I have a fault with my 2002 1.2 3-door Stilo. It came up with a low brake fluid message. So duly went to garage, bought some, topped up and all seemed ok. Next day whilst driving, same message appeared, but this time all my heating cut out, and my windscreen wipers stopped working. As I was driving in snow at time, could have been very dangerous.

Cant seem to find what could be causing this, am presuming it is some kind of electrical/sensor fault. Anyone got any ideas, as they would be appreciated.

Clark

Hi Clark welcome to the forum, the first thing you need to get sorted is your brakes.
1) do you have any visible leaks around the wheel/brake areas ?

2) have you had any work done on either the brakes or clutch in the near past ? (the stilo brake and clutch use a common reservoir)

3) how much fluid have you lost (if any) from the reservoir ?

Now the other bits, need some info from you before we guess whats buggered

Do your wipers move at all try both front and rear,have you checked the fuses ?

what type of climate control you got AC, manual or dual climate control ?

Karl

Karl,

Thanks for the welcome.

Re the brakes, they are fine and there is no fluid leaking, although i say i topped it up, there was very little needed. Think its just the sensor. Car has been in local garage and they have checked brakes etc, they are fine.

Their diagnostic tool comes back with no errors. The front wipers do not move at all. Have not checked the rear one to be honest. As for climate control it does not have AC its just a manual control.

Seems to be something electrical that is the problem. Have phoned fiat dealer and they are talking 67pound + VAT for first hour of diagnostics, will they have better suited kit for the problem? Was wondering if anyone had come across a similair problem, and possible solution.

Cheers for the reply.

Clark

Meant to say the local garage have been though all the fuses and not found any problem.

Clark

Highly likely to be an Earth that's failed (corroded)

Use of Examiner may well help if combined with circuit diagram plus someone who knows the electrics well

Obviously, if wipers still don't work then it should be fairly straight forward finding the fault but will be tricky otherwise. If so a good Fiat specialist garage should be able to connect Examiner and allow you to drive around until the fault occurs (hopefully not more than an hour as could get expensive ). The results should provide a clue to the problem.

Certainly sounds electrical Clarke,As argo says check all your earth points I think "morty mort" did some work on his earths and added a few to be on the safe side morty is usually around and he will point you in the right direction.
Karl

Could this be a CAN connector issue people?

Thanks for the replies so far, any help is appreciated.

Clark

Losing so many systems at once means an earth so I'd go straight for earth point C10 Wipers,heater fan and brake low level fluid all earth through C10. It won't be far from the passenger's side headlight. See if you can follow the black earth wire from the headlight





It'll look like this. This is C11. This one's underneath the screenwasher bottle



Check it first to save work, check for voltage drop between it (on its metal tag,not on the bolt) and the car body when systems are on. Should be near zero voltage drop of course. Remove the C10 earth point, clean up its contact points on it and the car. Check for zero resistance between the tag and the car when it's reinstalled with systems off then check for near zero voltage drop across it again with systems on

Cheers for that info, am getting that looked into now. If it turns out to solve the problem, then I declare you a genius!!!

Clark

Nah don't do that but if we save you a fortune on grief and finances feel free to donate to the forum

Meant to post before that the earthing issue was the problem and I had and it is all now fixed. And better late than never I have made a donation to the site in thanks for the help received.



Cheers
Clark

Thanks for the feedback - it's appreciated

Glad you got it sorted