Hi

For some reason, the cigarette socket in my 500 has stopped working, doesnt charge mobiles, doesnt heat up the lighter. Anyway, I'm bringing the car to the local Fiat Desira garage. Just wondering if component parts like the cigarette socket is under the 3 year warranty or would I expect to fork out for the parts and repair myself? I did ask the chap over the phone and he didnt sound too reassuring it was covered under the warranty.

Depends on what's happened. If you've obviously damaged it then no...

nah, one drive it was working with the phone charger, next drive no power was coming from it. So they cant say i've damaged it by using it! not like I've tried to insert a carrot into the socket instead!

£5 says it's either fuse or the connector has dropped off the back.

zanes said:

£5 says it's either fuse or the connector has dropped off the back.

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Guaranteed to be the fuse has been blown by the phone charger shorting out the socket.

Fuse replacement isn't covered by warranty, though they'll probably let you off this time.

my lighter has done the same :bang: they can't tell me it's my fault, I dont smoke so haven't lit too many death-sticks

it charges the sat nav, on/off, if you get the lead to sit in the right place but I tested the lighter and it didn't heat up at all

Just had a service and forgot to mention it so got to take it back again doh!

The individual components, barrel and element, will be covered if faulty.

If it's just a blown fuse (which 99% of the time it is- usually caused by chargers) then it isn't covered, but as a fuse costs almost nothing and is the first thing to be checked, Dealer's will rarely charge.

However in your case- if other items work in the barrel, then it sounds like a faulty element (unless of course the barrel has been damaged by the loose charger which now prevents the element from working).

well heres something new...just booked my car into the garage. No surprise to hear that if its fuse, they are gonna charge me something like 13 quid for replacing.
But the dealer also said...the cigarette socket on our 500 arent suppose to be used for foreign chargers?! He basically said it was designed only to heat up the cigarette lighter and nothing else, the fuse will continue to blow if I put other charging equipments in it

Actually a different sales person has given me the fuse replacement for free of charge...how nice of him...shame about the first guy!

Mclovin said:

Actually a different sales person has given me the fuse replacement for free of charge...how nice of him...shame about the first guy!

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sounds like the first guy need to be sent back for re-training

glad it's sorted

RobW said:

sounds like the first guy need to be sent back for re-training

glad it's sorted

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It is kinda true.

Cig lighter barrels are flat at the bottom with the supply terminal in the middle. Power sockets are different in that they have a series of raised blocks around the centre terminal which helps to hold chargers in place more securely and makes shorting less likely.

The problem is, a cig lighter socket can be used for both purposes. A power socket can only be used for chargers and the like- the raised blocks prevent a lighter from working.

As long as the ignition is off when inserting and removing chargers, and it isn't rattling around in there- you should be ok.

why dont car makers get together and invent a better socket for stuff to plug into, then provide an adapter for the old stuff we have until makers of gadgets catch up an start to use new system too.
we are all using plugs into a socket that was never really designed for them, its mad

Here Here! Car lighter plugs are big horrible ugly things

When you think that most small appliances are charged via 3.5 mm jack plugs and similar specific plugs, its laughable that we are using these huge lumps of tacky plastic just to charge our sat navs and iPods.

do the cars with usb ports power sat navs that way?

dave said:

do the cars with usb ports power sat navs that way?

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Not tested it but it's certainly possible. Depends if the port is a proper powered port or not. It does charge an iPod from memory so I suspect that it'd charge a sat nav.

306maxi said:

Not tested it but it's certainly possible. Depends if the port is a proper powered port or not. It does charge an iPod from memory so I suspect that it'd charge a sat nav.

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ive used mine to power my sat nav (tomtom) and its fine. Ive not however tried it with a hub to see if i can run a usb and charge at the same time - im a little to chicken incase i overload it !!
I tend to use the 12v for the TomTom and the usb to charge the phone and play music off its memory card

I guess if u could find a 12v powered hub run several things off it using the lighter for power.

Jake_in_notts said:

ive used mine to power my sat nav (tomtom) and its fine. Ive not however tried it with a hub to see if i can run a usb and charge at the same time - im a little to chicken incase i overload it !!
I tend to use the 12v for the TomTom and the usb to charge the phone and play music off its memory card

I guess if u could find a 12v powered hub run several things off it using the lighter for power.

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Yes but then you're adding a hub to the mix and still using the cigarette lighter!

so we could all have a seperate usb port that does power only in the future?

dave said:

so we could all have a seperate usb port that does power only in the future?

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No you can do it now if you want, there are plenty of 12V plugins that have 5V USB sockets for recharging around at the moment.

I was dreaming up some mad complicated way of doing this with a powered USB hub so that you can charge and use the devices connected- however on reflection you only need to have one USB device connected to pull music off