recovery), but fortunately the journey is uneventful.
3hrs home at 50mph gives plenty of time for thinking.
All those messages suggest there's an issue with the airbag system (the fuel cutoff on the 500 is implemented in software in the airbag ECU).
Now most faults can usually be traced back to the last thing you did, but as all I did was to park up for a couple of hours (everything was fine before I stopped), I couldn't see how that was going to help. Certainly I couldn't think of anything I'd done that could possibly affect the airbags.
Except that I did do one thing - I opened and closed the rear hatch. The hatch wiring is a known fault, so opening the hatch could have triggered a loom failure, but as far as I can remember, there's nothing connected to the airbag system in that part of the loom. Still, I'm thinking that a stray live feed could have found its way onto one of the CANBUS lines and either damaged or upset the airbag ECU.
The first thing I did once safely home was to check the hatch wiring. Externally all looked well, but I know this can be deceptive as others have had frayed/broken inner cables with little or no grommet damage. And sure enough, peeling back the grommet shows clear evidence of loom failure .
The short term fix is to use the Panda. I've disconnected the battery for safety and, once I can resist the urge to blaspheme Fiat within earshot of small children, I'll go out and examine the hatch wiring properly.
There's no point doing anything else until I've sorted the wiring, but hopefuly once that's done, I'll be able to put it on diagnostics, reset the airbag ECU and do a proxi alignment and all will be well.
Right now I can only hope the damage to the wiring hasn't taken out some expensive bit of proprietary Fiat electronics.
Trip B still gave me 70+mpg for the journey back, so at least some of the electronics remain working.
I'll keep you all posted.
Went to visit some friends for a couple of hours, got back in the car, and turned the key to find the dash lit up like a disco.
Initial assessment is that I've got the orange warning triangle, flashing mileage, airbag & seatbelt 'do not drive' lights, S/S inop message & fuel cutoff inop message.
Faced with a 100 mile journey home, I do what any right-thinking 500 owner would do - utter an expletive. I could tell you what the expletive was, but then I'd have to ban myself.
I then do the second thing any regular reader of this forum would do. I disconnect the battery and go back inside for a cup of tea.
Half an hour later, with the battery reconnected and all the warning lights & messages still present, there's nothing else for it but to drive home; even more carefully than usual since the airbags & seat belt pretensioners most likely won't protect me if the worst happens. I keep off the motorways, just in case the donk decides to quit completely (I don't want an expensive recovery), but fortunately the journey is uneventful.
3hrs home at 50mph gives plenty of time for thinking.
All those messages suggest there's an issue with the airbag system (the fuel cutoff on the 500 is implemented in software in the airbag ECU).
Now most faults can usually be traced back to the last thing you did, but as all I did was to park up for a couple of hours (everything was fine before I stopped), I couldn't see how that was going to help. Certainly I couldn't think of anything I'd done that could possibly affect the airbags.
Except that I did do one thing - I opened and closed the rear hatch. The hatch wiring is a known fault, so opening the hatch could have triggered a loom failure, but as far as I can remember, there's nothing connected to the airbag system in that part of the loom. Still, I'm thinking that a stray live feed could have found its way onto one of the CANBUS lines and either damaged or upset the airbag ECU.
The first thing I did once safely home was to check the hatch wiring. Externally all looked well, but I know this can be deceptive as others have had frayed/broken inner cables with little or no grommet damage. And sure enough, peeling back the grommet shows clear evidence of loom failure .
The short term fix is to use the Panda. I've disconnected the battery for safety and, once I can resist the urge to blaspheme Fiat within earshot of small children, I'll go out and examine the hatch wiring properly.
There's no point doing anything else until I've sorted the wiring, but hopefuly once that's done, I'll be able to put it on diagnostics, reset the airbag ECU and do a proxi alignment and all will be well.
Right now I can only hope the damage to the wiring hasn't taken out some expensive bit of proprietary Fiat electronics.
Trip B still gave me 70+mpg for the journey back, so at least some of the electronics remain working.
I'll keep you all posted.
Last edited: