Hello, long time lurker 1st time poster here and a big FIAT fan regardless of occasional technical difficultys with cars.

I've bough a fiat stilo as mentioned in title, just two days ago, it passed the regular technical exam that is required by state to be registered and allowed on roads. Now yesterday I started it up (it was raining very lightly) and after 3 miles it shut down on the intersection and check engine light came on, it also wrote on the dash that it had coolant issue and ASR failure. The check engine light persists even today, it appears once the engine starts up along with 1 single short beep and stays on.

Since then, the engine stalls during idle, almost always, sooner or later, the RPMs are said to be a little below 1k, although I can feel as if the engine is running on half or 1/3 of all cylinders, also there is a noticeable loss of power in all RPMs, the car never stalls during driving no matter the speed or conditions (temperature, RPM, load, hill, motorway, 1st, 2nd, 3rd gear etc.).

Also note, the ASR warning doesn't come up anymore, ASR is on and is working, it just came on that one time when it stalled the 1st time on the intersection, also if the engine died during driving (once) then the message about high coolant came on as-well and went away as i restarted the car.

Tomorrow I'm taking it to a mechanic to see whats happening and what he says.

I'd also like to add that the car was parked and hasn't been switched on since January 2015, or was switched on just a couple of times for a mile or two, and was just stationary. Also before I bought it I tested it extremely, I've had the clean the air intake valve and thus fixed the ignition issue it had occasionally.

I've read the forum, searched through google over the past two days and prior to buying this stilo to see what to expect.

Any of your suggestions are very welcome and I SWEAR I will keep you updated each day in this thread

VIDEO of the car running now (engine shaking and RPM) is coming in an hour.

I will also take photos and further videos of the progress and post them here regularly.

My first thoughts are .
ASR light is not a big issue , this happened on my 2002 stilo more than once and always self-corrected.
You should check out coils.
Battery left for months would drain and if old at the beginning it will be very much worse by now.

Okay, thank you for the reply. I will compile a list of things that I found could be linked to the issue I am having for my mechanic to check out.

Also, I am going out to record the engine running for you guys to see, maybe someone sparks an idea as to what it might be, anyways, will know more tomorrow in the evening and will surely post here.

Kind regards,

Matija

A quick update. Just got my car from the mechanic. They replaced a coil and the car is running smoothly, petrol consumption seems to be okay, and oil is okay too. The car died twice on two different intersections. It idles okay below 900, it just takes some time for RPM to drop there and if I hold the clutch or brake they seem to be stuck at 1000 and drop when either is released. Not sure if clutch or brake or both but am wondering if my TB needs cleaning or maybe I need to unplug the battery and let the ECU re-learn?

If you unplug the battery - which is a good idea in my opinion - you may need to reset the radio. Check you have the code available !
What do you mean by TB ?
Are you saying the car has stalled since the new coil ?
I experienced having to replace two coils gone at the same time but initially replacing one of them seemed to work, but on testing it was found that two were actually faulty. (In the end all four were replaced over time.) Same mileage/kilometrage as yours .
Another thought ...... someone on this forum had problems with stale petrol in tank stored for several months.

I might unplug the battery. I have to have it disconnected for an hour and then start the car and that's it? Radio codes? Are they written somewhere on the ECU?
Yeah the car stalled 2 times, both during idle/stopping to park. It wasn't in gear I wants touching the throttle, once I had the foot on the clutch, other time it died without me touching it at all.

The car wasn't being driven since january at all. Maybe for a few kilometers here and there but that's it.

Tb, throttle body?

I have same problem. Plugged it in today was throttle body error with no fault found. Intermittent failure probably caused by failing Ecuador.

Para: I can not advise on throttle body question because I have no experience.
As for battery disconnection , I have now disconnected our Stilo 1.4 (2004) and no radio code was lost, so it looks like that only happened on earlier cars like the tipo. (here's hoping).

Hello everyone. So a little update. After replacing 1 coil the car no longer burns oil and it does not stall during driving. Also at the begining it had trobule starting. It would only start after 3rd key turn. I have driven it for aprox 2000 kilometers since the coil replacement and the car only stalled 2 times on the motorway but only after I filled up the tank with 100 octane petrol. Since then it hasnt stalled during idling on the red light or driving at any speed. The idle is little high when warm atound 900 and it takes 4 seconds to drop from 1100 to 900 when i stop and relese the throttle.

On wednesday i am taking the car to fiat mechanic for diagnosis and chekup and will report on the situation. I've owned only fiat cars in the last 20 years and I trust the said mechanic.

Regards,

PARANOiA