Since January 2015 I've had problem after problem of my 1.2 Lounge. The car has gone through 3 batteries in the space of 9 months. This can't be right! It's been to 3 different garages all of whom have told me there is nothing wrong with the car! Today I've gone to drive it, after last driving it on Wednesday night, and after it having a full trickle charge over night last Sunday. When exactly the same thing has happened. Can anyone offer any kind of help or advice! I'm at the end of my tether with this car even telling myself it must be something I'm doing wrong! Just to add there have been no lights or interior lights left on, this scenario has been investigated numerous times, the interior light above the rear-view mirror is always switched off and boot is secured shut.
Any advice at all or new avenues to investigate would be most welcome!

The car has a stop/start engine and is currently fitted with an Oldham start/stop battery.

welshfifi88 said:

The car has a stop/start engine and is currently fitted with an Oldham start/stop battery.

Click to expand...

Premusably the charging rate has been checked so if you have access to a multimeter, shut the car down, disconnect the battery and connect the MM between the battery and car switched to 1 or 2 Amp range setting to see if there's excessive drain. I can't speak for the Fiat but in my old car 'normal' drain in quiescent state was about 12 mA.

Piccolo Nero e Bella said:

Premusably the charging rate has been checked so if you have access to a multimeter, shut the car down, disconnect the battery and connect the MM between the battery and car switched to 1 or 2 Amp range setting to see if there's excessive drain. I can't speak for the Fiat but in my old car 'normal' drain in quiescent state was about 12 mA.

Click to expand...

I don't have access to one but the last time I had to call out my breakdown service they measured a drain of 0.5amps on the battery. A drain of which not one of the garages seems to be able to pinpoint where it's coming from. One garage told me it wasn't constant so was hard for them to locate, another told me the boot wasn't shutting properly but by the smallest fraction that not even the indicator of an open door on the dash was triggered. The boot was fixed and I check and triple check each time I use my boot to make sure the light inside has gone out so I'm certain it's not that either. It just doesn't make any sense at all.

welshfifi88 said:

I don't have access to one but the last time I had to call out my breakdown service they measured a drain of 0.5amps on the battery. A drain of which not one of the garages seems to be able to pinpoint where it's coming from. One garage told me it wasn't constant so was hard for them to locate, another told me the boot wasn't shutting properly but by the smallest fraction that not even the indicator of an open door on the dash was triggered. The boot was fixed and I check and triple check each time I use my boot to make sure the light inside has gone out so I'm certain it's not that either. It just doesn't make any sense at all.

Click to expand...

how old is the vehicle..?,

is the battery REALLY flat.. no lights on,
or just won't crank the engine

you need to stop wasting your time and money..,

IF YOU are paying for all the fixes.
get an auto electrician to see the car.. should be fixed within one hour @£60 / £80

Charlie - Oxford

welshfifi88 said:

Can anyone offer any kind of help or advice!

Click to expand...

Check the tailgate wiring by carefully peeling back the rubber grommet. Wiring failure at this point is extremely common and if there is a hardware fault, that needs to be fixed first before trying to test or replace anything else.

Checking the wiring at that point should be the first thing you do when dealing with any suspected 500 electrical problems. Note that you must peel back the grommet to inspect this; everything can look perfectly normal from the outside even when the wiring inside is shredded.

varesecrazy said:

how old is the vehicle..?,

is the battery REALLY flat.. no lights on,
or just won't crank the engine

you need to stop wasting your time and money..,

IF YOU are paying for all the fixes.
get an auto electrician to see the car.. should be fixed within one hour @£60 / £80

Charlie - Oxford

Click to expand...

The car is just under 3 years old. Bought it in October 2012 and it's done 16,000 miles. An RAC recommended garage had the car for over a month, their auto electrician couldn't find anything. Everytime I'm simply told 'it's the battery'. I had the battery replaced in February, by June I started having problems again. Dealership told me the battery needed replacing before they could look at it so took it back to where the battery was fitted and they changed it with no charge (as it was still under warranty) now 3 months later I'm experiencing the same problem. No car should go through 3 batteries in less than a year right and surely I can't be unlucky enough to have 3 duds?

varesecrazy said:

how old is the vehicle..?,

is the battery REALLY flat.. no lights on,
or just won't crank the engine

you need to stop wasting your time and money..,

IF YOU are paying for all the fixes.
get an auto electrician to see the car.. should be fixed within one hour @£60 / £80

Charlie - Oxford

Click to expand...

In regards to what it does when it won't start, on this occasion you can open the door with the key fob no problem but as soon as you turn the key in the ignition it clicks and all the lights on the dash just flicker. But on other occasions there has been no power to it at all.

jrkitching said:

Check the tailgate wiring by carefully peeling back the rubber grommet. Wiring failure at this point is extremely common and if there is a hardware fault, that needs to be fixed first before trying to test or replace anything else.

Checking the wiring at that point should be the first thing you do when dealing with any suspected 500 electrical problems. Note that you must peel back the grommet to inspect this; everything can look perfectly normal from the outside even when the wiring inside is shredded.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your advice, much appreciated! If the wire was shredded though, would it not cause issues with my rear lights?

welshfifi88 said:

In regards to what it does when it won't start, on this occasion you can open the door with the key fob no problem but as soon as you turn the key in the ignition it clicks and all the lights on the dash just flicker. But on other occasions there has been no power to it at all.

Click to expand...

OK,
basically you've got SOMETHING draining the battery,

an autoelectrician that YOU are actually instructing to check it over - may well do a better job than an affiliate of a garage

you SHOULD have the delaer supported 3rd year warranty..,
so long as you've kept up it's FIAT service history

DO speak to your dealership of choice,
they MAY be supportive if the part(s) that are found to be faulty are expensive,
dash clusters, ecu's / body computers..,

Charlie

varesecrazy said:

OK,
basically you've got SOMETHING draining the battery,

an autoelectrician that YOU are actually instructing to check it over - may well do a better job than an affiliate of a garage

you SHOULD have the delaer supported 3rd year warranty..,
so long as you've kept up it's FIAT service history

DO speak to your dealership of choice,
they MAY be supportive if the part(s) that are found to be faulty are expensive,
dash clusters, ecu's / body computers..,

Charlie

Click to expand...

Once the 3rd battery was fitted I took it back to the dealership for them to look over it and they found nothing wrong. The only thing they found was that the boot wasn't quite closing properly, said it was most likely the boot light causing the drain. It was minimal, not even causing the dash to recognise the boot was 'open'. This was fixed and the light definitely does not stay on now (I check Everytime out of paranoia!) as this is still happening so clearly that wasn't the problem. I just feel like I'm going around in circles. When they tell me there's nothing wrong it makes me feel like I'm imagining it, but I shouldn't have to charge my battery every time I want to flipping drive it! Ha

Piccolo Nero e Bella said:

Premusably the charging rate has been checked so if you have access to a multimeter, shut the car down, disconnect the battery and connect the MM between the battery and car switched to 1 or 2 Amp range setting to see if there's excessive drain. I can't speak for the Fiat but in my old car 'normal' drain in quiescent state was about 12 mA.

Click to expand...

This is the thing that MUST be done.

Until this is checked, no-one knows nothing.
In the ideal world, the current drain should be zero. 12 milliamps is very small, and I reckon that's about right. A battery with 60 amp/hours would last .................. 60A divided by 12ma is 5,000 hours. That's about 7 months.

Check the current drain as soon as possible. If you haven't got a multimeter, it's worth buying a cheap one, or at least asking someone who has one to check it out.

Good luck, but do not keep buying new batteries.
Mick.

If the boot light was staying on, I'd expect the dash to know, it is after all operated by the one switch. You could remove the boot light bulb for a few days to isolate that possibility.

0.5a drain is too much.

Radio could be draining it, or the bluetooth is fitted, if either are not shutting down properly.

Get a cheap multimeter.
Disconnect the battery and fit the multimeter between battery and cable, on the amps scale. This will show you the 0.5a drain.
Disconnect the alternator at its connection on the back of it, insulate this to prevent a short circuit. See if that stops the drain. If the alternator diodes are failing, they will often cause a drain. Testing the alternator usually just checks it is charging. (My guess this could be the culprit)

If not the alternator:
Remove one fuse at a time and see which one, or more, loses the drain. Then see what that fuse feeds. If a cure is not obvious, report back.

The cost of a multimeter will be worth it. The above is how an auto-electrician should methodically diagnose such a fault. So do it yourself and save the few hours cost.

portland_bill said:

If the boot light was staying on, I'd expect the dash to know, it is after all operated by the one switch. You could remove the boot light bulb for a few days to isolate that possibility.

0.5a drain is too much.

Radio could be draining it, or the bluetooth is fitted, if either are not shutting down properly.

Click to expand...

I turn off my radio every time I get out of the car, again out of paranoia. my blue and me system doesn't work. I've always thought that might be the problem but every garage I've been to have told me that isn't the cause. My mileage flashes and I've been quoted £465 to replace the convergence unit of the blue and me system, something I'm not willing to pay unless I know that is the definite cause, as I don't use the system enough to justify that cost.

Thank you for all the advice, I will pass all this on to my dad as he'll understand better than me as I am a rookie in these areas.

Really appreciate the help! Thank you!

Mick F said:

This is the thing that MUST be done.



Until this is checked, no-one knows nothing.

In the ideal world, the current drain should be zero. 12 milliamps is very small, and I reckon that's about right. A battery with 60 amp/hours would last .................. 60A divided by 12ma is 5,000 hours. That's about 7 months.



Check the current drain as soon as possible. If you haven't got a multimeter, it's worth buying a cheap one, or at least asking someone who has one to check it out.



Good luck, but do not keep buying new batteries.

Mick.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice! Thankfully I've only had to pay for 1 battery so far as they changed the second free of charge. All I want is to find a solution because I simply cannot rely on the car to start when I need it anymore

When you've had the batteries changed have they tested them?

I would guess they have or they wouldn't have changed them. This would suggest that your problem is not a flat battery as such but a failed battery. OK you could just be unlucky, new batteries can just fail.

More likely your alternator is over changing and destroying the batteries. Checking the output from the alternator shout be the first thing a competent auto electrician should do. Competent and main dealership aren't words I'd use in the same sentence.

RussH said:

When you've had the batteries changed have they tested them?

I would guess they have or they wouldn't have changed them. This would suggest that your problem is not a flat battery as such but a failed battery. OK you could just be unlucky, new batteries can just fail.

More likely your alternator is over changing and destroying the batteries. Checking the output from the alternator shout be the first thing a competent auto electrician should do. Competent and main dealership aren't words I'd use in the same sentence.

Click to expand...

Yes the second battery was tested by garage that fitted it and was changed with no quibbles at all so they must have realised the battery was a dud. I would hope that the alternator would be the first thing any of the 3 garages I have taken it too (2 not dealerships) would have checked to be honest. I just want to get to the bottom of it, and quite frankly then get rid of the damn thing!

If the radio has a fault, turning it off will not prevent it draining the battery, only disconnecting it will.
With the Blue & Me unit failed, it could be causing a drain. If you can find it, disconnect it.
The body computer can be told to ignore the Blue & Me unit, then the mileage will stop flashing. Needs software called MultiECUScan, see threads about this.

portland_bill said:

If the radio has a fault, turning it off will not prevent it draining the battery, only disconnecting it will.
With the Blue & Me unit failed, it could be causing a drain. If you can find it, disconnect it.
The body computer can be told to ignore the Blue & Me unit, then the mileage will stop flashing. Needs software called MultiECUScan, see threads about this.

Click to expand...

a competent dealership should've offer to get the display sorted..,
as I said before you can move dealership to one that actually fill you with confidence,
Charlie

varesecrazy said:

OK,
basically you've got SOMETHING draining the battery,

an autoelectrician that YOU are actually instructing to check it over - may well do a better job than an affiliate of a garage

you SHOULD have the delaer supported 3rd year warranty..,
so long as you've kept up it's FIAT service history

DO speak to your dealership of choice,
they MAY be supportive if the part(s) that are found to be faulty are expensive,
dash clusters, ecu's / body computers..,

Charlie

Click to expand...

I agree - this is the best advice.

Dealers, like electricity itself, will always follow the path of least resistance (i.e. go for the easy option), especially if they sense a warranty claim in the offing. When I had my early problems with the Start/Stop my dealer latched on to the items I had plugged into the cigarette lighter socket and claimed they were preventing the battery from getting a full charge. When I pointed out they pulled a mere 200mA at most they then decided I wasn't driving the car for long enough to recharge the starting losses - anything other than that the battery was at fault. Thanks to the information I was able to glean from this forum I was able to refute their every excuse and they finally fitted a new battery - it's worked perfectly ever since.

An independent auto-sparks, while an expensive option, will at least be working for you and if they turn up a warrantable fault you can take it back to Fiat.