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Technical Rev counter stuck on 8000rpm

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Technical Rev counter stuck on 8000rpm

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FireballXL5man

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Nov 3, 2009
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Hi everyone.
My 1.2 lounge has developed a problem. While driving in town, the rev counter suddenly read 8000rpm, despite the engine revs being normal (driving between 1000-3,100). The needle has stuck on 8,000 with occasional drops to 7,500 when accelerating. I have switched the engine off and the needle is still showing 8,000. I contacted the dealer and the say they will contact Fiat and phone me back tomorrow.

The car has never been driven anywhere near 8000rpm or even red-lined.

Has anyone else experienced this and if so, what is the solution?

My son suggests we disconnect the battery and see what happens, I'm inclined to wait to hear from the dealership first.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
FireballXL5man said:
Hi everyone.
My 1.2 lounge has developed a problem. While driving in town, the rev counter suddenly read 8000rpm, despite the engine revs being normal (driving between 1000-3,100). The needle has stuck on 8,000 with occasional drops to 7,500 when accelerating. I have switched the engine off and the needle is still showing 8,000. I contacted the dealer and the say they will contact Fiat and phone me back tomorrow.

The car has never been driven anywhere near 8000rpm or even red-lined.

Has anyone else experienced this and if so, what is the solution?

My son suggests we disconnect the battery and see what happens, I'm inclined to wait to hear from the dealership first.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Battery idea would be my first port of call, then again I am an IT technician......
 
Thanks for the reply maxi.

I seem to have fixed the problem, at least temporarily. I left the car for about 30 minutes and turned it on again. The rev counter dropped to 7,000 this time. I switched off and switched the electrics back on - 6,500 this time. Switched off and back on again -6,000, Repeat procedure - 5,500. Repeat procedure - 5,000 and so on until the rev counter read zero (as normal). It dropped by 500rpm with each switching on of the electrics. I've started the engine and the rev counter is now working correctly.

How bizarre is that?

I have occasionally had to re-enter the radio code over the past three years, but other then that, I've had no other problems.

Strange......
 
Hi, did your 500 stay working normally after you did that with the electrics?
Mine is doing the same!
 
Hi Sophiecs,
Unfortunately, my rev counter is still broken and reading 8,000rpm, flickering between 7,500-8,000 on start up and during high revs when overtaking etc.

Is yours doing the same? If so, I don't think we will be alone. I haven't bothered to try a second hand e-bay unit (which my local Fiat main dealer assures me, rightly or wrongly, that a second-hand unit won't work). I'm just living with a broken rev counter at present.
 
Yes mine does exactly that.
Occasionally goes down to 7000 but soon goes back to 8000

Haven't noticed anything else though so hopefully it's not a problem with anything else on the car, just a faulty rev counter!
 
Sophiecs said:
Yes mine does exactly that.
Occasionally goes down to 7000 but soon goes back to 8000

Haven't noticed anything else though so hopefully it's not a problem with anything else on the car, just a faulty rev counter!
Click to expand...


Or possibly a fault in whatever supplies the info to the rev counter, it may not be the rev counter itself which is at fault - just a thought!
 
Sophiecs said:
Yes mine does exactly that.
Occasionally goes down to 7000 but soon goes back to 8000

Haven't noticed anything else though so hopefully it's not a problem with anything else on the car, just a faulty rev counter!
Click to expand...

Sophie, the fault with your car/rev counter sounds exactly the same as mine. I always thought that it was just a matter of time before someone else on this forum posted the same fault. It might be worth asking your local Fiat dealership if they have any experience of this problem and if they know what the solution is. Maybe they would do a diagnostic check for you free of charge out of goodwill? My Fiat dealership (who sold me the car new together with a new Focus Cabriolet shortly afterwards) wanted to charge me £90 for a diagnostic check to determine the cause of the 8,000rpm rev counter. So much for looking after valued customers.

Please let me know how you get on.

Best of luck.
 
Mercky said:
Or possibly a fault in whatever supplies the info to the rev counter, it may not be the rev counter itself which is at fault - just a thought!
Click to expand...

Hi Mercky. I agree with you here. I'm not convinced the rev counter itself which is faulty. If you rev the engine hard, the rev counter needle drops from 8,000 to around 7,500rpm, vibrates and returns to 8000rpm. So it appears to be getting a pulse of some sort, whether its receiving the correct pulse/current or whatever, is another matter.

For these reasons (and others), I haven't taken the plunge and bought a circa £80 second hand instrument cluster from e-bay.

That's two of us now on this forum with rev counters reading 8,000rpm. I'll bet there are other 500 owners with the same problem....
 
Two possibilities:

A, Faulty tach
B, Faulty BCM
 
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