Technical 2003 1,6 Active, engine cuts out, display reads 'loose connection'

[Anders Pedersen]

Hello all,

New member with old problem, I guess.

While merrily driving along, engine cuts out, followed by all sorts of alarm lights in dash and the display reading 'loose connection'. I can then re-start engine right away, or after a short moment.

Booked a visit at the garage, but since it was an intermittent fault mechanic was sceptical, would run a diagnosis but if nothing showed up, he suspected he would be at at loss.

Last trip in car it was barely driveable.

Full disclosure: I was called away for work early, so had to cancel my appointment. Car is at home, I'm away and won't return for another 2 weeks. Meanwhile, I ask the boards advice on:

What can I do myself before handing the car over to mechanic?

- Check/clean D4 connector
- Check/clean all electrical connections, I can lay my eyes on. I don't know where the earths are located. Also, something about loose pins in the ECU? (maybe a little in over my head).

Anything else?

What would I have the mechanic do?
- Load test battery (lead/acid, 2-3 years old)
- Check/replace crank position sensor?

Anything else?

Above suggestions are what I could make out from gleaning the Stilo forum. Please tell me if I am missing anything obvious, because - 'All I want for Christmas is my old Stilo back'.

Any advice highly appreciated. I will be sure to post whatever the outcome. Promise!

Best regards,
Anders

 

[Artermis]

Have you considered ECU fault - which is quite common on the 1.6 due to the ECU mounting location, made all the more likely by the hot climate you live in. See this video for further detail:

 

[wody21]

You should check the fusebox after the ECU. There is a guide / tutorial for disassembling and cleaning that at the forum. I only experienced loose connection related issues when I had problems with fusebox (rain goes in, connection between parts goes haywire...)

 

[Anders Pedersen]

Artermis:
Denmark has a hot climate? Pull the other one!
I remember seeing that video when I first bought the car 3-4 years ago and thinking "poor sod, happy I'm not in his shoes". Well, now I am!

I have never used a soldering iron in my life, and it makes me wonder what the odds are that I will bugger the ECU even more than it maybe already is. Repair in the video looks easy enough though.
A quick glance on the internet at Danish repair shops that specializes in refurbishing ECU's seems they all want the part to be delivered through a garage, no dealings directly with private customers. I think I will take the ECU to my mechanic and consult him on the matter.
As stated, I won't be home for another couple of weeks, so I have time to sleep on it.

Wody21:
Board settings won't me let post URL's, but I found it. The video posted by Artermis matches my symptoms better than the ones in the guide - but I will clean connections in the fuse box as well.

To the both of you, now that I have a sense of direction, I guess there will be light at the end of the tunnel, so a big thank you for taking your time to answer my questions!

 

[Artermis]

Artermis:
Denmark has a hot climate? Pull the other one!

Haha - fair point. For some reason, lord knows why, I'd decided in my head you were in Greece.

Cooler climates are potentially equally an issue as it puts more of a heat cycle through the ECU every time you go and drive it.

I agree I wouldnt be messing with the ECU lightly and if electronics isn't your thing it's best left to someone with experience on a Stilo; the electronics on these things aren't really that bad but they're sensitive enough to go horribly wrong if you mess it up.

Once you do move passed this problem it might be worth considering relocating the ECU to a cooler spot in the engine bay as a bit of a preventative measure.

 

[Anders Pedersen]

Once you do move passed this problem it might be worth considering relocating the ECU to a cooler spot in the engine bay as a bit of a preventative measure.

Maybe that would open up another can of worms.. I don't know if the ECU in the car today came with the new car in 2003, but if the ECU would last another 14 years if refurbished, I'd say it would have done good. All of the car would have done good, for that matter.

 

[Anders Pedersen]

As promised when posting original question, this is the outcome so far:

- Based on the advice given by the board, on my return home I handed over the ECU to the mechanic suggesting that was the culprit.
Mechanic declined, said he wanted the car as well, since he wanted to do a proper fault-finding. (I was more or less ridiculed for passing on the experience/advice of this board. "Fault-finding by Google", "shade-tree-mechanics" etc. Grumble, grumble). Fair enough.

- 1 week later I dropped by the garage, mechanic agreed to send the ECU to his contact who would refurbish the ECU if needed.

- 2 weeks later I picked up the car. Mechanic said his contact had resoldered 2 pins because of high resistance. (When I first disconnected the ECU I noticed no dropped pins).

In time of writing, 1 month after picking up the car, the car drives faultlessly. The engine hasn't cut out once. Of course I am through the roof happy about this! But there is a peculiar postscript to this:

- On the first 4-5 days after picking up the car, the dashboard consistingly reported some electrical faults. Faulty indicators (Indicators working as they should), all of dashboard functioning intermittently. Turned out these faults would first subside and then go away entirely. Here comes the daft question: Is it possible for the ECU to "self-learn" that everything is okay?

I suggested the mechanic that he relocate the ECU - he would have none of that, said that would remove the ECU from the cooling of the wind. (I think he wanted the car out of his shop). And I haven't gotten around to doing it myself.

Thank you for all of your advice, maybe some future reader of this thread can be helped making a decision on how to go about a similar problem.

 

[Artermis]

As promised when posting original question, this is the outcome so far:

- Based on the advice given by the board, on my return home I handed over the ECU to the mechanic suggesting that was the culprit.
Mechanic declined, said he wanted the car as well, since he wanted to do a proper fault-finding. (I was more or less ridiculed for passing on the experience/advice of this board. "Fault-finding by Google", "shade-tree-mechanics" etc. Grumble, grumble). Fair enough.

- 1 week later I dropped by the garage, mechanic agreed to send the ECU to his contact who would refurbish the ECU if needed.

- 2 weeks later I picked up the car. Mechanic said his contact had resoldered 2 pins because of high resistance. (When I first disconnected the ECU I noticed no dropped pins).

In time of writing, 1 month after picking up the car, the car drives faultlessly. The engine hasn't cut out once. Of course I am through the roof happy about this! But there is a peculiar postscript to this:

- On the first 4-5 days after picking up the car, the dashboard consistingly reported some electrical faults. Faulty indicators (Indicators working as they should), all of dashboard functioning intermittently. Turned out these faults would first subside and then go away entirely. Here comes the daft question: Is it possible for the ECU to "self-learn" that everything is okay?

I suggested the mechanic that he relocate the ECU - he would have none of that, said that would remove the ECU from the cooling of the wind. (I think he wanted the car out of his shop). And I haven't gotten around to doing it myself.

Thank you for all of your advice, maybe some future reader of this thread can be helped making a decision on how to go about a similar problem.

Hi Anders,

Sounds like you need another mechanic. Whilst I would never disregard the advice of an experienced mechanic the benefit of the forum is that we have a massive collective knowledge of these specific vehicles which a mechanic alone cannot have, so we do know what we're dealing with

Glad the ECU has been repaired and you're running fault free. The general consensus on the board is to relocate the ECU away from the heat of the engine block.

Regarding the ECU and the intermittent dashboard communications - the ECU wouldnt be linked to the issues you describe.

The ECU is purely for the engine, there are other separate ECUs that handle other functions on the car. I think the instrument panel is largely linked with the body computer, for instance.

Even so, the work you had done to the ECU should not have affected the memory of the ECU. It's coding to the car would not change. There might be some adaptive parameters, like fuel trims and things, that might be reset by removing power to it but that would not manifest itself in misbehavior of the instrument panel.

The instrument panels themselves are known to develop their own faults. It could be that being stood in a cold damp garage for a couple of weeks causes it some upset.

What I suspect is more likely in this instance is that the mechanic has had the battery off the whole time whilst your car has been stood with him and the battery connections have oxidized over, resulting in a slightly poor connection causing misbehavior. With a bit of running and warming everything back up again it's obviously settled down again and is happy.

Still, if it's sorted and happy now having done a bit of running I would be inclined to let it be

Enjoy your Stilo.

 

[Ralf S.]

If the ECU is absorbing heat from the engine, can you stick some heat shielding around it?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HEAT-REF...054912&hash=item2a8ffdde05:g:JtwAAOSwOMdZQAno

Or does the ECU need to be naked in there, so that it can cool down its own generated heat?


Ralf S.

 

[Anders Pedersen]

Whilst I would never disregard the advice of an experienced mechanic the benefit of the forum is that we have a massive collective knowledge of these specific vehicles which a mechanic alone cannot have, so we do know what we're dealing with

Hello Artermis,

When I tried to hand in just the ECU, the mechanic pointed out that if he was to blindly change out parts based on advice or suggestions from his customers, he would soon be out of business.
When I came round 1 week later, I specifically pointed out that I hadn't been asking the Ford-owners, the Mazda-owners, the BMW-owners let alone car-owners in general.
By that time his own fault-finding had turned out nothing (fault was after all intermittent), so he was a lot more approachable listening to my advice (your advice).

I can sort of see where he's coming from, basically I was asking him to disregard his own work methods and go for what a customer wants him to do, by way of strangers on the internet.
(Adding to that this is only my second visit to this garage, due to my old mechanic retiring. First visit was routine service only. So we didn't know each other that well. We do now, I guess.)

In the end, he charged me 3 hours of fault-finding and 2 diagnosis-tests (1 test he made free of charge).

I chose to not make any fuss about him not relenting about the ECU anytime sooner, but I did note to myself that had he accepted just the ECU on my first visit, I would only have had to pay the work of his refurbishing contact, and saved the cost of the mechanic not being able to find the fault otherwise.

But that's life, I guess. I enjoy my Stilo and have regained my faith in the car, which is no bad thing at all. Thank you for the explanation concerning the dashboard troubles - sounds plausible!

If the ECU is absorbing heat from the engine, can you stick some heat shielding around it?[/QUOT

I definitely would not wrap the ECU as it needs to shed its own heat (done by wind coming through the grille). If anything I would place a sheet of material in between the ECU and the engine, taking care not to isolate (insulate?) the ground wire.

The idea sounds good to me. But who am I to tell? Maybe Artermis has an opinion on this?