wondering if someone can give me some advice.

i have been experiencing problems with my Punto 1.9 jtd elx 03 plate and wanted some advice. firstly the ABS light is constantly on. i took it to a local garage who advised me it required some sensors so i purchased the sensors and had them fitted but the light was still on. he said that the breaks were working fine so the light shouldnt be a problem if its on. being a woman i haven the faintest idea about the mechanical issues with cars, i have considered taking it to another garage but i wanted some advice on what the problem may be and how much it may cost to repair all this because i thought by fitting the sensors this would have resolved the issue. I have also had problems with the battery as it has died out on me a couple of times and also have had this replaced on many occassions, what i also wanted to know was what may be the cause of this as i did notice that a red circle light around the stereo standby button is always on so i have had the stereo removed as a result of this. i would really appreciate any advise given

tazb4u2002 said:

wondering if someone can give me some advice.

i have been experiencing problems with my Punto 1.9 jtd elx 03 plate and wanted some advice. firstly the ABS light is constantly on. i took it to a local garage who advised me it required some sensors so i purchased the sensors and had them fitted but the light was still on. he said that the breaks were working fine so the light shouldnt be a problem if its on. being a woman i haven the faintest idea about the mechanical issues with cars, i have considered taking it to another garage but i wanted some advice on what the problem may be and how much it may cost to repair all this because i thought by fitting the sensors this would have resolved the issue. I have also had problems with the battery as it has died out on me a couple of times and also have had this replaced on many occassions, what i also wanted to know was what may be the cause of this as i did notice that a red circle light around the stereo standby button is always on so i have had the stereo removed as a result of this. i would really appreciate any advise given

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well the stereo should not be illuminated in any way when it and the ignition are off so this is a likelly cause of the battery going flat

now the usual cause of abs lights on considering the garage has already read the codes and come to the conclusion that the sensors are at fault is the rear sensors this is only true if you have drum brakes on the back which i'm pretty sure the jtd do

and that is a servicing issue regarding the handbrake travel

if the self adjusters on the rear brakes fail to take up the free play on the brakes properly due to lack of maintenance and cleaning this in turn means that the handbrake travel gets longer and longer and the problem of handbrake travel is misdiagnosed as slack cables instead of seized adjusters so people tend to adjust the handbrake cables instead this causes the handbrake levers on the brake shoes to come much further forward than they ever should and they can interfere with the magnetic ring on the hub for the abs

this damage to the magnetic ring causes the abs sensors to come up as faulty in the ecu even thou it's the rings that have been damaged

the garage you took it to may have replaced the sensors and not noticed the levers on the shoes touching the hubs because the handbrake will have been of at the time so this may be the reason why the light is still on

i would advise you to take it to a fiat dealer and have them look at it as they have much better equipment to look into the fault

unfortunately if this has happened you will need to replace the rear brake shoes and one if not both the rear hubs depending if either of them are damaged

one more thing wile the abs light is on the abs will not function meaning you can lock the brakes a garage should not allow you to drive a car with abs faults as it can be very dangerous on some models of car

so the fact he has advised you that the brakes are functioning fine is just stupid

also the abs light can only be cleared witha fault code reader simply fixing the fault ill not make it go away this is to make sure no faults on the system go unchecked

I think the battery problem and ABS light could be related. On a lot of cars, if the battery voltage falls beyond a certain point it causes various electrical gremlins. If the ABS unit isn't getting the correct voltage then the self-test may assume a fault. If it's not the first battery to die on you, and they tend to fail quickly then it's not solely due to the stereo being on all the time. I'd do an alternator check as well to rule that out as the root cause.

Taz's post doesn't actually state that the garage read any fault codes.

thank you for the response it is much appreciated, like i mentioned i dont know anything about the mechanical side of the car. all i know is that the man at the garage said it required some sensors and that should sort the problem out. he didnt mention anything about a code?

when i first bought the car and the battery died i found that the battery was a petrol one rather than the diesel, i did have it replaced with a diesel compatible one and that died out a month later. so ever since then i have the stereo removed as there always a red light which was always turned on even though the engine was on. i thought that this may actually be the reason the battery had died out. so far since removing the stereo the battery has been fine up to now but will see how long this battery lasts. Also i found that now when i want to put my wipers no fluid is sprayed on to the windscreen even though there is enough fluid . the car is causing me so many problems that i am on the verge of selling it. on top of all that my MOT and Road Tax expires this weekend .!! really need to sort all this out.

tazb4u2002 said:

thank you for the response it is much appreciated, like i mentioned i dont know anything about the mechanical side of the car. all i know is that the man at the garage said it required some sensors and that should sort the problem out. he didnt mention anything about a code?

when i first bought the car and the battery died i found that the battery was a petrol one rather than the diesel, i did have it replaced with a diesel compatible one and that died out a month later. so ever since then i have the stereo removed as there always a red light which was always turned on even though the engine was on. i thought that this may actually be the reason the battery had died out. so far since removing the stereo the battery has been fine up to now but will see how long this battery lasts. Also i found that now when i want to put my wipers no fluid is sprayed on to the windscreen even though there is enough fluid . the car is causing me so many problems that i am on the verge of selling it. on top of all that my MOT and Road Tax expires this weekend .!! really need to sort all this out.

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hum well the garage must have done some sort of code reading or how could they tell you it needs sensors

as your probably aware your car will not pass the mot with the abs light on so that's your major concern and due to the complexity of the sensors on your car i would recommend you let fiat have a look at that

and the screen wash can you here the pump running also do you use screen cleaner aswell as water it may just be blocked jets or pump

i managed to get the windscreen washer sorted so that is all up and running again, the ABS is my major concern as i know the MOT wont pass until that is sorted out otherwise i would have booked in for the MOT test this week. im definetly going to take it to Fiat and see what they can find and hopefully get all this sorted out asap. Thanks for all the advice given it is really appreciated.

yet again the battery has died on me!!!!!! i was waiting for this day because i knew it would be coming, i just dont understand why my battery keeps dying out on me. nothing that is electrical is left on so i just dint understand why the damn thing is dying out constantly!!!!! :bang:

anyone have any clues why it keeps dying out?

The quick, easy but unhelpful answer is that something is drawing current from the battery. This could be caused by a shortcircuit or a faulty boot light switch etc.

Slow but cheap way to find the problem is to stick a multimeter across the battery to read the amount of current being drawn. Because of alarms, stereos, colcks etc there will always be some drain but iirc if it's over 0.1 amp (???) then you've got a problem. If you have a large drain on the battery then start pulling fuses out one-by-one until the drain drops significantly. This means that one of the circuits that's protected by the fuse is the cause of your problem. You'd still need to find out what actual part it was though.

A quicker fix is to go to an auto electricain and tell them the problem. It'll cost you money for them to find and fix it but it will put an end to your battery woes.

You could do the initial investigation with the multimeter yourself and then go to the electrician and be able to tell them that a certain fuse makes a difference and then they could trace it. Should be cheaper as you'll have done some of the work?