Hi, I got myself a '04 1.2 8v to bridge the gap until my new EV is delivered. I owned a similar (but younger) 1.2 and a TwinAir Turbo in the past and liked them so much my interim car needed to be a Panda once again. It cost next to nothing, has low miles/kilometres and has a decent service history (and working AC with a recent condensor!). The car has the engine with the square rubber oil filler cap.

After opening the hood I noticed the wires to a sensor adjacent to the oil filler cap on the top-left side of the engine were cut. The Bosch part number (0232 103 046) showed me it is probably is the camshaft sensor. The car starts, runs and idles like a 1.2 should and the check engine light does not come on after starting. How is this possible and what could have been the reason for mechanic to 'fix' a car in this way? And would it make sense to replace the wiring and sensor on a car which is already sixteen years old but drives great and is in good nick otherwise?

Weird !
May I reccomend leaving it alone if all working fine?

On some non fiat vehicles the cam sensor function is to reduce the starter crank time before engine starts.

If your car starts fine it is another good reason to save your money and leave it alone.

It could be wires were cut to stop faulty cam sensor being plugged back in causing no start and possible mil light.

I think an '04 car would have had the square oil cap and no cam sensor. The cam sensor and round cap arrived late '05 for the '06 model year.

I'm thinking replacement engine.

Edit: Change to round cap and cam sensor was from engine number 2533528. What engine number does the registration paperwork show?

portland_bill said:

I think an '04 car would have had the square oil cap and no cam sensor. The cam sensor and round cap arrived late '05 for the '06 model year.

I'm thinking replacement engine.

Edit: Change to round cap and cam sensor was from engine number 2533528. What engine number does the registration paperwork show?

Click to expand...

Since the car runs and drives just fine I've decided not to do anything about it and enjoy it as long as I own it. But it's still fun to find out what actually happened

The engine number doesn't come back anywhere in the documentation and i cannot easily find the number on the lower half of the engine. However, when I do an image search on 2003/2004 188A4000 engines they all already have the camsensor so are you sure units without one have shipped in the first years of the 169 model Panda?

How would a replacement engine fit into the story? If the engine was swapped without auxiliaries you would expect the wiring loom not to have the camshaft sensor connector? Or would it have used the new engines loom but the original ECU which needed the camshaft sensor to be bypassed?

Looking more closely at the Haynes manual, the early engines definitely had a square oil cap. The photograph also does show a camshaft sensor, but different to the later one, after engine number 2533528.

My engine is after that number, so has the round cap. After a cambelt change, the crank and cam sensors no longer agree, and have to be realigned by a process of running the revs up and holding several times. This is a phonic wheel relearn. If this is not done, the engine failure light will illuminate and, I think, the engine runs in a reduced power mode. If the senosr was disconnected, the computer would be very upset.

I'm thinking the earlier engines, although having a sensor, might have used it differently and may run without it. If a later engine has been fitted, it may not work with the early sensor. Change point to round oil cap came with the '06 model year, so cars built late '05 onwards. If yours is '04, I would expect it to have a square cap, which it does. If the ECU does not use the sensor as vitally as the later engines, disconnecting it may have been a 'fix' when the sensor failed. If a later type sensor was sourced, and did not work, disconnecting it seemed to work perhaps.