Technical Stilo 1.6 wont start, stumped

[vitorio]

So the other half's stilo sat for a week (holiday, so no to-fro work), and now it wont start. We initially thought the battery was weak/dying, and indeed it read ~11.7v, which is lowish. Put it on the trickle charger for the night to bring it up to ~12.3v, still no start. Hooked up my alfa GT with jump leads, still no start, started the GT, still no start on the Stilo despite reading 13.7v on the terminals (being charged by the alfa). Had the alfa idling for ~15 mins to charge the Stilo a bit more, still no start...

With the extra power it does spin the engine better, rev-wise it sounds like it should be OK.

Next we checked:
- Spark, took a coil/plug out and witnessed it sparking when starting, so that looks OK
- Fuel, after a longish attempt at starting, some fuel smell comes out the exhaust. The fuel pump under the back seat primes, and spraying some WD40 into the throttle body failed to produce any other result
- ECU, had the ecu out and checked the pins, didnt see any damage on any solder joints and all pins felt securely in place.

Car isnt throwing any engine management codes currently, it has in the past, the most recent code was a catalyst efficiency code, so it seems unrelated.

Father in law suggested it might be the cam angle sensor, but from what i can find that is behind a cam pully, which would mean timing belt off, meaning it isnt exactly an easy thing to check.

Any tips/pointers/things ive missed?

 

[Ralf S.]

I would look at the most likely thing to go wrong, rather than dismantling it already.

If the battery was very flat, you may have lost the code to the immobilisor in the car's brains. Do you have any red light/flashing key type of symbold on the dash, particularly when you crank the engine? I guess/hope not... since you get sparks and fuel.. but it's the first thing to check.

Remove the battery and charge it up for 6-8 hours. The charge should say 13.x volts, just off the charger. Then leave it for an hour or two and measure the voltage again. If it's now dropped to less than 12.3v you need a new battery.

While it's doing that, take out all the plugs and leave them off for a few hours to dry things out. You could have a bit of flooding (unlikely with injection.. but you're not going anywhere for the time being, so it can't hurt).

With a new battery or 12.3 volts in your existing one, reconnect the battery and try again. Apolgies if this doesn't work and now you need to reset all the time/date etc... but the car might need the battery disconnected so it can clear out its brains and revert to "cold-start" mode.

It may have been confused by the false starts and may not be optimising for a cold start properly. A cold start should be "rich" (i.e. so it should stink of petrol and yours isn't).

But don't under-estimate the power of a new battery. If yours is remotely weedy/not holding its charge then that's the clear candidate. If you buy a new one, don't buy the one they recommend for the 1.6... the battery compartment is big enough for an Abarth or a JTD battery which are probably twice the size... You can't have too much battery, so get the biggest Mo-Fo that will fit..


Ralf S.

 

[vitorio]

The Stilo is running again!

Yesterday we set out to first take the battery out of my GT (a 60ah 540a one, that should do the job..), and it cranked a bit more vigorously then the stilos own battery (which was still on the trickle charger), but no luck. I took out all the plugs, which looked decent, disconnected the injectors so it could crank a bit without added fuel to "air out" the cylinders. Disconnected the fuel line for half a second to triple check if we were getting fuel pressure (to be answered with a royal spray of fuel on my hands)

Put it all back together, cranked a bit more, and noticed that bit by bit, some cylinders were starting to pop, kept cranking and eventually it wheezed into life, with a lot of tappety racket. Consulted the father in law who suspected it was the hydraulic tappets being dry, and it has been drinking some oil lately, so we added a pint to be sure, and went for a test drive. Tappety noise disappeared, and once at the inlaws we used the hoist to drain the oil, only to find out there was roughly 1.5L in the sump Filled it up to specced capaity again and its now running nicely again.

We dont know exactly what is happening to the oil though, it is going through it quite quickly, and hasnt done that before, so something is up, and the damage might be done by running so low on oil... but we'll see. As for the non-starting, it might have been a combo of low battery and no oil in the tappets not opening the valves far enough for a proper start..

Thanks for all the pointers guys!

 

[Ralf S.]

That's good news.

Oil can only leak out or be burnt, so it's not too difficult to work out which it is.

If the engine is clean and dry looking, apart from a patch under the sump (all engines have a patch under the sump) then it's being burnt.

If the engine/driveway looks like the Amoco Cadiz has collided with the Exxon Valdez (ask your dad) then it's obviously leaking out.

Oil burn is sometimes the rings but more usually the valve guide seals and even more usually a bit of both. Work out how much oil it's using and if it's too shocking then you can fix it (head off job and costs probably three times the value of the car, if a garage is doing it) or stick a new engine in there (costs just twice as much as teh value of tha car).

If it's drinking the black stuff but not enough to frighten Greta, then just remember to check the oil and top it up every week or however often is appropriate.

At least you know what to do with your old engine oil out of the GT... stick it in the Stilo (but filter out any bits first).

Ralf S.

 

[vitorio]

Oh it is definitely burning it, the space where it stood for a week was clean as a whistle, im just not sure where from, which doesnt matter anyway, considering the value and life expectancy of the car. It is due to be replaced with a proper oil burner in a few months, so any engine surgery is a no-no. If the oil consumption is dreadfull enough that driving it daily gets impractical, that just means the diesel purchase gets moved forward.

And now that you mention it, the GT is due an oil change, and is currently running the fiat prescribed Selenia 20K, just a different grade

 

[Ralf S.]

You could try a different, slightly heavier grade of oil for the Stilo.

Here they sell a 15W40.. it's noticeably thicker than 10W40 and when I used to drive an Alfa 155 v6 up and down the motorway, during the summer I would switch to 15W40 to cut down oil consumption.

If the car is used for a lot of short journies, then I would keep the recommended oil, so that it gets to the cams etc.

It'd be interesting to run a compression test on it, if you have the kit.. just to see whether it's one cylinder or the whole engine that needs help.


Ralf S.

 

[Garrett500]

I would look at the most likely thing to go wrong, rather than dismantling it already.

If the battery was very flat, you may have lost the code to the immobilisor in the car's brains. Do you have any red light/flashing key type of symbold on the dash, particularly when you crank the engine? I guess/hope not... since you get sparks and fuel.. but it's the first thing to check.

Remove the battery and charge it up for 6-8 hours. The charge should say 13.x volts, just off the charger. Then leave it for an hour or two and measure the voltage again. If it's now dropped to less than 12.3v you need a new battery.

While it's doing that, take out all the plugs and leave them off for a few hours to dry things out. You could have a bit of flooding (unlikely with injection.. but you're not going anywhere for the time being, so it can't hurt).

With a new battery or 12.3 volts in your existing one, reconnect the battery and try again. Apolgies if this doesn't work and now you need to reset all the time/date etc... but the car might need the battery disconnected so it can clear out its brains and revert to "cold-start" mode.

It may have been confused by the false starts and may not be optimising for a cold start properly. A cold start should be "rich" (i.e. so it should stink of petrol and yours isn't).

But don't under-estimate the power of a new battery. If yours is remotely weedy/not holding its charge then that's the clear candidate. If you buy a new one, don't buy the one they recommend for the 1.6... the battery compartment is big enough for an Abarth or a JTD battery which are probably twice the size... You can't have too much battery, so get the biggest Mo-Fo that will fit..


Ralf S.

Just for future reference, good battery voltage doesn't necessarily mean its any good. You need to measure the voltage while the engine is cranking. Anything under about 9.6v means you need a new battery.

 

[vitorio]

ralf, sadly i dont have compression testing kit, its somewhere on the wanted list, but considering im not rebuilding engines for sport (yet), other items have priority.

Either way, it doesnt really matter, the car is due to be replaced in a few months, and we have no high hopes for its value anyway, so if it dies for real in the next three months, the only pain is the inconvenience of sourcing a new car at perhaps an inopportune moment.

Ill be keeping on top of the oil just to try and keep it running, but further diagnostics or engine surgery arent worth the effort, if it lives, it lives and perhaps gets to find a new owner, if it doesnt then its off to the scrappy