Hi All - I appreciate that this has been covered before but having fixed my daughter's car this morning I thought I would share this as I suspect many other people will have similar issues.
My daughter has had her 2008 Fiat 500 for a couple of years now. The demister has never worked, just blowing fuses, there has been issues with the number plate lights and I'm pretty sure at one time the rear windscreen wiper was controlled by the demister switch. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago a fuse blew, after shutting the boot, and the speedo stopped working. She got really upset and I thought it was time we did something about it.
We had traced the fault to the wiring loom where it enters the boot - a common issue for the 500
So we bought this repair kit made by Vemo.
https://www.onlinecarparts.co.uk/vemo-875647.html
And followed this guide (albeit it is for a different car, but same principal).
I cut out the original rubber wire harness between the cars body and the tailgate to reveal the wires. I was a little shocked by what I saw so I took the attached photo. There are 14 wires in total plus the tube for the washer. Every wire had split its insulation revealing the bare wire. Two wires had broken right through. No wonder the electrics were playing up.
The Vemo repair kit was surprisingly of a higher quality that I expected and I would recommended. The wires are very flexible (and contain multiple very fine stranded wire) which highlights the issue. Fiat has fitted very un-flexible wire in a area that needs to flex each time the boot is shut. I'm not at all surprised the wires have all broken. The kit actually had 15 wires, I'm guessing in case there is a reversing camera fitted.
The repair kit is fitted with bullet crimping connectors, again these are of a decent quality.
To fit, you need to be brave and cut all the wires in the car, chop out the broken section and then crimp on the repair kit. I took my time as it is not hard, but there is not a lot of room for wire strippes and the crimping tool. I also took of the trim from the back of the boot lid. This allowed me to free up the wiring loom and pull more through to get a bit more space.
All the fiat wires are colour coded as is the repair kit, but not with the same colours. So take your time and crimp one wire at a time so you don't get them mixed up.
Once done, its just a matter of pushing the wires and crimps back into the body of the car, and tailgate. Refitting the trim on the boot and pushing the rubber harness into place.
It's a fiddly job, but not hard. I found it easier with my cheap basic crimping tool and wire stripper rather than my more fancy (but still cheap) ratchet ones. The ratchet ones are more bulky and I couldn't get them into the space.
Anyway, if you are suffering electrical problems, hopefully this may give an idea of how it can be fixed.
Rob
My daughter has had her 2008 Fiat 500 for a couple of years now. The demister has never worked, just blowing fuses, there has been issues with the number plate lights and I'm pretty sure at one time the rear windscreen wiper was controlled by the demister switch. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago a fuse blew, after shutting the boot, and the speedo stopped working. She got really upset and I thought it was time we did something about it.
We had traced the fault to the wiring loom where it enters the boot - a common issue for the 500
So we bought this repair kit made by Vemo.
https://www.onlinecarparts.co.uk/vemo-875647.html
And followed this guide (albeit it is for a different car, but same principal).
I cut out the original rubber wire harness between the cars body and the tailgate to reveal the wires. I was a little shocked by what I saw so I took the attached photo. There are 14 wires in total plus the tube for the washer. Every wire had split its insulation revealing the bare wire. Two wires had broken right through. No wonder the electrics were playing up.
The Vemo repair kit was surprisingly of a higher quality that I expected and I would recommended. The wires are very flexible (and contain multiple very fine stranded wire) which highlights the issue. Fiat has fitted very un-flexible wire in a area that needs to flex each time the boot is shut. I'm not at all surprised the wires have all broken. The kit actually had 15 wires, I'm guessing in case there is a reversing camera fitted.
The repair kit is fitted with bullet crimping connectors, again these are of a decent quality.
To fit, you need to be brave and cut all the wires in the car, chop out the broken section and then crimp on the repair kit. I took my time as it is not hard, but there is not a lot of room for wire strippes and the crimping tool. I also took of the trim from the back of the boot lid. This allowed me to free up the wiring loom and pull more through to get a bit more space.
All the fiat wires are colour coded as is the repair kit, but not with the same colours. So take your time and crimp one wire at a time so you don't get them mixed up.
Once done, its just a matter of pushing the wires and crimps back into the body of the car, and tailgate. Refitting the trim on the boot and pushing the rubber harness into place.
It's a fiddly job, but not hard. I found it easier with my cheap basic crimping tool and wire stripper rather than my more fancy (but still cheap) ratchet ones. The ratchet ones are more bulky and I couldn't get them into the space.
Anyway, if you are suffering electrical problems, hopefully this may give an idea of how it can be fixed.
Rob