(G) advice needed please

hi, i could do with everyones knowledge to help diagonose a problem with my car. i hav a 1.6 3dr stilo. the other day i was driving home and my engine light came on, the car lost all acceleration, no matter how far i pressed the accelerator it just drifted to a stop and would not move off. i needed to start the car again, engine light came on but the thing now at least moved however the car seemed sluggish. reading through the forum and taking into account my milage of 49000 miles, i suspect maybe a faulty coil? i took the car to the fiat garaage who diagnosed the problem as 'brake pedal switch'. So that has been changed at an overall price of £120.00

afterwards the car seemed ok but i still felt she was a little sluggish and tonight the same problem he re-occured, engine light followed immediatly by complete loss of acceleration.

where i live means i do a lot of motorway driving so this is obviously very worrying with the car losing power like this.
so any thoughts on what this could be? and also where do i stand with the garage regarding the work that just cost me £120.00 that has obviously not solved the problem?

cheers.

£ 120 for a brake pedal switch, surely not just the brake light switch under the foot pedal!, a few members have had problems with throttle potentiometers , as on the stilo it is "fly by wire", all throttle imputs are computer controlled with servo's,


Personaly i would be kicking up a fuss about that price too, i take it that it went onto the diagnostics examiner??


Is the bit they replaced the same as this:
http://www.fiatforum.com/stilo-guide...ng-switch.html

Buy yourself a fault code reader of some sort as it'll be a good investment then you'll know what your engine is trying to tell you is wrong.

Sounds more like a throttle body fault. The ecu loses track of the throttle posiiton and you are then restricted to lower revs for safety. I'd expect fault codes
P1687 metering valve
and maybe
P1121 tp sensor (throttle position)

Gas pedal controls the throttle very much like an scalextric car race set, a variable resistor (2 actually, one for a double check) in the gas pedal and a motor in the throttle. The throttle also has a variable resistor to feed back just where it is to the ECU. Any poor contact in the system causes a loss of information, fault code, restricted revs and maybe even no tickover

Ignition coil is more of a duh duh duh from the engine and it doesnt fix itself when you turn the engine off and on again so it remains the same, almost undriveable

£120 to replace a brake switch? You've been seen off once, buy a fault code reader and brake switch replacement is described in the Guides

yea they replaced the brake switch pedal and also they said they needed to remove and clean another part, so paid for 1.5 hours labour + the brake switch part. i know its not cheap but needed it done quickly. I had my spring recall done also that day to kill two birds with one stone.

thats interesting what you say about the throttle body, i had that and my ECU replaced recently so that may be the reason. that work is still under warranty so im going to raise that with them.

i just want to get it sorted & be confident its fixed as my car losing power like this is really dangerous, im gonna have some one run into the back off me before long.

" thats interesting what you say about the throttle body, i had that and my ECU replaced recently so that may be the reason. that work is still under warranty so im going to raise that with them."
Ah! You were saving that bit of information til last eh?
Why was the throttle body body and ecu replaced? Were you having these sort of problems before?

haha, yea had a major problem with my ECU that also killed my throttle body. so they got replaced in november last year. everything seemed fine since but i guess there could easily be a problem resulting from poor fitting/configuation of the part. Also i remember on the invoice for the replacement parts they were 'reconditioned' ECU and Throttle body parts, so i assume this means not brand-new parts which could also leave extra room for a problem to occur.

the problem before was different, the car was undrivable. these are different symptoms entirely. i can actualy use the car then there is just a sudden loss of all accleration.

"they were 'reconditioned' ECU and Throttle body parts, so i assume this means not brand-new parts which could also leave extra room for a problem to occur".
Bet your life. Could really do with the stored fault codes if there are any to narrow the possibilities