My daughter was driving along the motorway at about 120kph, when the engine warning light came on, the car stopped responding to the accelerator, she had to pull over to the hard shoulder and park up. The car refused to re-start.

A bit disturbing, considering we've only had it a week! The car was transported back to the garage for examination, we still haven't heard what's wrong with it yet. Anyone care to speculate?

Sorry, it's a Bravo 1.4 T-Jet 120hp Dynamic. I was surprised the display didn't give me more information on why it decided to give up...

coils, alternator? They would find if it were coils quickly, alternator would be pretty obvious too. Starter could be gone as well, I don't think there's much else that would prevent it from starting.

Fuel pump related stuff.
Do not know if it would tel you the pump is not working.
Also lets not forget the obvious any little electrical glitch and it all fails
Might be as simple as a burned out fuse

No word yet from the garage as to the fault - they have given us a car to run around in - a Daewoo Lanos! - so I guess the car isn't going to be ready any day soon. In fact, they've said if they can't fix it, they'll offer us another car. Can't believe it'll come to that, surely not. However, my daughter has lost all confidence in Fiat Bravos - she just wants a car that works, and doesn't cost a fortune to maintain, or have to repair constantly. Doesn't seem too much to ask for..

This has nothing to do with the bravo or fiat. You don't what that car has been through or what caused the problem yet.

Reading the fault code should have told them straight away...

Fergie said:

Reading the fault code should have told them straight away...

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Yes, it does sound electrical.

Fergie said:

Reading the fault code should have told them straight away...

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Reading a fault code is not the whole answer, its just a diagnostic pointer and it can be totally wrong.

My wifes C4 was troublesome recently. It broke down, refusing to start. Called out the AA. It started immediately for him, but reading fault codes said misfires on all 4 cylinders, so fitted new coil pack. Next day, broke down again. Recovered by the garage I usually use. Initially it said faulty crankshaft sensor, so that was replaced. It started immediately, but then messed about again. In the end, they tracked the problem to a faulty fusebox, ( NOT a fuse ) and kept the car for 4 days to be confident the problem was fixed, which it was. What it came down to was the faulty fusebox delivering low voltage to other systems threw up spurious "faults". There is no fault code for a faulty fuesbox

Tad-bravo said:

This has nothing to do with the bravo or fiat. You don't what that car has been through or what caused the problem yet.

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I agree, I know nothing about what the car has been through, or what caused the problem...but how can you say it has nothing to do with the Bravo nor Fiat, when it's a Fiat Bravo!

Personally, as an older gentleman who has owned/driven dozens of cars in his lifetime, I quite like the Bravo. In fact, I admit I am surprised at how good the build quality appears to be for a competitively priced mid-range small family car. It is certainly way ahead of most of the French competition, IMHO, though to be truthful, we probably should have bought Japanese for reliability. Having said that, any car can break down these days, and more often than not, if you can't diagnose the fault straightaway, it's normally 'electrical'. Usually, car forums like this one are excellent places for salient advice, and I've enjoyed trawling through all the postings over the past year or so - very illuminating!

bigmacinspain said:

but how can you say it has nothing to do with the Bravo nor Fiat, when it's a Fiat Bravo!

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I'm saying that because you don't know what the problem is so how can you blame it on the fiat bravo?

It can be something as trivial as a rat chewing a wire or someone putting a nasty thing in the fuel tank or a billion other possibilities that have nothing to do with what car you have. Even a Rolls Royce would break down.

Garage now says the problem has to do with the spark plugs - so my daughter informs me - more likely the coils, no? In any event, they say the car might be ready by Friday...

Can't see it being simply the spark plugs if it takes over a week to repair...?

bigmacinspain said:

Garage now says the problem has to do with the spark plugs - so my daughter informs me - more likely the coils, no? In any event, they say the car might be ready by Friday...

Can't see it being simply the spark plugs if it takes over a week to repair...?

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sounds like you need to find a better garage

bigmacinspain said:

However, my daughter has lost all confidence in Fiat Bravos - she just wants a car that works, and doesn't cost a fortune to maintain, or have to repair constantly. Doesn't seem too much to ask for..

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I remember reading on a previous thread that you bought it with no manual or maintenance book which was quite a risk in my opinion. Therefore faults shouldn't tarnish views of Bravo's or Fiat's as you wouldn't know how it has been treated or if it has been serviced correctly. Hopefully you got it for a good enough price to cover any unexpected problems.

"There was no manual or maintenance book, nothing, when we bought it from a local car dealer, but it looks pretty clean, 90,000km, year 2008, black metallic with black alloy wheels - my daughter loves it!"

If it was only one or two spark plugs the car would still start( would run like crap..but start)

If it's not sparking then i would recommend checking the crank sensor.

neilshep said:

Reading a fault code is not the whole answer, its just a diagnostic pointer and it can be totally wrong.

My wifes C4 was troublesome recently. It broke down, refusing to start. Called out the AA. It started immediately for him, but reading fault codes said misfires on all 4 cylinders, so fitted new coil pack. Next day, broke down again. Recovered by the garage I usually use. Initially it said faulty crankshaft sensor, so that was replaced. It started immediately, but then messed about again. In the end, they tracked the problem to a faulty fusebox, ( NOT a fuse ) and kept the car for 4 days to be confident the problem was fixed, which it was. What it came down to was the faulty fusebox delivering low voltage to other systems threw up spurious "faults". There is no fault code for a faulty fuesbox

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Beginning to sound like the wife's C4

Its probably the coils, but wow that takes what... like an hour to diagnose??

What eLearn says:

My daughter finally picked up the car a week the following Tuesday - 12 days later - as they said they wanted to fully test it to make sure there would be no more problems...how nice.

I asked her time and again to make sure that the water pump and cam belt had been recently replaced, but she's fed up with her Dad nagging her, so she didn't bother asking the garage for confirmation - so she'll eventually learn it all the hard way Those of you with stubborn kids will know what I'm talking about!

The salesman said the problem was "las bobinas", by which I take it he meant the ignition coils. Apparently it took them a week to source the new parts...but he seemed genuinely concerned that she got her car back in tip top mechanical condition, even though the car needed a good clean, and was on reserve for fuel...

Let's hope that's the last of the problems for now!

Out of curiosity, is there any easy way to check if you've had a new water pump recently fitted? Maybe if it's an OEM make, that would indicate it had at least been replaced at some stage...