Hi All,

I'm going to look at a 150 Multijet next week that has a knackered alternator, apart from the usual car checks are there any oddballs I need to look out for on a Diesel Stilo ?

Looking at using it for my daily commute (70 miles round trip) rather than my 1.4 16V Idea (Petrol) as it's mainly A roads so easy to cruise along.

Hi,
Not Stilo specific but the 1.9 16V has inlet swirl flaps that can give trouble. If it's a 6 speed gearbox listen carefully for noise in 6th that disappears when you lift off slightly. The M32 'box can suffer from bearing wear.


Robert G8RPI.

Check the instruments and all the electrics work. Stilo was one of Fiat's early models to use a CANBUS and a Body Control computer etc. and the electronics are over 10 years old now.

You may get weird lights on the dash if the battery is flat so bring a new one, or get the seller to charge it up, so you can be sure any lights on the dash are actual problems and not battery related.

Rear calipers will be getting tired by now so check the discs are clean all over, not containing rusty/unswept areas.

Rear suspension bushes are hydraulic and can leak (although simple to fix) - so any knocks or banging could be from there.

The rest is "usual car stuff". Stilo is not too bad for reliability.


Ralf S.

Oh well, car was a complete lemon. Listed as Immaculate inside/out (which it was), full service history (which it had), 60k on the clock (actually had 56k), knackered alternator & wouldn't start due to flat battery. Alternator was knackered, not really a big issue and also battery was dead. Connected it all up to my running car (so my car was supplying the power), hey presto, we had power, UNTIL you turned the ignition to MAR then everything went off.

So connected up MES and went for the ignition to MAR again, luckily MES caught the faults before everything went off. Listed as Low Battery charge FATAL error & Engine Management Unit FATAL error. Checked all Earth leads and they were all fine, made sure all fuses were ok and re-seated the ECU connections just to make sure. ECU connections looked like someone had heated them up as the pins had discoloured.

Battery I wasn't worried about but the ECU just wouldn't stay alive after turning the key the to start the car. Gave up and walked away, telling the owner that the so called garage hadn't told them the real fault with the car.

Sounds to me like it just needed a new battery?

Should have swapped batteries briefly and see if it ran on your good, healthy battery.

If it battery was properly goosed, which it sounds like it might well have been, then no amount of alternator or jump starting would see it run.

Sorry it didn't work out for you. Hope you keep looking as the 150s are a good motor and potential Abarth beater.

I didn't think the Stilo got lumbered with the M32 box, although I could be wrong and the swirl flaps on the earlier manifolds are usually easily repaired - the link arms just fall apart on top of the manifold. That's on the alloy manifolds. They briefly ran plastic manifolds on the 1.9jtdm motors with rotary swirl flaps - they were a nightmare. They would drop off and go dancing with your pistons. Later they 'upgraded' them to a slider mechanism. I've got one in the shed somewhere.