I got the dreaded "Engine management failure warning" on the way to work this morning...
car was running like **** and error wouldn't clear so took it straight to the new Fiat specialist in Ipswich (Avanti) who i know have examiner...

They have just phoned me and car was running on 4 cylinders..

They have diagnosed the coil as the fault so have one on order and will have it ready by 2pm.. the cost? £100 all in.

sounds fair to me - I'm sure a Fiat dealer would charge a lot more.....

These guys really seem to know their stuff and they seem to understand the concept of customer service as well... Highly recomended! (now how often do you see that on here?)

Glad to hear you got it sorted, luckily i've never had the engine managment failure light and gone into "limp home mode"

Or have I just tempted fate? :chin:

£100 for one coil? It takes minutes to fit - I had the AA do mine free of charge, with the part covered under warranty. I think the cost of the coil is around £35 or so.

Did they charge about £40 for a diagnostics test and one hour labour though?

Concur with Stu, easy to diagnose yourself (if you have experienced it in the past it is obvious what the problem is, and is simple to identify which coil is faulty) and about 5 minutes total to change the offending part, with standard tools. Total cost is about £35.

so how do you identify a faulty coil?

As in which one it is, or how do you know if ONE is faulty to begin with?

Once mine went, I knew straight away - the car felt so rough and lumpy, as if it was literally firing on 4 cylinders, not 5.

well ... both if your feeling helpful!

Hmmm - so how is this easily diagnosed without any equipment?

Q - Do I take from the comments that the Abarth has a coil for each cylinder?

I felt the car was probably only firing on 4 cylinders but chacking which 4 and then tracing the fault to a coil without resort to diagnostic kit?

Besides.. a couple of manhours costs more than £100 these days. I have the convenience of having it sorted whilst i am at work (10 min walk from the garage) and they are going to reset the service indicator while they are at it.

I could probably have sorted it myself but it would have taken me half the evening finding the problem then the next day trying to find the right part and fit it... (is that worth saving £50)

Bottom line - I trust these guys and thats no simple statement when it comes to Fiat garages!

Once you have decided that a coil is faulty, determining which one is fairly easy. Simply detach each coil in turn until no change is noticed in the 'quality' of the idle. That points to which cylinder is causing the issue, as it will show no effect upon disconnection of the coil. The proof would be to swap with another coil and see if the problem moves to that cylinder.

Then change out the affected coil.

Morritt said:

so how do you identify a faulty coil?

Click to expand...

Hello Morritt I asked a similar question on here IE- how do you know which coil has given up the ghost the reply I got was there will me a distinct smell of burning you will be able to tell which coil pack had failed answered by Decks and of course the running on 3cylinders etc etc

Stilo_ste said:

Once you have decided that a coil is faulty, determining which one is fairly easy. Simply detach each coil in turn until no change is noticed in the 'quality' of the idle. That points to which cylinder is causing the issue, as it will show no effect upon disconnection of the coil. The proof would be to swap with another coil and see if the problem moves to that cylinder.

Then change out the affected coil.

Click to expand...

Exactly that! No specialist equipment is needed.

Just collected car...

cost quoted included vat so was only £84 including resetting the service indicator and car runs like a dream...

in fact better than it has for months (I guess the coil was on its way out for a while....)

Once again I reccomend these guys http://www.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&lr=&cr=countryUK|countryGB&safe=off&q=avanti&near=Ipswich&radius=0.0&latlng=52058178,1156302,3333277245827795594&sa=X&oi=local&ct=result&cd=1

ProtoFJ said:

I'm sure a Fiat dealer would charge a lot more.....

Click to expand...

Not really,done one yesterday,£35 for coil & £28 for labour,£63 all in inc vat.