Good evening folks,

I apologise for such a lengthy first post. My wife has a 2004 Fiat Panda 1.2 Dynamicwith a semi-auto gearbox. On Saturday the engine warning light came on along with a message that said ‘Engine Failure’. I called my local Fiat main dealer and booked it in for them to look at today.

When I took the car in this morning everything was normal and there were no warning lights or messages. The garage carried out a service and diagnostic check which came up withthe following error code: “P1221 – Accelerator potent. track 1 – signal not feasible. Intermittent”. They informed me that the car needs a new throttle body (OEM part no 71787554) at a cost of £577 plus labour.

On the way home from the garage the car suddenly stopped responding to pressure on the accelerator and the engine warning light andengine failure message appeared. After putting the car into neutral it then responded to the accelerator although the warning light stayed on.

I’ve done a search of the forum and read a number of threads where people appear to have had similar issues, some of which don’t appear tohave been resolved. I have a couple of questions that I am hoping somebody may be able to answer:
1) Does error code P1221 definitely mean the fault is with the throttle body or could it be something else?
2) Can anybody advise me where I could get a new or reconditioned throttle body from in the UK? I’ve seen one for sale on shop4parts but it has a different OEM no(77363298) to the one I’ve mentioned above.

Many thanks in advance,

Jeeves

Word,

Had a similar problem with my 4x4 waaaay back. It's sort of been a recurring issue throughout it's life. Apparently the throttle body was cracked and needed replacing, although I've never been able to afford to get the work done. Instead I just have to get the thing cleaned out every time it gets full of crud and the engine cutouts become unmanageable (every 2-3 years). Tends to cost about £100 a go, but it's so far worked out cheaper than getting the whole thing replaced. You can cancel the engine cut out by turning the engine on and off three times in a row, it's not ideal and can get pretty hectic when you're trundling down the motorway at 65 in the dark, but it seems to work.

Fraid there doesn't seem to be much that can be done about it other than coughing up for a whole new throttle body. Bad times Hopefully someone else will be able provide a bit more help.

£577 + labour ouch!

Unfortunately it is likely to the be degradation of the potentiometer mounted on the side of the throttle body that is the root cause of the fault. Not certain about Fiat's but most cars have a system where there are two potentiometer tracks built into the one potentiometer housing for safety reasons. If and when a track wears out or goes faulty the ECU recognises this (because the two channels read differently) and switches on the malfunction indicator lamp.

There's a slight possibility of a cable loom fault - you could try tracing the loom from the throttle body to look for any frayed or damaged cables but it's a bit of a long shot.

I suggest giving BBA Reman a call. They may be able to test and replace the potentiometer itself on the throttle body (I don't think it's DIY-able) . If you have access to a decent ohm meter (preferably an analogue one) you use it to check if the resistance reading varies smoothly throughout the accelerator pedal range. I'm sure someone on here (possibly me) would be willing to check their own to see what resistance values a known good unit gives.

Let us know how you get on

We had a long saga with our 54 1.2 Dynamic.

There's a thread on here from me about it. The car suddenly died on day (on a uphill dual carriageway !) and would onyl give idle revs, with occassional 1200rpm on full throttle. After some self diagnostics i cam to the conclusion it was either the electronic throttle (£700), the throttle body (c £600) or the ecu. After a week of diagnosis and part swapping at the delaer they concluded it was a faulty ecu and replaced with a refurbed one - in total including all diagnostics they did the bill came to something like £550. The car never felt as enthusiastic after this change of ecu though

15 months later we got the EML light on again - i can't remember exactly the fault code, but P1221 sounds familiar. Dealer did a throttle relearn and its been fine since (9+ months). The car is very sprightly now, so begs the question whether it was fully set-up when the ecu was changed ?

I'd suggest you do a throttle relearn before anything else - basically start car from cold and leave the engine running for 10-15 minutes until its up to temperature and the fan has cut ina few times.

Here are links to my issue and another thread which confirmed we had P1221..

https://www.fiatforum.com/panda/237484-tech-help-needed-throttle-sensor-fault.html

https://www.fiatforum.com/panda/281308-panda-engine-light-no-acceleration-lots-desperation.html

percymon said:

it was either the electronic throttle (£700)

Click to expand...

The Throttle pedal?

yes sorry - too quick typing - throttle pedal comes as a complete unit