Hi all

Apologies if this is not the correct thread to post this.

I have an 11 plate MyLife Fiat Panda <65,000 miles, one owner (myself) that I may potentially be looking to sell/advertise. You may, or may not, have seen my other threads where I have mentioned an issue with the red steering wheel light. She is going in for diagnostics tomorrow and I suspect the fault code C1005 (I think; it’s the torque angle sensor fault code) may appear again. If so, I have to weigh up either selling and buying a new car (which may be preferable as I am losing trust/faith in this car), or to go ahead with the work. I know there are some enthusiasts on here who may be interesting in purchasing this car, and just wondered if there would be interest?

Try an add in the Classifieds on here (FOC) Its easy to upload even an old fool like me managed it.

For the last 20 years, I have had at least two cars and a motorcycle at a time, and I have changed cars every 10-11 months, sometimes not wanting to spend on repairs, or spending time and money on repairs and then getting bored, but this is a very costly habit, and remorse does set in after, wishing you had kept what you had.
I think you would be best to get it fixed, changing cars can cost thousands and then unless you are buying new(or almost) you may end up buying a car with problems to fix.

The only car which cost me nothing in repairs was a brand new Audi A4. But I had to sell it 18 months later. I got a good price but it still me £6000.

At that cost, even if your Panda needs a new alternator (or heaven forbid new steering) it's still cheap motoring.

Has the new battery not fixed it then? I'd never trust a garage who charges £40 to read codes before doing a free drop test on the battery.

New battery was only fitted yesterday, not no lights today. Looks like Poppy lives to see another year.

The £140 would have bought 2 Bosch 4 year Batteries

But I dont know if 'cheap'batteries get more than a year..

dave said:

Has the new battery not fixed it then? I'd never trust a garage who charges £40 to read codes before doing a free drop test on the battery.

Click to expand...

Or a road test followed by clearing ANCIENT codes..

Read codes.. look for obvious issues.. THEN road test..

But £40 for the coderead isnt unfair..
So swings and roundabouts

I’m just happy that they consulted with. Fiat specialist who advised alternator or battery, and that the alternator is charging okay and that it was again the battery that needed changing.

I'm not trying to be a party pooper and with luck your car will be fine with its new battery.

The Panda has a huge 970 watt generator so even with lots of short rides with all the stuff going (heater, rear window, lights, city steering, etc) the generator should cope just fine. My battery was new and voltage tested out OK from under the bonnet but the ciggy lighter voltmeter showed the system voltage was not picking up when the engine started. I replaced it with a used spare and no more problems.

A month later the old alternator was seized solid so it was not long for this world.

Hopefully you have it sorted but if it persists a proper test of the alternator is needed.

Of course if it happens again, then the next step would be the alternator. But I am fairly confident this will no longer be an issue now.