General Whole host of warnings have started coming up when turning off engine

[JDPower]

Anyone got any idea what might be causing this: I start the car, no warnings (other than the usual airbag warning), but when I turn OFF the ignition I get a whole load of warnings come up on the dash - engine fault, alternator failure, loose connection, ABS lamp fault, ASR lamp fault, high coolant temp, power steering fault, rear brake light failure.

Not all of those come up every time but the first few usually do. Now all those can't possibly have suddenly broken so anyone any ideas what might be going on?

 

[richydraper]

battery or fusebox

its getting cold and wet now im expecting a flood of 'dash warnings' and 'poor start' threads to litter the 1st page of stilo section

 

[fender mender]

i would look at your battery fist

 

[Yellow Peril]

i would look at your battery fist

Or first, even...

 

[richydraper]

fist... first... im off... i can see where this is heading, the poor guy only wanted to know why he was getting faults

 

[jammyherbert]

this happened to me the other week and eventually it drained the battery and would not turn over. i checked all major connections but ended up disconnecting the battery overnight (i didnt charge it) and its been fine since,bit like rebooting your computer i suppose,hope it helps.

 

[JDPower]

Could the alternator be a possibility too or is that a red herring? Is there any failsafe way of ruling the battery in or out (don't have a spare but will get the meter on it tomorrow).

Anything in particular to look for with regards the fusebox other than just damp, bad contacts?

(Apologies for such noob questions, not exactly a car mechanics enthusiast, though having to learn quickly with this sodding Stilo :bang: )

Oh and one last thing, this came on at almost exactly the same time as I started charging phone in car, could this have pushed the (potentially struggling?) battery to breaking point? (It isn't the actual phone charging itself causing it as I've not used the car charger for a couple of days just to rule it out)

 

[vladof]

This happened before to someone on the forum. Can't find the actual post now but it turned out to be the large connector behind the battery fusebox. It had a short in it because he had previously removed it to fix something and that caused power to still remain in the ECU after ignition off and of course the ECU started sensing that systems are shutting down thus triggering faults.

Anyway, if you get these errors only when turning ignition off the answer is obvious:

1. Poor connection to the ECU through the big connector behind the battery fuse box
2. Sticking relay.

It could also be ECU failture but that's a long shot.

Battery problems are known to trigger faults on startup or immediately after.

To answer your immediately above question, no, phone charging cannot possibly have anything to do with the faults you are experiencing.

Edit: found the thread! Take a looksie and see if this is that you are experiencing. It even has a video for your attention. Give us feedback once done so we know whether we can be of further help or not.

dash lights up when turning off

 

[JDPower]

This happened before to someone on the forum. Can't find the actual post now but it turned out to be the large connector behind the battery fusebox. It had a short in it because he had previously removed it to fix something and that caused power to still remain in the ECU after ignition off and of course the ECU started sensing that systems are shutting down thus triggering faults.

Anyway, if you get these errors only when turning ignition off the answer is obvious:

1. Poor connection to the ECU through the big connector behind the battery fuse box
2. Sticking relay.

It could also be ECU failture but that's a long shot.

Battery problems are known to trigger faults on startup or immediately after.

To answer your immediately above question, no, phone charging cannot possibly have anything to do with the faults you are experiencing.

Edit: found the thread! Take a looksie and see if this is that you are experiencing. It even has a video for your attention. Give us feedback once done so we know whether we can be of further help or not.

dash lights up when turning off

Never had much time today but checked battery and alternator voltages, both fine. Checked the physical connections on the fusebox, all seemed solid.

So, how do I test for a sticky relay or tell which one is causing the problem? (oh and is it just the ones under the bonnet or are there more stashed away somewhere, never know with Fiat )

 

[JDPower]

Just had a thought (yeah they're that rare lol) - would unplugging each relay in sequence and checking if the errors are gone on switch of be worth trying or would this just add to the errors? (I presume these errors will follow the "3 restarts to clear errors" rule?)

I intend to get to the bottom of this tomorrow as I've finally got a chance to dedicate some time to it

 

[vladof]

Maybe our good friend @Davren could light this issue. I don't think anything would happen if you disconnect the relays one by one, but we should wait for a confirmation on this one.

 

[JDPower]

Right well had a go at sorting it this afternoon as it has got worse today - the dash is staying lit (or going off and on again) cycling through random faults even after the cars locked. Cleaned the D4 connecter and all others behind the battery fusebox. And disconnected one relay at a time (under bonnet relays and footwell) to try and find a faulty one but to no avail, the errors still came up on the dash.

So I've given up and got it booked in to the garage tomorrow

 

[Davren]

I can't remember what the symptoms were, but there was a thread about a year ago about electrical problems caused by chafing of the large wiring loom that goes through the bulkhead behind the ABS pump/ECU.

The loom is quite difficult to get to, but moving it about a bit near the bulkhead may cause your problem to temporarily stop. If so, at least you'd know where the problem was.

 

[JDPower]

Just to update. Heard back from the garage, it's a faulty instrument cluster. They are having to send it to some specialist company for repair and gonna cost around the £200 mark all in. Just about had enough of this car, still needs a new stereo, door card (rarer than hens teeth), and airbag sorting (if its not a dirty connector, not got round to that yet)

 

[vladof]

Contact @yellowstilo . He can repair clusters. Most likely a bad soldering somewhere. Only issue is our friend is in the Netherlands.

What happened to the door card?

 

[JDPower]

Contact @yellowstilo . He can repair clusters. Most likely a bad soldering somewhere. Only issue is our friend is in the Netherlands.

What happened to the door card?

Too late, it's already been sent off.

The plastic passenger door armrest/handle has snapped, having searched on here seems it's not uncommon, which explains why I've had a hard time trying to find one (there's one on ebay at the mo but wrong colour so not ideal. But then neither is a busted handle)

 

[vladof]

If you really can't find one you can buy another one and fit your matching color in.

My door card was snapped from the inside. The upholstery is held to the door card by plastic pins which are melted into place. One idea would be to buy a glue gun (heated, works with bars of silicone glue). and glue the parts together after carefully disassembling the door card.

I managed to repair mine with a glue gun. My damage was that the plastic nut holder that keeps the handle in place was broke and all over the place, but from the inside of the door card. I have pored about 5 bars of melting hot glue gun silicone around the edges of the damaged part and in between the other parts to further add resistance and is has been over 1 year since I fixed it and it feels like new.

If you want, I can guide you through the process so you can get it fixed.

Sorry for being off topic.

 

[JDPower]

If you really can't find one you can buy another one and fit your matching color in.

My door card was snapped from the inside. The upholstery is held to the door card by plastic pins which are melted into place. One idea would be to buy a glue gun (heated, works with bars of silicone glue). and glue the parts together after carefully disassembling the door card.

I managed to repair mine with a glue gun. My damage was that the plastic nut holder that keeps the handle in place was broke and all over the place, but from the inside of the door card. I have pored about 5 bars of melting hot glue gun silicone around the edges of the damaged part and in between the other parts to further add resistance and is has been over 1 year since I fixed it and it feels like new.

If you want, I can guide you through the process so you can get it fixed.

Sorry for being off topic.

No need to apologise for being off topic, the advice is gratefully appreciated. Good to know the upholstery section is reasonably swappable, didn't realise that so gives me more options for replacement so thanks for that.
Is the Stilo door card any more tricky to remove than any other door card? (I know Fiat don't like to make anything simple when it can be made as complicated as possible )

 

[vladof]

It's not really hard but as you probably already know, kind of tricky.

Our good friend Morty made a guide about this. It's from a 5 door but the principle is exactly the same. Check it out.

Once the door card is out, you should be able to easily remove your upholstery with a circuit gun or something. Some of the plastic needs to be melted away so it can be removed, but you'll get the idea once you see the door card.

My advice is to start removing the new door card first. This way, if you ruin it, at least your original upholstery is fine.

I would post some pictures but unfortunately one of my hard drives gave away a couple of months ago and took all the pictures I gathered from age 12 to present day with it.

 

[JDPower]

It's not really hard but as you probably already know, kind of tricky.

Our good friend Morty made a guide about this. It's from a 5 door but the principle is exactly the same. Check it out.

Once the door card is out, you should be able to easily remove your upholstery with a circuit gun or something. Some of the plastic needs to be melted away so it can be removed, but you'll get the idea once you see the door card.

My advice is to start removing the new door card first. This way, if you ruin it, at least your original upholstery is fine.

I would post some pictures but unfortunately one of my hard drives gave away a couple of months ago and took all the pictures I gathered from age 12 to present day with it.

No probs, all very much appreciated. Must be going senile though, could've sworn I'd looked in the guides section for anything relating to door card removal