I think I'd be prepared to give the dealer the chance to fix the car rather than wait another 3-4 months for a replacement after the stress of fighting Fiat to accept the rejected car back. There's nothing to say the car definitely won't go back together perfectly if the dealer has to strip the dash out. My dad took the dash out of his Audi A6 to fix the heater matrix and it went back together perfectly with no subsequent squeaks or rattles, and he's an amateur.

OP, bear in mind that Fiat's people may well be reading these forums so I recommend you're very careful about what you say about the case. You could find that even a casual comment could prejudice a legal claim if you decide to go down that route.

I hope you have a stress-free outcome, whatever you decide to do.

I've had major works done on new cars without any particular longer-term issues. Only skimmed this but if it is still ECU/loom down for replacement, I bet it's just a bad connection somewhere. The problem is no doubt it would be more costly in terms of time to properly troubleshoot rather than just replace the lot of it.

I had exactly the same thing with a Fiat Punto, needed a whole new wiring loom. I had the car from new and after 3 weeks the steering kept failing.

Once I found out it needed the entire interior removed to fit it, I rejected with the dealer who back me up. Fiat sent a guy down to look at the car and agreed to replace it with the exact same model. Took almost 3 months to get a replacement made as I had loads of options. The garage lent me a demo car for the entire time.

To be fair the garage were very supportive as were Fiat and I didn't have to make a fuss.

It took them months to get the old car fixed (12 months in total) and I saw it stripped down. Everything and I mean everything had been taken out, headlining, seats, dash etc etc. It was a massive job.


I have to be honest I wouldn't want it back, trim bends, warps, gets marked etc when taking it off and it WILL NOT go back 100% as new. Personally I would try and reject it, if it's the whole loom.

A couple of years ago a colleague of mine bought a new Mini. The alarm kept going off spuriously from the first day, and after a couple of visits to the dealer they concluded it was a loom replacement job. He formally rejected the car. BMW accepted his rejection and he placed another factory order. In the meantime, BMW loaned him a 1-series for the 3 months the new car took to arrive. Guess which make of car he'll buy next? Guess what he'll tell his mates? Car retailers and manufacturers have to realise that what you when things go wrong is as important as making sure they don't go wrong in the first place.

Sorry, that should read "...what you do when things go wrong...."

I know this is old, but with Waza not showing up here since Christmas I guess we'll never know what happened here in the end??
Anyone know?