- Joined
- Sep 12, 2017
- Messages
- 17
- Points
- 6
Hi Everyone,
new on the forum but it is a case of needing help. I am an Ex Pat living in germany and own a Stilo 1.8 16V Dynamic that has done me proud since the day I bought it. absolutely no problems until recently.
So to the problem, I am getting ASR/ESP error message "ESP not available/disabled" when I start the car, light on the instrument panel lights up along with the light on the switch in the middle console, this all stays on when driving the car. Took the car to my local Fiat dealer, they read the codes out, they came back with "no communication between ABS and ECU". They tried to find the fault with no luck saying they presume there is a cable break somewhere but I quote "they don't really know how to find it" LMAO.....their suggestion replace the complete wiring harness as it is one complete piece !!! to this I just thought "yea ok and took the car home again"
I then found this forum read lots of posts about all the different eletronic gremlins that can be found in a Stilo, unfortunately most relate to the 1.6 model. Anyway went about doing everything from cleaning all contacts, plugs, Sensors on the wheels, adjusting Brakelight switch etc. etc. that are know to cause this type of problem, all to no avail. Next step was to call my mate who works for John Deere tractors as a technician (tractors have more technical systems these days than cars ) he went about measuring the wiring harness each part one by one (just to see if the dealer was right), and believe me it was a job and a half, took him 2 days (including striping large parts of the dash out) and didn't find a single problem with it. He even read out the faults, with the same error code plus one more "air conditioning sensor fail" (I have the codes as a printout). He tried to reset them but couldn't, which he thought was very strange because normally you can reset them and if the problem is still there the ECU will just rewrite them next time you start the car.
So to my question. I have read here that the 1.6 ECU suffers from heat causing pins to drop or solder joints to weaken because of it's bad positioning in the engine bay. Having looked at the position of the ECU in my car, which to be honest is not really ideal, I am thinking maybe this could also be a cause. Has anyone had the same experience ? If not does anyone know of somewhere in the UK where you can buy a new or refurbished ECU, Fiat in Germany want upwards of 1500 pounds for one, I presume Fiat UK will be about the same.
I will interested in your advice and opinions, and thanks in advance.
Peace, Rock 'n' Roll everyone
new on the forum but it is a case of needing help. I am an Ex Pat living in germany and own a Stilo 1.8 16V Dynamic that has done me proud since the day I bought it. absolutely no problems until recently.
So to the problem, I am getting ASR/ESP error message "ESP not available/disabled" when I start the car, light on the instrument panel lights up along with the light on the switch in the middle console, this all stays on when driving the car. Took the car to my local Fiat dealer, they read the codes out, they came back with "no communication between ABS and ECU". They tried to find the fault with no luck saying they presume there is a cable break somewhere but I quote "they don't really know how to find it" LMAO.....their suggestion replace the complete wiring harness as it is one complete piece !!! to this I just thought "yea ok and took the car home again"
I then found this forum read lots of posts about all the different eletronic gremlins that can be found in a Stilo, unfortunately most relate to the 1.6 model. Anyway went about doing everything from cleaning all contacts, plugs, Sensors on the wheels, adjusting Brakelight switch etc. etc. that are know to cause this type of problem, all to no avail. Next step was to call my mate who works for John Deere tractors as a technician (tractors have more technical systems these days than cars ) he went about measuring the wiring harness each part one by one (just to see if the dealer was right), and believe me it was a job and a half, took him 2 days (including striping large parts of the dash out) and didn't find a single problem with it. He even read out the faults, with the same error code plus one more "air conditioning sensor fail" (I have the codes as a printout). He tried to reset them but couldn't, which he thought was very strange because normally you can reset them and if the problem is still there the ECU will just rewrite them next time you start the car.
So to my question. I have read here that the 1.6 ECU suffers from heat causing pins to drop or solder joints to weaken because of it's bad positioning in the engine bay. Having looked at the position of the ECU in my car, which to be honest is not really ideal, I am thinking maybe this could also be a cause. Has anyone had the same experience ? If not does anyone know of somewhere in the UK where you can buy a new or refurbished ECU, Fiat in Germany want upwards of 1500 pounds for one, I presume Fiat UK will be about the same.
I will interested in your advice and opinions, and thanks in advance.
Peace, Rock 'n' Roll everyone