Technical 1.3 MultiJet Glow Plugs issue. Warranty?

[juggler]

Hello All,

My 08 Grande Punto turned 3 at the beginning of May and has today just beeped at me and flashed up an error message saying something about Glow Plugs and Check Engine. This was when I started the engine and is the first time it has happened. The orange light then stayed on for the entire journey.

I have never (touch wood) had any problem with the car except the battery completely drained itself overnight last Thursday, and the RAC man who came to fix it said nothing was left on, the battery is fine, the alternator is fine, and there isn't any high drain on the battery. So he was perplexed. Now I have this issue with the glow plugs.

I have two questions:

1. Does anyone have any idea what the problem might be?

2. Is this likely to be covered under the extended warranty?

The car drives perfectly normally without any unusual noises, the only thing is that the engine runs for a fraction of a second after you turn the ignition off, which I noticed the last time I turned the engine off, before the error message appeared.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ffoxy]

Glow plugs are a heavy current drain item so bearing in mind the tale of the flat battery, if I were you I'd get a proper battery condition check done, if you dont I'd expect to see a Power Steering warning flag up next, then maybe ABS... ASR unavailable.... A good strong battery is essential!

 

[peter7889]

1, A glow plug/ plugs has broken, all they are is a coil of wire that heats up and some time they snap. personal i would get all 4 replaced if one has gone they aren't that expensive. £15 each roughly, with the weather being warm it will still turn over and fire with a plug out but it will smoke and take a bit longer to start. I would get it looked at before it starts to get cold.

2, as the car is over 3 years old fiats warrenty will have run out and even then i would think that glow plugs would be classed as a consumable part and not be covered any way. It won't cost the earth to change them anyway, some people even do it them selfs.

hope that helps

 

[juggler]

Thank you Ffoxy and Peter7889 for your kind help.

Ffoxy - are you saying that this might be nothing to do with the glow plugs, but actually a problem with the battery? How would I be able to test this; the RAC man seemed to be pretty thorough?

Peter7889 - What you say about the warranty makes sense. Is there anyway (short of paying for the replacements) that I would be able to tell if it is definitely the glow plugs, before I fork out to have them fixed? I have done quite a lot of reading around and it seems that people quite often replace the glow plugs and they aren't actually the problem at all!

Thank you again for your help!

 

[Ffoxy]

No I'm saying have the battery properly tested to eliminate it for the reason you state, where people have assumed its the glow-plugs & found to their cost it not to be so... dont forget the glow-plug timer system & relay either. But to know you have a good battery is a good starting point. Glow-plugs can be a devil to remove, so check the easy route first I say.

 

[peter7889]

When i was worryed about my glow plugs, i took my car into the garage and he tested each plug for me. There isn't much room on an mjet but he used a length of wire with a lamp in the middle, one end on the battery and once he had took the clip off the top of the plug he put the wire on the plug he told if it was dead the bulb wouldn't light. Because the coil of wire in the plud would be snapped and so there would be an open circuit. Luckly they all did for me. If you know a garage you trust not to rip you off it might be worth getting them to test them or if any body you know has got an error code reader that to might log an error code and point you in the right direction.

From personal experince don't got to fiat, they will take you for a ride and you don't need and specialist kit to diagnoise the problem either.

 

[juggler]

OK, I will take the car to my local garage (nice guy there) and ask him to test the battery and the glow plugs if he can get to them. Hopefully he will be able to resolve it inexpensively!

Thanks again guys.

 

[juggler]

I stupidly forgot to mention that the day before the battery drained itself, I was driving through some very heavy rain and some fords (extremely deep puddles) near where I live. I wondered if some water might have gotten into something and caused a problem. Is this a possibility? I know the accelerator on my 2002 Ford used to stop working whenever I drove through water!

Thank you again.