My fiancee has a 1.2 sport active Grande Punto and out of the blue on Friday it wont start. She has tried to jump start it along with rolling start but both haven't worked. Everything else works electrically, from the lights to the radio, but the engine wont start and no noise(grinding or ticking) is heard. She got a mechanic to look at it and he was able to pretty much hot wire it, bypassing the ignition. This gets me thinking its something wrong electrically here rather than mechanically with the engine.

The key works up to putting power to the radio etc. but fails to start the car. Looking for idea's of faults and if anyone has had similar.

I've seen alot posted about starter motor but the car starts so can rule that out.

Any dash warning lights? Key code, red engine etc?

Not sure. Ill give her a call tomorrow and get an answer.

Did she try with the spare key!?

Sounds like the key needs recoding to me

Fiat certainly don't do that on the cheap from past experience

Alexander1990 said:

Sounds like the key needs recoding to me

Fiat certainly don't do that on the cheap from past experience

Click to expand...

The key works for remote entry and popping the boot etc. Is this to do with the coding too? What I'm trying to get at is if it works for the doors should it work for the ignition or is that different?

Her spare key is at her parents so she will try it when they get home and I'll put if it works or not.

The dash is showing no warnings at all.

The part that opens the door is different to the one that turns the immobilizer off.
The wire less entry can work without the transceiver in the key.

Before starting the car you need there 3 lights that must stay on: Check engine light (yellow), Oil pressure(red) light and battery light(red). if the handbrake is on, then the ( ! ) (red) will be on as well.
If there is no Key, code, or padlock symbol (yellow) then it's not an immobilizer issue.

dandt87 said:

The part that opens the door is different to the one that turns the immobilizer off.
The wire less entry can work without the transceiver in the key.

Before starting the car you need there 3 lights that must stay on: Check engine light (yellow), Oil pressure(red) light and battery light(red). if the handbrake is on, then the ( ! ) (red) will be on as well.
If there is no Key, code, or padlock symbol (yellow) then it's not an immobilizer issue.

Click to expand...

:yeahthat:

When the key is turned to start nothing happens does it

Most Eeasterly Pandas has a good point.
This is a No Crank No Start. if it was an immo issue you still can crank the engine.

Tell me, when the mechanic 'hot wired' the car, did it stat? Did it crank, did it at even click?

Yeah it started on the hot wire from under the hood. Its sorted now and found the cause.

She takes her car to one of her dad's mates who is a "mechanic" (a **** one). For some reason he was in the fuse box. He didn't put the cover back on and damp got into the main fuse box and was shorting out but not blowing the fuses.

I keep telling her to stop going to the guy. Just cause its mates rates doesn't mean he knows what the **** he is doing.

Cheers anyway for all the idea's. If I had been there I may have got more info but asking a woman to give you a brief over a phone is a bad idea.