Over the weekend my new (2000 miles) 1.3 90BHP Grande Punto did a very strange (and worrying) thing. Got into the car after a quick trip to local shop and when starting the engine ALL the warning lights on the instrument panel stayed on, with no rev counter, speedo or indicator noise/lights working at all. Stayed like this even after restarting a couple of times.

Drove it home (drove as normal but without speedo etc) expecting to call RAC to tow back to dealer, but upon restarting (1 minute later) everything OK except for air bag failure warning.

Started again (30 seconds later) and everything back to normal and has been since then (now Monday, failure happened on Saturday morning).

Will contact my dealer this morning but I have little faith in dealers generally so am posting here for feedback from anyone else who has seen/heard of this "problem".

Will also post back results of dealer phone call...

Saw a post about this some time ago with a photo of every dash light lit up.. have a look at this one also - https://www.fiatforum.com/stilo/87903-christmas-lights-my-dash.html.

It's a 'software' problem - dealer knows about it and will update the car's computer.

Superboy said:

It's a 'software' problem - dealer knows about it and will update the car's computer.

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Well I spoke to the Assistant Fiat Service Manager today and he hadn't heard about this problem before.

However, he advised to get it checked out soonest in case next time the car stopped, so it's in for a diagnostic check Tuesday morning (13/03/07) 8am. He's hoping the fault would have been registered (on the ECU) so they can fix it.

Bet it comes up with a clean sheet and no-one is any the wiser... or am I being way too cynical here?

Aresby said:

Well I spoke to the Assistant Fiat Service Manager today and he hadn't heard about this problem before.

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Obviously not trained and/or experienced enough - doesn't install much faith with us owners as these problems appears to be fairly common nowadays

Aresby said:

Well I spoke to the Assistant Fiat Service Manager today and he hadn't heard about this problem before.

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Well I do them daily! Tell him to update body computer 'absent node'.

Dealers should have faith in customers & visa-versa,it's not possible to be aware of everything on every Fiat model out there however if he's still having trouble point him gently towards this thread.

T14086 said:

Dealers should have faith in customers & visa-versa,it's not possible to be aware of everything on every Fiat model out there however if he's still having trouble point him gently towards this thread.

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Seriously I think they should make it mandatory for all CSRs and technicians to be involved with forums like this so they can be made aware of any common/reoccurring issues; definitely would help with their jobs and helps to understand where their customers are coming from!

Information is available for techs to read through but problem here is time as bosses want more productivity out of techs than ever before,its a no win situation.Only reason I know is because I look out of hours at home...sad I know!

Also why would a Service Manager know anything about a car? The techs do all the technical side, managers sort out the money side, thats all. Techs do come on forums like this, most get a lot out of it. But as T says no one knows everything, and owners only need to know about one car, techs know about every car or know where to get the information required.

OK, report from the dealership. Incidentally I passed on the message from T14086 (very gently, didn't want to teach grandmothers to suck eggs).

The dealership reported "No fault found" (that is, recorded) but an update for "the computer" was waiting and was applied. When I asked whether that was the ECU / Body Computer / Whatever, I was told "yes"!

Let's assume then that the "Body Computer - Absent Node" update was applied. Would this have overwritten the entire ECU if it had been remapped (it hasn't been, but I'm considering it to get the 1000-2000rpm dead-as-a-dodo response improved).

I don't fancy forking out £300 for an ECU remap only to find my friendly FIAT dealer has splatted all over it on the next scheduled service!

The engine remaps are stored in the engine management ecu not the body computer, so only if an engine management ecu was reprogrammed could a remap be overwritten. So you have two choices, be honest if you have a remap done and tell the dealer not to carry out any software upgrades and also invalidate part of the warranty. Or keep quiet and take a risk but maintain your warranty.