General 2007 Bravo Active Multijet 1.9

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General 2007 Bravo Active Multijet 1.9

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Nov 24, 2013
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Milton Keynes
I bought this car in October and have had ongoing problems... could really use some help. The car on finance and is still under warranty from the dealer and although I really do love the car and want to keep it, it is getting to the point where I'm feeling I should demand an exchange... :cry:

In the weeks that I've had the car it has spent three days in the workshop and they have fixed one of the problems (after two attempts), but they don't seem to be taking the other problems seriously...

Firstly it is drinking diesel, seems to be doing about 30mpg... the salesman had told me it would use less diesel than my previous car (1.7 Astra ctdi) but it is using nearly double. Also it is sometimes, on starting, displaying what seems to be a rather common warning message about excess coolant temperature - the temp gauge reads as if it's overheating, the car says it is overheating... but by the time I have my phone ready to take a photo as proof, it's all gone back to normal.

The car was last at the workshop on the 5th and apparently the diagnostic did show something (they didn't tell me what error code/s) and it had been sent to Fiat for analysis. I was told I'd have the results within a few days... still waiting...

Any ideas on what could be going on please? I really don't want to resort to insisting on an exchange because I love the car... but I don't know what to do from here...
 
I presume this is the 8 valve 120hp engine like mine. From time to time, I get the excess coolant temperature message. Usually its when the car has stood for an hour or so after a drive that gets the engine up to normal temperature. The gauge goes up into the red area, then drops back to a normal reading. The engine can't be that hot, and can't cool that quick. I think its just an idiosyncrasy of the canbus.

I've got an average of about 49mpg over 55k miles from new. Half my driving is 9.1 mile trips to work, and most of the rest longer runs. Economy is worse over the winter months, and short trips of under 2 miles don't help. However, it would be woth checking the EGR valve is clean and working.
 
Fuel usage on a diesel will increase in the winter months due to kerosene added to stop the fuel from freezing. But 30mpg is not acceptable at all, I would get them to get the egr out and clean it, clean the maf and if that doesn't cure it there could be blocked injectors.
I have a 150 mj and average 48mpg, the 120's should do slightly more on average.
 
I presume fiat will have checked/realised if it was, but maybe ask them to check if its been remapped?
though that shouldn't cause a loss in mpg, especially not that drastic. just a thought though.
 
How are you working out you're getting 30MPG? Is it on brim to brim fill ups?

Might be worth registering on www.fuelly.com so you can start an audit trail.

What sort of journeys are you doing?

Re the temp display, that's a software glitch and normally requires a software update from a main Fiat dealer if its something that is of particular annoyance / concern for you.
 
Thanks guys... I'll pass this info on to the dealer (who I STILL haven't heard back from following the diagnostic on Dec 5th... ). I don't even know if they're dealing with Fiat directly or what, but from the last email I had back from them it made it sound as if they're trying to call in favours from mates rather than dealing with it properly...

The MPG has been calculated based on fill ups and miles driven, though the car's MPG reading isn't coming up much different (I made it 29MPG, car reported MPG). The workshop manager said to use the range setting instead of miles driven and it, at that time, claimed there were 450 miles left in the tank but I've driven 250 and need to fill up again.

I don't do many miles, mainly just to work and back each day which is 3.5 miles each way but this is the third diesel I've had, same sort of driving, and never had such low MPG... it just doesn't seem right and is costing me twice as much as the Astra did :(
 
I don't do many miles, mainly just to work and back each day which is 3.5 miles each way but this is the third diesel I've had, same sort of driving, and never had such low MPG... it just doesn't seem right and is costing me twice as much as the Astra did :(

TBH I appreciate you've had other DERVs but that MPG doesn't seem unreasonable for 3.5 mile journeys, a DERV simply isn't designed with this in mine, I would suspect your engine is only getting halfway to full temp on each run.

What size engines were the other DERVs you've had?
 
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