After an uneventful drive home from work on the last day of the year, the missus starts the car to take us out on new years eve, and it has no power... struggles up to about 3000rpm and just about makes 40mph although it managed to struggle up a long hill...

So, mechanic searched hoses, bypassed fuel filter, but couldnt find anything. And did many other things in the course of a fruitless days searching.

Had to bite the bullet and send it to a FIAT dealer to make use of their more advanced diagnostic tools. They insisted on replacing the long blanked off EGR valve in order to remove the (expected) persistent fault and allow them to progress further with thier diagnostics.

However, I have no confidence in them. They claim that the EGR valve being blanked off has lead to the turbo "over boosting". But now that the EGR has been replaced, there are no fault codes/warnings and they have established that there is not enough air going into the turbo. Proposed next investigation is to remove the intercooler (after the removing the front bumper)!?

As yet they have not given me any additional information/conclusions. But now they have moved beyond the use of thier diagnostic computer, I want to return the car to my mechanic as he can take random bits off and clean/replace them for a lot less than the dealer!

But what we ALL want, is somewhere to look!!! Apparently when revved up, the intercooler hoses all expand under pressure.. no hissing.. so unlikely to be something this obvious.

Any ideas would be gratefully received so I can discuss with the dealer and then my mechanic.

Disconnect the MAF Sensor and see if performance improves. Also clean the MAP sensor.

MAF sensor is on hose between air box and engine. Simply unplug it. You will get a fault code as the ECU will detect that there is no signal from it. Take it for a spin. If performance is improved it would indicate a failing MAF sensor (although you would have expected a fault code by now).

The MAP sensor is on top of the engine close to the electrical connection for the EGR valve. Remove it and gently remove the soot and debris you find on the sensor. This is unlikely to be an issue as with a blocked EGR there will be no exhaust gases going over the sensor, however it is worth a try.

Good Luck.

Looks like I wont be given the option to pass these ideas on... the dealership haven't/wont give me any details as to there progression through the diagnosis, which has entered its second day "It's a bit of a head scratcher this one".

An additional, slightly unrelated question: If I authorised the dealer to spend another 2 hours.. and they choose to keep going beyond this.. they cant change me can they?!

They will charge you regardless of if they find the fault or not. Dealers are ****s. My heater stopped working on my grande Punto. Took it in. They had it for 3 hours and found the fault was a bad wire. They changed one wire and charged me the three hours labour. For a god damn wire!

I vowed to never use a dealer again unless absolutely necessary.

Matthewr1990 said:

They will charge you regardless of if they find the fault or not. Dealers are ****s. My heater stopped working on my grande Punto. Took it in. They had it for 3 hours and found the fault was a bad wire. They changed one wire and charged me the three hours labour. For a god damn wire!

I vowed to never use a dealer again unless absolutely necessary.

Click to expand...

Most garages will charge you also, they're not charity cases after all, do you expect their tech to work FOC

No.. i dont expect anyone to work FOC (although my mechanic did and wouldn't take any payment we tried to offer, because he didnt fix it!), BUT.. if I agree an authorisation limit then I expect it to be adhered to and further contact/requests if it is to be extended. Otherwise, what is the point, I might have well insisted on handing over a blank cheque!

Anyway, rant over..

After finally making contact with them, it appears they are stumped to the exent that they are sending all the information from/about the car to fiat head office! I think this has turned into a labour of love for them! A response from Fiat is unlikely before monday.

So far, all I have been able to extract out of the dealer is that they have removed all the hoses and intercooler etc and not found anything. They have apparently had the turbo off (would this give them access to the "variable vanes"). I suggested a collapsed cat but this was dismissed, and whilst the airflow readings are not tip top they are not bad enough to be causing the fault or represent a fault in either meter.

What they have achieved is to get the car to rev when the vac hose to the waste gate is removed... but not when it is on!

Now I dont know exactly what this means, not had enough time to google yet. I also dont know what they mean by "rev", or whether removing this hose would cause an engine warning light? Cos I could sell the car with the hose off!!