Hello,

I have just joined the forum today. My knowledge of Fiat group vehicles is limited to Alfa Romeos!! (I have had 3 164 3.0 Lussos), so the smaller vehicles are a bit of a new area for me.

I have a number of questions, which I was wondering if someone could assist me with.

A friend at work had a lot of trouble starting her 1.6 litre Stilo today. It started, but idled very roughly for about a minute or so. Does this vehicle use a Crank Angle Sensor to detect crank rotation? Looking in the engine bay, I could see something that looked like this.

Does the engine use a Distributor pack, or a coil per plug setup?

Basically, are these items renound for failing and are there any other popular failure items that could cause the car to not start?

No Engine management light came up (which in my experience, sometimes won't with this kind of failure).

Are Lambda probes on these engines also prone to failure, I think this could potentially cause a none start condition.

I have read elsewhere on this forum, that a technical software update is available for this car, what problems is this supposed to solve with the engine management?

Apologise if this has been covered in an FAQ, feel free to direct me to the location, but thanks in advance for any answers you can provide.

James

coils are a classic fail on the stilos.its a coil per cylinder set up.
plenty of posts or some of the stilo owners will give more precise info

custard said:

coils are a classic fail on the stilos.its a coil per cylinder set up.
plenty of posts or some of the stilo owners will give more precise info

Click to expand...

Hello,

Many thanks for the quick reply, I had a feeling they might be a popular failure item, may go to partly explain the fuel economy issues she has been experiencing, though a Lambda fault could cause this as well.

If they're anything like other coil packs, then they'll fail within four or five years, so should be seen as a service item .

James

On the early cars there is a software update for ecu and throttle body and the car will need to go on an examiner to see if its been loaded on there ..other problems with Idle on the car can be a dirty throttle valve [flap] and cleaning that can improve the ticker quite a bit if there was excessive dirt in and around the inside of the throttle body [there is a guide for that one ]

Hi PNL,

Many thanks for your reply. Glad to see that problems that affect my chosen marques (GM products and Jaguar), also affects Fiats!! I'll let her know my findings but they have helped confirm what I was thinking, and really affirm the fact that they're not bad cars, just need a bit of TLC after around 5 years or so, like any car imho. I have been tempted by an Abarth, just because they're so damn cheap!! Anyway

Right, the plan will be as follows.

1 - Clean throttle body area - see if this clears the fault up
2 - Replace plugs and coil packs - may be worth doing anyway.

Thanks all for your help on this one.

James

Bit late I know, but try and go for Champion coils, not the Sagem ones.