Hi all. I have been considering joining for a while (from South Africa) but I never thought it would happen like this. I own a manual transmission 2005 Stilo Abarth 3 door with 150 000km's. As of late, my car has started resenting me and now it refuses to run! Here's my story:

I was driving home at about 70km/h and all of a sudden, the car just died. Pressed the accelerator and nothing. Fearing a belt had snapped, I pushed the clutch in and managed to coast off onto the side of the road. From what I recall, there were no unusual sounds when this happened. Now it just swings and won't start.

What I did notice a month ago is that the coils started to go, but they acted up intermittently. The local dealer didn't have any stock (Champion ones), so I went to the parts store and got 2 (Bremi branded) thinking I could get to the faulty one by process of elimination. I replaced 1 and 4 and everything was perfect for 3 days when it started happening again... It only ran rough when the car was cold though, when it warmed up, it ran perfectly.

Edit: Not getting a check engine light and fuel pump seems to be working, if that narrows anything out. Also, the airbag light has gone on and isn't going off. It reads "airbag failure, consult handbook" on the display.

Please help!

When I had coil trouble multiecuscan indicated what plug was causing trouble.
The screen message was "imminent engine management failure" or something melodramatic.
Check voltage is OK as a drop can cause all sorts of random problems.
Get cable and multiecuscan if you don't have them

Managed to run a scan this morning and these are the codes that got thrown (in this order):

P0201 - Cylinder 1 injector,No signal,Present
P0202 - Cylinder 2 injector,No signal,Present
P0204 - Cylinder 4 injector,No signal,Present
P0205 - Cylinder 5 injector,No signal,Present
P0203 - Cylinder 3 injector,Below bottom limit,Present

If the fuel pump is working (i.e. you get a signal at the injectors) then it's not the TDC sensor. It sounds like something related to the ignition side only.

I'm not sure what can cause multiple cylinders to die (a 5-pot would "half run", even with 2 cylinders out). I dunno if there is a relay or fuse that looks after the coils.


Ralf S.

Try cleaning all the fuses for a start.