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Technical Ouch, Battery has conked out!

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Technical Ouch, Battery has conked out!

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robotdancer

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Well that's annoying, on a trip yesterday the car was a bit odd. Kept feeling like it had an occasional, faint misfire on the motorway.

Went to start it up today and it was as dead as a Dodo. Got recovery to use a booster to get me going and drove to the dealer. Diagnosis is a faulty battery, covered under warranty but up to a week for delivery from Italy... eeek!

The joy of modern, heavy duty, integrated batteries!

PS. If your car is second hand don't forget to transfer the warranty. If you don't transfer before year 3 kicks in you have to pay for the transfer registration.
 
robotdancer said:
Well that's annoying, on a trip yesterday the car was a bit odd. Kept feeling like it had an occasional, faint misfire on the motorway.

Went to start it up today and it was as dead as a Dodo. Got recovery to use a booster to get me going and drove to the dealer. Diagnosis is a faulty battery, covered under warranty but up to a week for delivery from Italy... eeek!

The joy of modern, heavy duty, integrated batteries!

PS. If your car is second hand don't forget to transfer the warranty. If you don't transfer before year 3 kicks in you have to pay for the transfer registration.
Click to expand...



Had the same happen to me.At 13 months from new,battery just gave up! Waited a couple of weeks for battery from Italy to be fitted under warranty. I still think a new battery should last longer than 13 months.
 
robotdancer said:
PS. If your car is second hand don't forget to transfer the warranty. If you don't transfer before year 3 kicks in you have to pay for the transfer registration.
Click to expand...

We still had to pay for the warranty transfer even though our car was not quite 2 years old.
 
You'd think that the average dealer would stock a near consumable like a battery. Even if it is a couple of hundred quid.
 
Garree001 said:
You'd think that the average dealer would stock a near consumable like a battery. Even if it is a couple of hundred quid.
Click to expand...
No longer standard items these, they contain their own controllers etc. these days. Even the recovery guys commented that it would be non stock and wasn't something they could supply.
 
How would you know if the Warranty has been transferred, We got our car 3 months old a few months ago, and the dealer didn't seem too clued up on that other than to say look there's a stamp in the owners handbook,
 
Alboreto said:
How would you know if the Warranty has been transferred, We got our car 3 months old a few months ago, and the dealer didn't seem too clued up on that other than to say look there's a stamp in the owners handbook,
Click to expand...
You can call or email ciaio Fiat, it costs to transfer regardless of age of car and dealers generally seem to charge a surcharge for "labour" if they do it for you, so it's cheaper to do it yourself. Apparently even if you buy your car from a FIAT dealer it's not mandatory for them to transfer the warranty free of charge.
 
Yes I did mine a few weeks ago. Just google Fiat Customer Care and you'll get the number. It costs £30 even though we were not quite in to the 3rd year Dealer Warranty.
 
Nothing in the warranty description says you have to do anything to activate the third year "additional" warranty, there's just the form at the end of the book. Bought mine at just over a year old in February, so I suppose I'd better find out what I'm supposed to do.

It's a rubbish situation really. Next time I'll look more closely at Kia, Hyundai, Toyota, Renault........
 
Thanks that's good to know, I had a call from Fiat who gave me a phone number in the UK and also mentioned the page in the back of the warranty book,
 
TrevC said:
Nothing in the warranty description says you have to do anything to activate the third year "additional" warranty, there's just the form at the end of the book. Bought mine at just over a year old in February, so I suppose I'd better find out what I'm supposed to do.

It's a rubbish situation really. Next time I'll look more closely at Kia, Hyundai, Toyota, Renault........
Click to expand...
The 3rd year extension is a FIAT UK warranty, to qualify for it you have to have your car serviced to schedule within the network. Year three is usually activated at the 24 month service. This is independent of transferring any warranty balance to a new owner.
 
Ah, that makes sense I suppose. Thanks. To be fair, in a bored moment I went onto the Kia website and read the 7 year warranty details. It is actually pretty comprehensive, but the 12V battery is only covered for 2 years, and the infotainment system for 3.
 
Perversely, having let me down twice before, I just fired up the beast after it had sat on the driveway for 6 weeks and it burst into life immediately. I don't understand [emoji33]
 
Oh dear.

Just got in mine, hadn't used it for over a week.

Lights came on and when i pressed the keyless start, then what came next was a bit random.

either
1) An arrangement of this and that aint working, airbags, parking brake, etc
2) or after the initial rotation of the dials, once they returned to zero the display went blank, nothing showing at all.

Then I tried to press the doorlock button (on the door) to lock the car, and that doesnt even work.

Can only be one thing I expect?
 
cowabunga said:
Oh dear.

Just got in mine, hadn't used it for over a week.

Lights came on and when i pressed the keyless start, then what came next was a bit random.

either
1) An arrangement of this and that aint working, airbags, parking brake, etc
2) or after the initial rotation of the dials, once they returned to zero the display went blank, nothing showing at all.

Then I tried to press the doorlock button (on the door) to lock the car, and that doesnt even work.

Can only be one thing I expect?
Click to expand...



That sounds exactly like the problem I had with mine. Called the AA and the car started immediately for the nice man. He declared the battery was about half a volt down, checked the ECU, no faults stored except the three usual ones (Stop/Start, Mode selector unavailable and Check Engine). He cleared them and it has run faultlessly ever since despite not being used for 5 weeks while I was on crutches. I suspect that if you lock/unlock the car and kick each tyre in exactly the right place there's a good chance that it will start
 
ok then, so its not a battery replacement, just a gremlin of sorts.

Since we bought it and added 500 miles soon after its been on very short runs of a couple of miles a time maybe a week apart so I expect it's not getting properly charged, takes a few miles of driving before the start stop kicks in.

Was just gonna run it by ppl on here then call the fiat dealer, dunno what to do for the best now.

......good to know you had a very similar problem.
 
cowabunga said:
ok then, so its not a battery replacement, just a gremlin of sorts.

Since we bought it and added 500 miles soon after its been on very short runs of a couple of miles a time maybe a week apart so I expect it's not getting properly charged, takes a few miles of driving before the start stop kicks in.

Was just gonna run it by ppl on here then call the fiat dealer, dunno what to do for the best now.

......good to know you had a very similar problem.
Click to expand...



It happened to me in France in May as well. On that occasion I just waited patiently for the warnings to disappear by themselves until I could start the car again then drove on with the last 3 showing. Next morning - no warnings, checked it with dealer on return to UK, no faults stored, so I guess it's a very annoying gremlin
 
Thanks.

I wondered if after 5 or so tries it might work but it didn't.

Thinking back, one thing I did wrong is when the warnings flashed up willy nilly I just got impatient, then reset and tried again, what I maybe should have waitied a bit like you did.

I'll give it a try this evening when I get a chance, see if it's any different.

Many thanks for your comments.
 
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