Hey folks,

My other half has had her 500L almost a year now and it's been mostly great until last night, when the 'Check Engine Start/Stop Unavailable' warning appeared while I was driving on a normal flat road only a few hundred yards away from home, which we had just departed from.

The usual expletives were uttered and we duly turned the car around and headed for home and jumped into my trusty A4. We then done a search online and found that this was a pretty common problem with the 1.3l MultiJet engine and tried a little trick we found to 'reset' it by turning the ignition to 'MAR', pressing the start/stop button, turning the key to 'off' and then starting the engine. It seemed to work as the warning light went out, so we breathed a sigh of relief.

Tonight, we decided to take it out for another drive and guess what? Yep, it beeped and the same warning appeared again, but the outside temperature gauge was weirdly reading as three degrees outside even though it was about twelve. It eventually returned to normal after five minutes of driving though, so I'm writing it off as an odd anomaly. For all intents and purposes, the car appears to be running fine - but driving with a warning light on makes me nervous.

What would you guys recommend? I've got a feeling that it's going to boil down to a firmware upgrade going from what I've read but just need some sage advice from here to put my mind at rest! I should also mention that the 'check glow plugs' warning has intermittently appeared - so it might be related.

Hey guys,
Any feedback here?
I am also facing same issue. :+(

Hi we got the stop/start warning last year in our case it was being caused by the clutch peddle switch! I managed to get my hand to it and gave it a good wiggle and that sorted it straight away light out. It must be quite sensitive
it is quite wobbly push fit effort was tempted to take it off and clean the tracks but no need it has been ok since,

Just happened to me yesterday. Was driving normally and the check engine light just popped up saying that my start and stop is unavailable and to check engine. Haven’t done anything yet. Any suggestions please?

Telegraph said:

Hi we got the stop/start warning last year in our case it was being caused by the clutch peddle switch! I managed to get my hand to it and gave it a good wiggle and that sorted it straight away light out. It must be quite sensitive
it is quite wobbly push fit effort was tempted to take it off and clean the tracks but no need it has been ok since,

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Where can I find this switch please?

Hi the switch is at the top of the peddle lever. Put your hand on the lever just above the rubber foot pad follow the lever up to its pivot the switch has a bit of purple plastic on it. With good light wiggle it and even work it's plastic arm that senses it's movement. The fault code is picked up by ecu scan but if you ignore it it does eventually clear though only for a while. There are a few on ebay though if you unplug it it should be possible to clean the two resistor tracks inside with contact cleaner.

Thanks for your help. You won't believe what it was! My front right tire was a bit deflated, inflated it and the check engine light immediately went away. Apparently the check engine light with the start/stop error comes up with every little error like change battery etc. Sorry but I just got my Fiat 500L 2 weeks ago and still learning all its problems lol!

That's good news we have had our 500l four years and that stop start issue is the only trouble I have had. I hope your settles down and is as hassle free as ours has been.