Hi everyone.

My grandmother owns a 1.6 Stilo, and since last year she's starting to experience the uninteresting typical stilo electrical faults, with all the "Loose connection, ASR failure, ABS failure, Engine fault etc."

So my question is, would a worn/dodgy battery be able to cause the errors as well as engine cutout while driving?

Why I'm asking is that, we've had the ECU inspected and the guy found no broken solders, so he reinforced the ones that could look like failing within the next couple of years and returned the unit.

It was then reinstalled in the car and the same faults reappeared of course :bang::bang:

So we've now bought a new 74 Ah Varta battery, since the battery is around 6 years old and is probably due to changing soon anyway hoping that this could at least help a bit maybe.

Would any of you have any good advice of what this could be caused by?

Regards Frederik

Hi Frederick;

As a general statement, yes; a worn / tired / failing battery can cause a number of electrical issues.

Whilst you are replacing the battery it may be beneficial for you to clean the battery terminals and earth connections (on both ends). Also inspect the fuse board above the battery - this sometimes benefits from a clean too. I believe there is a guide for the latter in the guides section.

FrederikN said:

Hi everyone.

My grandmother owns a 1.6 Stilo, and since last year she's starting to experience the uninteresting typical stilo electrical faults, with all the "Loose connection, ASR failure, ABS failure, Engine fault etc."

So my question is, would a worn/dodgy battery be able to cause the errors as well as engine cutout while driving?

Regards Frederik

Click to expand...

Hi,
drop to "unexpected" voltage will make sensors report errors..
and ePAS drop out too if severe - not sure if the 1.6 is old-skool hydraulic PAS

I'm intrigued by the car "dying" at the side of the road though..:chin:

got any more info on that..??
Charlie

Artermis said:

Hi Frederick;

As a general statement, yes; a worn / tired / failing battery can cause a number of electrical issues.

Whilst you are replacing the battery it may be beneficial for you to clean the battery terminals and earth connections (on both ends). Also inspect the fuse board above the battery - this sometimes benefits from a clean too. I believe there is a guide for the latter in the guides section.

Click to expand...

+1 Artemis is right. And you can improve the situation still further by installing additional earthing straps between battery and head, gearbox, throttle body etc. There's a how-to thread on here somewhere from our Stilo friends in Greece...

It seems like a voltage drop i guess, since a petrol car needs it's battery to run. It just cuts out when driving like it would with the loose solders in the ECU. Maybe the plus and minus cables from the fusebox are due to a change for some more robust ones? I dont know if that would help? I'll have to check if it's something i can do myself or get in hold of. As far as i know the PAS is electric like in the punto.

If the ECU is still of concern, have you relocated it away from it's original mounting point to a cooler position?

Since it's not me that owns the car, im without influence. But i've told my grandmother the importance of that, and that she should've got it fixed while it was in for a timing belt change. But she forgot to tell the mechanic and now i dont know when she'll be able to get it done

So some news.

I've changed the brake switch, since the car reported errors on that, and it was so silly cheap, didn't seem to help though. (Reports errors on everything almost lol)

So while trying to clean the visible earths around the fuse box and the fuse box itself with brake cleaner i got the car to report all the usual errors, so could it be the fuse box or the plus and/or minus cables thats due for a change? Have you had any experience with this?