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General 500c boot stuck. Help required please!

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General 500c boot stuck. Help required please!

birmint said:
Had the issue with my 3 week old Twinair 500C today. Been to Classic Alfa's track day at Goodwood and not dry enough to take the Duetto so jumped in the 500. Coming home was aware the roof wasn't opening and closing to its pre-set positions. Remembered the post here about it and when I got home realised I couldnt get into the boot! Followed instructions and all sorted again now thanks the usual great advice found on this forum (y)

I've switched on ecodrive (wont dare share what my eco index is but suffice to say I haven't seen a lower score anywhere) and since I've been collecting data I've had a few electrical glitches. Filled up with petrol and the temp gauge plays up when restarted. Started the car yesterday and it fired on one cylinder for a while and then the roof issue today. Not sure if its ecodrive related but only started since I started using it. Going to switch off for a while. Happy I've got the lowest score anyway :p and it's all far too politically correct for me ...

Thanks again everyone.
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If it's a track day recording then being PC doesn't count :)
 
loveshandbags said:
If it's a track day recording then being PC doesn't count :)
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Just spectating ... honestly...

However I plugged my dongle into my laptop to get some feedback on my eco'ness over the last week and whilst I wasn't expecting a standing ovation given its shunted 12 miles each way through central London I was hoping it would be better than errr 22 out of 100 :yuck: Its the kind of score some former eastern block country would award Britain in the Eurovision song contest....

I'm not sure if I should be pleased or deeply ashamed ....
 
loulou said:
You're welcome penguin, glad to be of help. Sorry to hear you've been having problems - does anyone know if this is this a common fault? :confused: I've had my car 3 weeks and haven't had any problems with the boot so far.
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Yes it is a common fault mines playing up at the minute. But at least i now know how to fix it...hopefully!
 
The boot release stopped working on our 2010 500c today. Although the roof still works perfectly I tried the process described in this thread to reset it, but without success.

The sales chaps at the dealer were stumped too, so we'll book it in to the service dept next week.
 
Here's an update from me after I investigated the problem with our boot lid earlier today. I opened the boot using the catch inside the car and had a look around. By chance I noticed a break in the flexible insulating tube covering the wiring loom that goes between the body and the lid next to the left-hand hinge, and upon closer inspection I realised that the largest of the wires in the loom is completely broken. The two ends are several millimetres apart. ****.

Looking at the bending of the wires when the boot is opened and closed, I'm not surprised it has broken after a year's use. When the boot lid is closed, the wire is bent completely in two in a tight kink. Perhaps there isn't enough spare length in the exposed part of the loom to allow it to loop properly, or perhaps it's a design fault.

We'll see what the dealer says tomorrow morning.
 
SiliconS said:
Here's an update from me after I investigated the problem with our boot lid earlier today. I opened the boot using the catch inside the car and had a look around. By chance I noticed a break in the flexible insulating tube covering the wiring loom that goes between the body and the lid next to the left-hand hinge, and upon closer inspection I realised that the largest of the wires in the loom is completely broken. The two ends are several millimetres apart. ****.

Looking at the bending of the wires when the boot is opened and closed, I'm not surprised it has broken after a year's use. When the boot lid is closed, the wire is bent completely in two in a tight kink. Perhaps there isn't enough spare length in the exposed part of the loom to allow it to loop properly, or perhaps it's a design fault.

We'll see what the dealer says tomorrow morning.
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Cable theft?
 
My boot isn't stuck, but my heated rear window has stopped working. Only got my 59 plate 500c on Saturday and have been busy showing off the roof, maybe overdid it!
May try to reset it to see if it cures the rear window problem. Anyone else had this problem?
 
grimwau said:
I have heard this happening on two other member's cars but as your car is still within the main warranty period I would hope that it will be repaired without any drama.
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And indeed it was. The dealer had the car for a day on Friday and replaced the entire wiring loom. It's the second one they've done in the last few weeks, apparently.

We've noticed no new rattles or creaks and there's no loose trim as a result of this rather dramatic solution to a minor problem. If anybody else is worried like I was about the effects on their car of a dealer replacing the loom then I would say that the fears aren't necessarily justified. Perhaps we have a good dealer or perhaps it's not as difficult as I expected it would be.

The dealer also returned the car nicely washed (apparently without putting any swirls in the paint) which was pleasing too. Thank you PDH Cars in Worthing.
 
SiliconS said:
And indeed it was. The dealer had the car for a day on Friday and replaced the entire wiring loom. It's the second one they've done in the last few weeks, apparently.

We've noticed no new rattles or creaks and there's no loose trim as a result of this rather dramatic solution to a minor problem. If anybody else is worried like I was about the effects on their car of a dealer replacing the loom then I would say that the fears aren't necessarily justified. Perhaps we have a good dealer or perhaps it's not as difficult as I expected it would be.

The dealer also returned the car nicely washed (apparently without putting any swirls in the paint) which was pleasing too. Thank you PDH Cars in Worthing.
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I bet you a quid they didn't. They may well have got a whole new loom in but I bet they only changed the relevant part of it. Apart from anything else I reckon you'd need to be called Button or Hamilton to get a whole loom in your car changed and the car rebuilt in a day.
 
RobinPJ said:
They may well have got a whole new loom in but I bet they only changed the relevant part of it. Apart from anything else I reckon you'd need to be called Button or Hamilton to get a whole loom in your car changed and the car rebuilt in a day.
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That was my thought too, and I gently challenged the service manager beforehand about whether he really thought they could do this in 8 hours. Because they'd fixed an identical problem a few weeks ago he was confident.

He admitted that the common-sense solution was simply to splice the loom and fix the broken wires locally, but that this would leave them (the dealer) at risk of getting any future warranty claim refused if the same problem cropped up again. As well as this, from where would they source the new section of loom? Fiat don't sell sections separately and the rubber boots and grommits visible are unique to this application.

When we collected the car I didn't notice any evidence of trim being disturbed and had no way of knowing whether they'd had the whole car apart... except later in the day I spotted that the two halves of plastic shroud in front of the steering wheel (containing the ignition barrel and stalk electronics) weren't perfectly clipped together. It would have been quite an impressive subterfuge if they'd gone to the trouble of unclipping that trim just to give the impression that they'd disturbed it during the loom replacement.

But we may never know..... ;)
 
SiliconS said:
That was my thought too, and I gently challenged the service manager beforehand about whether he really thought they could do this in 8 hours. Because they'd fixed an identical problem a few weeks ago he was confident.

He admitted that the common-sense solution was simply to splice the loom and fix the broken wires locally, but that this would leave them (the dealer) at risk of getting any future warranty claim refused if the same problem cropped up again. As well as this, from where would they source the new section of loom? Fiat don't sell sections separately and the rubber boots and grommits visible are unique to this application.

When we collected the car I didn't notice any evidence of trim being disturbed and had no way of knowing whether they'd had the whole car apart... except later in the day I spotted that the two halves of plastic shroud in front of the steering wheel (containing the ignition barrel and stalk electronics) weren't perfectly clipped together. It would have been quite an impressive subterfuge if they'd gone to the trouble of unclipping that trim just to give the impression that they'd disturbed it during the loom replacement.

But we may never know..... ;)
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There was a good programme on last night on BBC2 on the building of the Mclaren mp4-12c and the 'guys' who were putting in the 'loom' for the whole car were getting it done in 2 hours flat - they hoped to reduce this to 45 minutes when they had fine tuned their weekly turn out of 80 cars.
Funnily enough it was Button and Hamiliton that went out to test drive the cars.
I'd believe them.:)
 
T14086 said:
Changed loads of ford ka looms in a day and thats from headlight to tail lights however I would also suspicious and it is easy enough to tell if you look.
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Go on - what are the clues?
Given that they fixed the problem without causing any others I don't really care what they did, to be honest, as long as any future warranty claims aren't jeopardised. If they didn't replace the whole loom then that's fine by me, because it means they haven't had the car apart. :)
 
loulou said:
There is an extra 12 page manual for the 500c, which should have been provided. Have a look through your documents in case you've missed it - it's just a thin leaflet so easy to overlook.

Instructions for the roof re-set are as follows:

Initialisation Procedure

The soft top must be re-initialised after disconnecting the battery or if the relevant protection fuse is blown (which I guess has happened to you?).

Proceed as follows:

make sure the motor is running during the whole initialisation procedure

keep the opening button pressed until the soft top is completely open

when the soft top is completely open, keep the button pressed for at least 2 seconds

keep the closing button pressed until the soft top is completely closed

when the soft top is completely closed, keep the button pressed for at least 2 seconds

When the procedure is terminated, the soft top will automatically carry out a complete opening and closing cycle (up to 25 cm from the completely closed position) to inform the driver that correct operation has been restored.

Hope this helps! :)
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This worked a treat for me thanks for the posting...:slayer:
 
I have this problem on 2013 500c it failed the dealer PDI and they refused to release the car so it's still in the workshop brand new:mad:
Armed with all the info gleaned from the fantastic fiat forum I asked a few questions about why they don't try resetting the sunroof and give me my car.
They replied that they were fully aware of the resetting procedure but Fiat were insisting that a "module " change should be carried out, the dealer would not say which module though. So it is possible that Fiat have designed an update to stop this problem and if your 500c is in warranty it may be wise to drop it in to the dealer for the upgrade.
 
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