Hi guys,

Had my Stilo (1.6 Dynamic, 02 plate) eight months now and for the most part I've enjoyed it a lot. Only two things really irritate me, one is not really a problem - it's a squeaky rattle from the windscreen vent on the dash - the other is more serious - the engine fault light keeps coming on.

The car had its 72,000 mile service back in March and the faults were cleared then, it then recently did it again so the garage (ALD) recommended changing lamda sensor as thats what teh code seemed to suggest was wrong. I was reluctant to as it was another £200 but thought if it cured the faults it might be worth it.

Well, last night on the way to a party, beep beep beep. So I'm pretty narked that the new lamda sensor might not have been necessary.

I'm not much inclined to take it in any more as the car is running nicely, with good ecomony, and nothing seems to be wrong. 20 years ago nothing would have been wrong, we didn't have all this software b******s!

I know there's equipment out there that can clear fault codes, what do you guys think about them? Anyone had any experience of trying to DIY Stilo's electrical gremlins?

Cheers

i think near all of us on here do a lot of diy with the stilos electrics, its pretty much necessary to keep the whole thing ticking over smoothly. and i have one of the OBDII dongle costing less than 20 quid on ebay. absoloute lifesaver, saved me so much money erasing codes and diagnosing faults

pritch said:

20 years ago nothing would have been wrong, we didn't have all this software b******s!

Click to expand...

Well like it or not its here to stay, its not so much for performance but for emmisions (EOBD) so we can all breathe cleaner chin air.

Lambda sensor failure on stilos are quite rare but easily diagnosed, I suggest taking it to someone who can accurately diagnose the fault. A code reader (although handy) wont cure the fault if its intermittent/present but might keep you sane for awhile

Hi there I have had a simaler problem to the above I have an 2003 1.6 16v 3 door model with only 40,000 miles on the clock and i have been plagued by the engine fault light to come flashing on constantly!!!!! It will drive fine for a while with the light on but then i notice a high revving sound when i turn the engine on and when i come to a stop, also a loss of acceleration and sometimes complete cut out of throttle!!!!!! It has been in the garage a few times now where the mechanic has just wiped the fault off with the mntioned software. But to my annoyance the dreaded beep and symptoms come back! I love the car to bits and really dont want to part with it but I have only got sooo much patience.......!!!!!!

Does anyone know if the damn computer is just temperamental or is there any ongoing problems with the stilo in this area!!!!!!

Hope someone can help! Cheer

Well in the dark ages before OBD it was a lot of guessing and detective work, replacing parts just to see if that would cure it was a last resort.

Now things move on and the car can tell you the area of the problem. Great. If you use it. But you have to find out the fault codes and what they mean and you then know the area to start investigations. It can't invent faults, if it tells you something's up then there is something wrong, you just haven't found it

Now to change a lambda sensor when the car is actually running fine is worse than the pre dark ages. If a car was running fine you wouldn't dream of changing a lambda sensor then and it's no different now. Unfortunately too many garages read a fault code and then just change whatever the fault code vaguely relates to but that's not using brains or doing investigations at all. No wonder it hardly ever leads to success

So, first and foremost, get a cheap fault code reader and find out what the fault codes are, it will pay for itself many times over. Then don't just allow blind replacing of parts, do some investigation and detective work. Testing a lambda sensor for instance is quite easy with very basic kit