Too late, I fell down before I had time to sit.

Which FIAT dealer have you taken it to. When I take mine in it might be worth the respective mechanics speaking to each other for guidance (or don't they do such things)

Don't think I've ever had repair bill that high.
Are you going ahead with the repair?

Just remembered this, Alfatune in St Helens, 01744 25499, regarded as one of the best for ECU repair. Alfa Tuner on www.alfaowner.com
Definitely worth a call.
Until 3 years ago I had a 1.9 GT.

Anttram -I really dont have much choice but to have it done. Its either that or let it rot in a field somewhere. The car was taken to Startins in Redditch. The garage I originally took it to mentioned that they usually send the BCU/ECI to a company in Kent who can carry out rebuilds of the units but they could not do this to the unit on the Croma because they did not recognise the seriel number of the unit.

My daughter used to have a Renault Clio whose ECU went down and that cost her over £ 700.00 - that was about 5 years ago. It would appear that this is the sort of cost involved when this happens.

Shame really because I had got to quite like the Croma but I guess all modern cars are getting just to complicated these days.

I will get mine repaired, I like the car and would be pointless to scrap it. I'm just trying to decide where to take it.

I appreciate your help and will pass on the name of your FIAT dealer to wherever I take mine.

Would a scrap unit not work? I'd bet there's at least one Croma in a scrapyard somewhere in the country.

I don't know whether it would need any setup, but I think the fiatecuscan software will talk to the body computer, but I think you need to move one wire within its connector to talk to it (a simple soldering iron job).

It's probably all detailed in eLearn anyway - I'd bet the dealer mechanic's never done it before anyway, so that's what he'll be using.

The amount of £££s involved sound a bit silly to me. I'd certainly be looking at creative alternatives!

there is a bloke in rugby/Coventry breaking one, has an advert on ebay for leather seats.
BUT i sent him £100 for some parts on the 10th November, communication was good at first 1 of the parts i wanted was broke so he ask me if i needed another part instead, we agreed a different part but ive not not heard from him for a week or got any parts delivered, so i have opened a dispute with paypal.

so if you use him best don't do it on-line and go their in person instead

OK I have some movement.

Had a phone call from the garage today to inform me that there is some good news in that only the Body Control Unit went down and not the Key ignition unit so the cost will be around the £ 550 mark for a replacement unit. Will know the final cost tomorrow; reckon it will be around £ 800 with the Vat etc

Anttram - Will be interested to know how you get on with yours.

Picked the car up today.

It has a new Body Control unit. The ignition key unit was ok -thank goodness. The cost was £ 595.00 all in. That includes towing the car to a Fiat Dealer. All in all not too bad as I was expecting around £850-£900. The only plus is as it was a Fiat dealer who carried out the work it has a 12 month warranty on the replacement unit.

The End.

Not as bad as first thought. Mine still hasn't budged. Hopefully I'll get it in next week and get the wife to pay and class it as my Xmas present.

Or more probable to pay for it myself!

Anttram - Assuming the cost of the tow and my garages time came to around £ 100 I would expect your cost, for a Fiat dealer, should be around the £ 500 mark.

I would be interested to know how you get on. Best of Luck.

Croma all sorted now. Had to have the Body Control Module and the ignition unit replaced but now fixed.

I passed on the number of Startins in Redditch (cheers Daveof49) and I think it helped them speed up the diagnosis as they hadn't come across this issue before.

Anyhow a few quid lighter but back on the road.

Anttram - Dare I ask how much it cost you in the end.

carried out the work it has a 12 month warranty on the replacement unit.

Any parts fitted paid for by customer actually have a 2 year warranty

regards

Mal

The bill was £900ish with the Body Control and Ignition Unit. I have an AA parts & labour policy with paid the first £500 so that numbed the sting a bit.

Ouch. I got mine valued online yesterday, just to see whether to get comp or third party insurance. My 56-reg Prestigio with 79k miles is now worth the grand sum of £2000. So in the coming years some of us will be writing our cars off due to minor-seeming gremlins like this.

So I've now switched to third party insurance, as they'd have never paid out more than a grand anyway, as I had a £1000 excess.