(T) Bad starter with smoke. 55 Stilo 1.4 Active Sport

Hi guys

I was wondering if you could help me. I have a Stilo 1.4 Active Sport and yesterday I had a real problem starting the car. Usually it starts fine, but yesterday I turned the key and it made a whining turn over noise and would not start.

Now this happened to me a few months after buying the car (from new November 2005). What happpened then was I just kept the key turned and finally it started, but not without a whole load of smoke.

This time I decided to leave it and get the local Fiat garage to come and look at it.
They came today, pluged it into the computer and it displayed 'no fault detected. Typical computers I thought!!!

So my question is this; have any of you had any problems like this and if so, what was the problem? The garage did say that if I left the car with them , they would look at it. But it would be nice to hear from you guys.

Many thanks

Lightman

First thing that comes to mind is crankshaft sensor. Quite a few people have had unreliable signal from it which gives a start one minute then nothing the next as the ecu doesn't know when to fire the sparks. Would have hoped for a fault code on that one though

Next thing is key transponder not being recognised, this will also allow it to turn over but not start until it's happy you're not trying to nick it. Turning it off and back on again tells it to stop messing about and then it starts just fine

Smoke will probably be just fuel filled cylinders firing up but depends what type of smoke. A strong smell of fuel and flames out the back is a sure sign it's fuel

What colour is the smoke?

Once had a similar fault with a Seat Ibiza, not starting then after a push start, spewed out white smoke (like a steam train) for about 2 minutes. Being a niave 18 yr old at the time, thought it was ok once smoke went down.

Ten minutes up the M6 later im stuck on the hard shoulder with a blown head gasket, fubared cylinder head and two seized pistons.

I take it yours is till running?