Hi there, I am new to Fiat forum so please help!!

I have looked into several problems I have with my lovely |Fiat Croma, it has shown NSR ABS sensor fault and a glow plug relay fault on the reader. But also a good few times now, it has failed on the power steering whilst I have been driving, & a few times whilst my wife has been driving with the kids in the car too, very dangerous!! Usually at low speed, which leads me to think it maybe an electrical fault, poss. alternator/belt/battery? How can I check this myself(i am an amateur diy mechanic!) is it just a case of measuring the output using a voltometer?
The ABS sensor fault is also a big issue, I have been told the sensor is inside the wheel hub and the whole hub needs to be replaced at a cost of £120 + VAT & labour.
The glowplug warning light has now been reset and I replaced the glowplugs on the last service, but it still seems very laboured and lumpy/slow to start, I have been told the fault finder found a relay problem, new part £100!!
I do like this car and it has great fuel economy for such a big boy, but the laboured starting in a morning, ABS sensor issues and the power steering faults are making me want to get rid of it, I dont feel confident that a backstreet mechanic knows how to properly fix this & i certainly dont have Fiat Main dealer money, can anyone provide some info as to how I may be able to do this myself? I have bought some workshop manuals on disk which I will look thru(when they arrive!)

Please help! I dont want to have to go searching again in this mine-field of the used car market! I got her quite cheap (£1500) in Aug 13, but I have thrown £400 at her for new cambelt(100k miles) service & glowplugs and dont want to throw more at her if its gonna be a money pit of problems!! Any info/pointer to garages would be really apreciated.

BTW the power steering hasn't shown any faults on reader.

BTW again - I live in Warrington, Cheshire

Thanks Guys!

Simon, Welcome:
You will find answers or opinions to most of your problems here.
You will see that only about 1300 Cromas sold in the uk, and Fiat dealers are mostly less experienced with them than independent specialists. You might be able to find an Alfa specialist, as we have some common problems. (ALFAOWNER.COM) Also we have some Vectra C components, frequently about half the price of Fiat equivalents.

A specialist would pull out the glow plug relay and tap it on the ground. It may well work after. If you have the 150 then a repairer who knows them would replace the water pump with the cam belt. There are known power steering issues with electrical connections.
Elearn (CD workshop manual) is cheaply available, but there are some manuals on this site.

OK. I'll tackle this one at a time.

1) Power steering. This has been a fairly well know fault that is caused by either a bad cable/connector OR a weak battery. The cable runs from the battery (if I remember correctly) to the electric power steering pump. Replacement cables (I think people have used the Vauxhal Vectra C cable) cost around £15. I think it take about half and hour to replace the cable. Search this Croma forum for more info.

2) ABS - Yes the rear wheel bearing also carries the ABS sensor ring. Cost is around £100 including VAT and replacement time a about an hour. HOWEVER before going getting this unit replaced I would check the integrity of the sensor wire AND unplug the sensor connector and check for dirt/corrosion. This is a very wet area you could simply need to clean up the contacts, check the rubber seal. If the seal is damaged then you can fill the connector with a waterproof gel before reassembly. (http://www.nyelubricants.com/_pdf/connector_tech_overview.pdf )

3) Glow plugs. As you have new plugs (assuming they are all working OK) then it is probably a relay / connector / wiring issue. I know of one Croma owner on this forum who had bad and overheating connector contacts at the relay. I think all he had to do was clean and tighten the contacts and repair melted/damaged insulation.

Basically you are experiencing faults (other than the ABS sensor) which many people have experienced so personally I would not give up on your Croma just yet.

As you say you love the car, value for money etc. so you have to consider how much you would have to spend on another vehicle to get what you already have in the Croma.

Welcome Simon to the wonderful world of Croma ownership!!?
You will find this forum full of advice and info to use before any trip to the garage.
Your PS probs could be due to the battery being weak this would also give the lumpy running with the glow plugs not really being @ temp soon enough. I have the check glow plug warning just now and as it is only working on 3 cylinders it takes much longer to "warm up " the engine and start running smoothly.
I fully endorse S130 on the ABS problem ( get me) . If all is well check the front wheel bearings they have a toothed rim on the outside which is a telltale for the other myriad of letters the car is weighed down with (ESP) etc. I had ABS warning when I had the front bearing changed along with the drivers side outer drive shaft. the bearing was faulty as the plastic carrier for the sensor had been moved at sometime and we had to get a new bearing.
Good luck with the car and if you find a better car on" the other side of the hill" for the same value , let me know!! I have plenty of time to look now i`m retired

tarquin1867 said:

Your PS probs could be due to the battery being weak this would also give the lumpy running with the glow plugs not really being @ temp soon enough.

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Absolutely - and well picked up / cross related tarquin1867

A problem I find when trying to reply to so many forum questions, especially more detailed/tricky technical or problem related questions is that running through all the scenarios, basically blind as one has not experienced the exact circumstances, is that one tends to focus on the big hits and often co-related stuff doesn't always get missed but is not necessarily all tied together.

That is why it is so important as many people reply as possible that way we get a much fuller problem.

Thanks guys for all the replies, I have had a lot of PC problems recently so thats why no update!!

I have not had chance to investigate any further, I was wondering if you could poss give me the part numbers/places to buy from as I have had a look online(when my PC works!) but cant find anything specific to my car(maybe I am looking in wrong places!)
I would like the part no. for the P.steering cable, ABS sensor/wheel hub and the glow plug relay switches if possible from you helpful forum guys!

Thankyou in advance!

simonroscoe said:

Thanks guys for all the replies, I have had a lot of PC problems recently so thats why no update!!

I have not had chance to investigate any further, I was wondering if you could poss give me the part numbers/places to buy from as I have had a look online(when my PC works!) but cant find anything specific to my car(maybe I am looking in wrong places!)
I would like the part no. for the P.steering cable, ABS sensor/wheel hub and the glow plug relay switches if possible from you helpful forum guys!

Thankyou in advance!

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We aim to please--- Before you get down to exercising the credit card- check the actual connector end of the PS cable it is this which could need a bit of TLC if its a bit corroded/mucky.
Check the alternator is producing the right amount and check the state of the battery,holding charge etc. Cannot be ars*d to troll through a lot of posts but I would bet a £1 to a photo of James may eek that there are twenty about glow plugs failing to one for the support relays. They are almost a wear part as a spark plug on a petrol car.
Good luck with both your car and the computer- have virtually had to rebuild my comp over Xmas. The financial pips are squeaking
E bay is my first port of call for "service " parts like the glow plugs. Maqke sure that you have your engine / Vin number to make sure you are looking at the correct ones, there are several out there eg 8v--v--16v etc . As a rule of thumb I only deal on E bay with operators who have a landline number and address, so I can ring them before I order. This served me well when I was after a new wheel bearing during my "40 Wobble" saga, the one I had spotted was part listed by them as 16v but was in fact for a Punto!!!!:slayer:

PS -- Like the lazy twonk I am I have just read your original post again, are you sure you can trust the garage to have changed the glowplugs? They are well "buried" and the more unscrupulous spanner bashers would not think twice of telling any owner they had changed them and not bother, get you to book it in for a "relay" change etc.
Yes I am an old cynic!!!

Have you tried changing the battery? My Croma came up with numerous faults just before Christmas. Despite testing OK I changed it because I felt it was due and voila all the faults disappeared.

^^^^
What Hal' says!

The issues I had inferred that I was on for a new Body Computer at least but a new battery sorted it (where's the "phewwww" icon?)

Might be worth a try if you do not know the age of your battery.

Hi all, thanks again for the replies!

Finally got a working pc again so I can finally update - due to lack of funds & time, I have had to hang on and run as is for last few weeks, got it booked in garage on Friday morning for investigation into all problems, I am able to hang around and oversee this so I will make sure all points noted on here are looked at.....however this morning, after another long starting process, the "Check Engine" msg displayed and the engine management light came on, after 5 mins driving in limp mode it seemed to pickup full power again, hope this isn't going to be another issue???!! Mechanic says it'll be fine til Fri as I have to do school drops etc.....I will get him to test battery too, but has anyone else on here experienced similar symptoms? I will of course update progress(if any!)after the dreaded visit to the garage!!

Thanks again for everyones help & input on this matter,

Simon ;-)

Check engine & limp mode is very typical of how egr failure presents in the diesels. It's a simple process to work through to confirm the problem - check for EGR failure elsewhere on the forum but basically part blanking the egr valve and possibly changing the part (not expensive or difficult) should resolve.

I agree with the above - I've had two replacement EGR valves, at 40k and 80k miles. They're almost a service consumable - it's an electrically operated valve that diverts nasty sooty sludgy exhaust gas. There's a rubber O-ring that separates the gooey crap from the electrics. When (not if) this O-ring fails then it jams up and dies shortly after. Alternatively, the sooty side can get stuffed with soot and crud and the solenoid is unable to move and it burns out. Either way, it will die periodically.

I'm on my third too at 87000 miles and I've cleaned them with carb cleaner a couple of times in between.

The swirl mod blanking gasket makes all the difference in the world though.

But don't be tempted to remove the egr and dpf altogether any more as you'll see elsewhere on the forum as it will soon be an MOT failure.

All of this presuposes that it is an egr problem. Difficult to diagnose without the problem being present but read up on egr blanking so that if it does come back you can blank the egr completely to see if it fixes the problem.

Other possible causes which are easily eliminated are the boost sensor and MAF sensor and these are all covered elsewhere in the forum.

Mechanics are more used to these problems than they were a few years ago but if yours doesn't sound familiar with this type of thing or suggests that it will cost a lot of money to run diagnostics be concerned.

Good luck.

Update - had battery test this morning, only 1/3 charged so will i need a new one, if so does anyone know which one is the correct one? I have been offered so many different priced ones, which is the right one do u have a part no. Or the make/unit model? I will make sure he test alternator first of coyrse! Thanjs for all ur help guys!

Had the verdict from fault reader and it says dpf is blocked.....dont know any more specifics, had a quick look at another post in here reg dpf mot failiure and still dont know where to go........and been told its gonna cost 270 + vat for replacement, is that a fair price? Going down to garage now so will hopefully get some codes to post on here! Wish me luck!

simonroscoe said:

Update - had battery test this morning, only 1/3 charged so will i need a new one, if so does anyone know which one is the correct one? I have been offered so many different priced ones, which is the right one do u have a part no. Or the make/unit model? I will make sure he test alternator first of coyrse! Thanjs for all ur help guys!

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This is the time of year that finds out a duff battery ( mine went on Xmas eve a couple of years back). The good book says 90amh if you have an alarm system, 70amph without?. As we all have alarms on our as standard its 90 or nowt, or so I thought. I went to my local battery supplier the day after boxing day and threw myself on there tender mercies. They dealt exclusively in VARTA and a 90amph was about 30mm too long for the battery tray so the biggest I could get on was 85amph it cost me £105 inc vat . What they said was it was the same battery , in the book, as supplied on a BMW 4x4 diesel so it should not give any probs with my smaller engine
Not sure about the DPF but lots of topics on here if you use the search tool,

simonroscoe said:

Had the verdict from fault reader and it says dpf is blocked!

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One possibility, the service mileage and oil condition mileage should be zeroed at oil change.
Some service garages (a few) can do the first, but the second seems to be a well kept secret.
When the oil condition mileage goes to 22,000 the DPF will not regen, as it is supposed the oil is not good enough for the required temperature. If you can this is worth a look.
Keith

You'll find EGR valves for a fraction of that price. If you're at all handy then it's perfectly do-able as a DIY job - it's not a big deal at all.

Same for the battery. There is another thread in which I gave all the part numbers for Varta/Bosch (same company). Garages might chuck in anything that would physically fit which, for most brands, means not enough juice.

I'm not a "lying on the drive in a pool of oil" kind of guy, but I've changed both these myself. Anything involving grease and fluids means the garage for me.