(T) Wipeout

Q. What's the difference between my windscreen wipers and an essex girl?

A. My windscreen wipers have a mind of their own.

Sorry, essex girls, I realize such humour probably wore thin years ago.

Back to my wipers. I believe the intermitant setting should wipe three times then pause then once each time thereafter. Mine seem to wipe a random number of times then stop anywhere, down, up or somewhere between, then wipe another random number of times, etc. They eventually settle down and go back to one wipe and stopping at the bottom, but it very frustrating until they reach that point, particularly when it is raining on and off very lightly and only an occasional wipe is required.

On the slow continuous wipe they are also intermitant on occasions, but usually settle down after a short while.

Has anyone else experienced similar problems? Can anyone suggest a possible cause and solution? Is this likely to be covered on the warranty?

Sorry for the criptic thread title.

Do you have rain sensors?

This may explain the randomness, but not why they stop at different places on the screen.

I can't see why this wouldn't be covered by warranty - have you been to the dealer yet and asked??

No rain sensors. I haven't had a chance to get in touch with the dealer yet. But as I have a couple of other possible warranty issues and I've only had the car a month or so, albeit second hand, I might leave it a little longer to see if any other little niggles arise. None of the issues are anything more than a nuisance at worst.

Ah, ok! No ideas then, but something looks broke.

If second-hand, have you managed to get the warranty transferred into your name at the local FIAT dealer, or was it bought from them?

if you're going to wait a while. Make sure you don't go into the third year of the warranty as the coverage is severely reduced.

Hmm, good point haven't transferred the warranty yet, probably ought to get that sorted rather soon.

If a third year transfer, and they are happy the service history is up-to-date, they should transfer it for about £23.50 or so!

I did mine a few weeks back, and car going in on Monday for some warranty issues, including internal trim - the service manager is even coming to my house at 7.15am to pick mine up and drop off a courtesy car!?

The guy whom had my Stilo before me had this. Basically the only way to sort it is a new wiper motor. This is covered under 2 year warranty. He told me this as he got it done just before I bought it.

Whoo Hoo... thank heaven's I'm not the only one with this problem!!

Because it's an intermittent fault, my dealer keeps telling me they can't find a fault and that if there was a fault, that it would be "logged in the diagnostics system".

Last Saturday, the red engine failure light came on and the car went into 'limp home' mode... i.e would only rev to about 1700. Took it to the dealer on the Monday, by which time it was running fine. They kept the car from 8:15 until 5:30 and when I went to collect they told me that there were three faults logged that 'could' have cause it to go into limp home mode, but they couldn't be sure which one of the three actually caused it, so they just cleared the faults from the memory and...errr.., that's it. That was all they did!!!

This, together with a host of other intermittent faults that they have failed to solve...(again, they just delete them from the diagnostics, but don't actually resolve the fault itself) has left me with no choice but to log a formal complaint with FIAT UK.

I do not want to end up with huge bills when the warranty runs out just because they can't be ar*ed to solve the problem.

How did you log the complaint? Who to, what address etc?
It's just that I want to complain using the correct procedure. I've had no response to a letter to head office.

Call the FIAT Customer Helpine Freephone 0800 717 000

Tell them you problem, that you're getting nowhere with your dealer, that you want something done before you run out of warranty and that you wish to log a formal complaint