(T) Dangerous Stilo

Hi hopefully someone can help before I pay a visit to the fiat dealer.

Nearly every day for the past 5 months I have noticed a judder coming from my Stilo when I accelerate suddenly, more recently the accelerator has cut out completely, as in the engine is still idling but when I push the accelerator nothing happens, when I restart the car all is back to normal temporarily, this has happened regularly, sometimes when I need to accelerate quickly for instance, pulling out onto a roundabout etc.
I gather the Judder I feel before it cuts completely is the accelerator disconnecting for an instant, I spoke to a fiat dealer on the phone and he was saying the Accelerator is fly by wire so when u push the pedal a sensor sends a signal to the throttle.

If anyone has had this problem and has any advise for me I would appreciate your comments.

Also I was thinking about reseting the ECU, how do I go about doing this??

Yes, the throttle is "fly by wire" in that it senses how much the gas pedal is moved and tries to move the inlet valve by a corresponding amount.

There are two potentiometers at the gas pedal whch give out a voltage of how far the pedal has been moved, one for reference and one for back up. Not often we see problems there

The computer looks this voltage up in its little performance MAP and moves the inlet valve a corresponding amount and checks this movement is correct. Obviously something is going adrift here with communications and something isn't talking or listening properly

So, have you had the throttle body update carried out? If you're not sure then it will need to go on Examiner to find out if it's been done

Things you can try
Clean the inlet valve to make sure it's not sticking. See the Stilo Guides

Reset the ECU by disconnecting the battery negative lead for a few hours. Whilst that's happening I would disconnect the throttle body actuator electrical lead clean its contacts with contact cleaner, blow it out to dry and reconnect it. This is a common source of lost communications. Look in the post below for a piccy

Take it for a run and see if it's cured.

If not then you might need to manually put the throttle body through a learning process so it knows where it is

THROTTLE LEARNING PROCESS
Turn the ignition on but don't start the car or touch the pedals. Wait a whole minute for it to go through its checks. Then turn the ignition off and wait at least 10 secs so it stores the data. Ask the Almighty for forgiveness for all your sins whilst carrying out this procedure


Have a look here as someone had similar problems although ignore others reference to coils as that was a red herring and not really your symptoms

http://www.fiatforum.com/stilo-techn...-throttle.html

Thanks for the advice deckchair (once again). I had a look at the pic of the throttle body but cannot find it can u give me directions.


Thanks..

Try this, disconnect the battery for ten minutes to reset the ECU, once you've reconnected, start the car and let it get to temperature, you then need to sit in the car and rev the car into the rev limiter until it starts to cut out and then let it rest, reapeat this procedure two more times, this resets the throttle parameters and should cure your problem.

The same thing happened to me, my car was stalling and juddering when I took my foot of the gas, also registering Engine Fault intermittently, did the above and it was immediately cured.

Cheers.

"Thanks for the advice deckchair (once again). I had a look at the pic of the throttle body but cannot find it can u give me directions"
Do you have sat nav?

Have you looked at the piccies in the Stilo Guides?

Ok i see it now. I will give it a try tomorrow. Also is it ok for the car to be reved to the limiter, I have never red-lined my stilo and don't really want to in fear of causing more problems

Why wait 5 months before doing anything about it

Yes, it's fine to take it to the limiter, remember, you just need to hit the limiter for a second, don't hold it there for 20 minutes, repeat 3 times for a reset.

You may need to repeat more than three times. Nige from Angel Tuning needed to do it 6 times on mine when recalibrating the throttle after a re-map...

You dont need to rev it when recalibrating the throttle...you only do this in a phonic wheel learn situation....and it 5000rpm

How's your remap Yellow?

Ok i have done all of the above but still so success.

The fault codes I am getting are:


P0203: Injector Circuit Malfunction - Cylinder 3. (I have Changed this Coil)
P0638: ?


Dose anyone know the meaning of the second code??

P0638 is Throttle Actuator Control Range so as we suspected, something's up with the throttle response at the inlet valve.
Have you had the ECU throttle body update done?
Did you clean the connector with contact cleaner?
Quite a few Stilos seem to have had the whole throttle body changed but hope it's not that


P0203: Injector Circuit Malfunction - Cylinder 3. Not your coil but your injector
This will be most likely what's causing your judder on acceleration.
I would checkout the injector connector contacts and then consider using some injector cleaner

What symptoms are you experiencing now?

Yep I disconnected the neg from the battery, took out the cable from the throttle valve thing, sprayed contanct cleaner into the contacts left it to dry for about 1hr 30min, put everything back and took it for a drive and It was the same.

I have the car 17months, I dont know if the ECU throttle body update has done? how will i know.

How much would a new throttle body be?

"I dont know if the ECU throttle body update has done? how will i know".
If you don't have knowledge of it being done then you can only find out by putting it on Examiner. I have a feeling your going to need Examiner on this one

Throttle body is pretty expensive £200-£300 i think
The fact it sorts itself out if you turn off and restart is encouraging. I'd focus on how throttle body is losing communications

What symptoms are you getting now? Still have the judder on acceleration and complete loss of throttle?