I know you're right SU, but I really thought it was going to get sorted yesterday. Truth be known, I'm not feeling too well at the mo, nothing serious just a nasty chest infection. Feeling sorry for myself more than anything else ha ha. I'll just have to console myself by taking the Cayman out for a blast.

Credit to Suzuki as you say. As I recall, Toyota were also pretty up front about their recall issues too.

Anyway, on topic - Thing is, I just know what's going to happen if I phone FIAT CS, but I will contact them anyway.

OK, well that wasn't so bad!

Just spoke to FIAT CS and in essence she took my details and pretty much repeated Fiat's statement (the one about a software update being available for non ESP 1.2's)

It appears from what the CS Woman said, that everyone knows there's an issue, FIAT have clearly ackowledged this in their press statement. However, despite this the dealer still has to be authorised by FIAT Tech.......... very odd. In other words, unless you get a case ref you're going to get fobbed off at the dealers??

Anyway, I now have a case ref and can expect a call from a "Case Manager" within the next 3 - 5 days.

I'll keep you all updated, although interest in this topic appears to have declined.

FinFerNan said:

OK, well that wasn't so bad!

Just spoke to FIAT CS and in essence she took my details and pretty much repeated Fiat's statement (the one about a software update being available for non ESP 1.2's)

It appears from what the CS Woman said, that everyone knows there's an issue, FIAT have clearly ackowledged this in their press statement. However, despite this the dealer still has to be authorised by FIAT Tech.......... very odd. In other words, unless you get a case ref you're going to get fobbed off at the dealers??

Anyway, I now have a case ref and can expect a call from a "Case Manager" within the next 3 - 5 days.

I'll keep you all updated, although interest in this topic appears to have declined.

Click to expand...

nope still interested to see the final solution!

Super Uwe said:

On a separate note, took my little girl to the doctor's the other day and there was a copy of Autocar there. Had a small article about the new Suzuki Celerio which reportedly had some issues with the brakes not working:
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/suzuki-celerio-brake-failure-recall-work-begins-updated

Just thought it was quite a refreshing comment from Suzuki about the problem. Complete contrast to Fiat's approach!

Click to expand...

It's hardly rocket science, though with FIAT you would think it is.

Hi guys

New to the forum... had to sign up quickly and put up a post...

Just took out a lease for a 1.2 Sport but seem a little worried now as this throttle problem seems to be quite widespread...

Can anyone confirm whether this is an issue for all 1.2's, whether new or old??

Where does this problem originate from?? Has Fiat accepted responsibility for the problem??


I seem to have shot myself in the foot

Torpheus said:

Hi guys

New to the forum... had to sign up quickly and put up a post...

Just took out a lease for a 1.2 Sport but seem a little worried now as this throttle problem seems to be quite widespread...

Can anyone confirm whether this is an issue for all 1.2's, whether new or old??

Where does this problem originate from?? Has Fiat accepted responsibility for the problem??


I seem to have shot myself in the foot

Click to expand...

If your 500 1.2 is 13 plate or older then it won't have the problem. It's very difficult to pinpoint the exact models affected because Fiat have been utterly useless giving out information, admitting liability (they appear to have done now, but it took months) & helping customers. Ultimately the models that seem to suffer are some 63 plate cars, and especially 14 plate cars. By the end of 2014 Fiat appeared to have done something so most 64 plate cars are ok, but if there are a few lurking in the system which were built a while ago, they can of course be affected. Generally though, 14 plate are the main batch, though even then not everyone seems to be affected. In addition, Fiat have been saying the ESP equipped cars suffer differently to those without ESP and/or require a different update/fix.

I had my Alfa Romeo serviced a couple of weeks ago & had a 14 plate 500 1.2 Pop as a courtesy car. It drove like a dog. You'd need to rev it to 2000rpm to pull away, and then as you reached the biting point, the revs would surge to 4000rpm without applying any extra throttle. It'd then nearly lose all power as you started to move forward. It needed quite a thrashing to get up hills too. Dreadful car.

I then took my Parents 500 to have a couple of minor bits done before the warranty ran out. That dealer gave me a 64 plate 500 1.2 Lounge. I wasn't looking forward to it, but the difference was night and day. It pulled well, requiring no more down-changes for hills than my old P reg 1.2 Punto, and the revs didn't jump all over the place. I also noted it had an ESP button on the dashboard under the heater controls, which the Pop didn't have.

Whether the difference in driveability was linked to the ESP or just the build date I don't know, but if you've driven a Fiat 1.2 8v engine car without the problem, you'll certainly know when you get into a car with the problem - it feels like a different engine

I think this is one of the strange things about the throttle response issue, my 14 plate non ESP 500 is different than the popular you drove , it also needs to be about 2000 rpm to pull
away from a standstill (any less revs and it moves so slowly you risk someone crashing into you) but there is no surging of the revs at all.

And when it is moving from say 10 mph upto 70 mph (don't really go any faster than that)
it is a great engine pulls well sounds good, you couldn't ask for much more from a 1.2 engine.

But when you are stationary and you rev the engine it responds differently than any other car
i have driven. I find it hard to give a full explanation, in very laymans terms it is like a delay in response at low revs from idle, plus the need to put it to 2000 rpm to pull away seems to be the total lack of torque below 2000 rpm hence the very slow take up from standstill

Hope that makes some sense,

It is booked for a update in early May, but the dealer seems very vague about the update so i will have wait and see what they do or indeed don't do.

Hope to have the update done in May

zanes said:

However, I feel we're somewhat drifting off topic; the EU6 issue has gone rather quiet. Are people giving up or has/is it being quietly fixed?

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Yes, I'd agree we've drifted off topic.

All the same it's an interesting discussion, so I've moved the off-topic posts to a new thread.

Ok so now it's going back to the dealer again.

Customer Services say I should get them to drive it, so that's what's going to happen on Thursday. But we already know that there's no fix for ESP cars and as it seems mine DOES have ESP, I'm guessing that this week I'll mostly be going around in circles!

Big day tomorrow, 500 is going in for the throttle response update (well hopefully) fiat cust' services and the dealer are being very vague about details regarding the update, i guess i will find out tomorrow.

Officina red said:

fiat cust' services and the dealer are being very vague about details regarding the update, i guess i will find out tomorrow.

Click to expand...

Don't bank on it .

But I do hope all goes well. Any information you can prise out of them would be helpful - we still don't know exactly what's being done, or which specific 1.2 engine numbers the various updates apply to.

Fiat - and the dealer network - must surely know more about this issue than we are being told :bang:.

Update done, was shocked by the difference when driving out of the dealership, will admit to being sceptial when droping the car off this morning

Officina red said:

Update done, was shocked by the difference when driving out of the dealership, will admit to being sceptial when droping the car off this morning

Click to expand...

All sounding good so far . Hope you're still satisfied once you've had the time to give it a thorough workout.

Fingers still crossed for you.

jrkitching said:

All sounding good so far . Hope you're still satisfied once you've had the time to give it a thorough workout.

Fingers still crossed for you.

Click to expand...

Thank you, gave it a good test drive around on the way home this afternoon and so far so good.

Ps unable to give any real details of what the update did, the dealer just said that a update was to be done, and on the job sheet i signed for them to do the work said oil and filter change, and throttle response update to be done.

Watchdog have just announced that Fiat are now advising people to contact their dealers to get the update done.

Seems they have done 850 cars so far. But not mine!

Well done to those who banged the drum!

Short note from me - it's been a while!

I'm still waiting for my upgraded replacement to be built - hoping for it to be with me by the end of the month.

In the meantime, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for those of you on here who are STILL waiting for their fixes to be sorted. FinFerNan; I've just seen Watchdog. Interesting. I wonder how quickly and how efficiently dealerships will be acting on this?

One dealership who i doubt will be proactive is the one I bought my original 500 from. I've mentioned them before but I'll gladly shame them again: Huttons of Bleadon, Weston-super-Mare. Please do not use them.

I was one of the first to complain about the faults on the 1.2 engine used in both the Panda and 500. At the end of the day they were still denying that the Panda had any issues although the Watchdog program had wrung an admission that the 500’s had a problem with hill starts. I am amazed that more than a year later there has been so little progress, the claim of 850 cars fixed is a drop in the ocean and I have heard nothing about a fix for the Pandas.

Having thrown in the towel and sold my car after six months of misery with it I have still been following the story. There now appear to be other issues with quality of components, Fiat seem to be shooting themselves in the foot. Abe’s treatment by her dealership was and still is abysmal. Our car was taken in for investigations three times, only once did they grudgingly allow us a courtesy car (this is in an area where there is little public transport available) and even with this we had to put petrol in it to get home. They also told us that if the fuel gauge was not at the same point when they got it back we would be charged for the petrol. All of this wasted a lot of our time and got us nowhere.

Now we have gone to Ford (and a much smaller dealership) we are getting much better service, which is more reasonably priced. The additional money we had to pay for our new car has been worth every penny after the stress and aggravation we had with the Fiat.

As a parting shot, I took our old 09 Panda (now my daughter’s) in for MOT the other day and I just mentioned to the tester that, when we put the two cars over the rolling road the 14 plate version wasn’t particularly green on emissions. He said that the old one would go through the zero emissions standard quite happily! If this is the case what an earth were Fiat up to with their engine development that was supposedly to meet the latest emission standards?

A mot tester does not know EU emissions laws, every new car will have to be eu6 and diesels will be banned from certain areas from 2020.

I do have sympathy for David Bliss, he got alot of grief from Fiat and from this forum when his panda was the first to be found having the throttle problems.
But at least they have fixed it, my 500 is a dream to drive now.

Plus i have read a lot of car forums and apart from Honda Jazz and Toyota Yaris, they are all full of faults, bad service, rip off dealers, and this includes BMW,AUDI,VW.Renault,Kia,Hyundai, Ford ,Vauxhall.

I have sold and took big loss on a 4 month old Fiesta (not the present model) because it was dangerous, and in the past a long time ago had a Vauxhall Nova engine seize from poor quality camshaft, which everyone knew about except me, had it repaired, traded it in to a dealer straight away, later the dealer phoned me to say the engine had seized again.

I do feel David won't be buying another Fiat and i do agree with this, i will never be buying a Ford or Vauxhall again.

But i do feel it's a shame that the forum has become so negative recently and i am not talking about this thread, just in general now it's more that someone posts, to be greeted with don't buy this piece of crap you can do better, and that is something i haven't seen on other car forums.

FinFerNan - if I can recommend ONE thing, I would make it your new mission to become the biggest pain in CS's backsides. I think, without sprouting the fur and the tail, I turned into something of a Jack Russell when I was doing battle with them and I think my daily calls harassing, chasing, arguing, at times crying, obviously made me such of a pain that Fiat in the end just got completely fed up with me.

Don't give up. Dig deep. Make it your first call of the day to ring your case manager for updates.