(T) Engine system breakdown warning thingy

I have been after a Stilo Abarth for a while and always buy my cars at auction. I picked up my new gleaming red metallic one this morninng at 11 am and just about 30 minutes into my drive home, some nonce was peeing me off and I wanted to lose him and stuck my foot down (I was in auto mode at the time)

Here is what happened, the car started to judder and wouldn't pick up and then te engine light came on and the screen in between the speedo and rev counter wneet a bit mental and started flashing up with engine system f****d or something like that.

I slowed down and came to a halt and the car went back to normal as I drove slower/normally all the way home as sweet as!

Is it the ECU or the coli pack that needs replacing? Any ideas?

Thanks
Ian

Sorry for the appalling spelling, I think my son spilled something on my keyboard!

welcome to the joys of Fiat Stilo ownership. The best piece of advice I could give is to forget the warning and treat it as a random glitch. I am sure in the coming weeks you'll have many more warnings on the dash , everything from the airbags to the oil level / pressure, to distract you from the first warning light. By the time you have got to the bottom of all the warning beeps and lights something of Major mechanical importance will fail. Good luck , you'll need it.

Think I'd be inclined to take it back to the auction house if it didn't last 30 minutes as this could be the very reason is was there

Otherwise, a set of coil packs would be a fair investment although I'd want to see some history on the car first incase they've already been changed.

Unfortunately the auction houses policy is sold as seen on 90% of the cars they push through and sods law mine was sold as seen with no comeback given as they were the first people I rang after the lights came up. The car does have 4 stamps in the book, I am going to ring them to trace what what was done if possible. How much are the coil packs? where is the best place to get them?

Sounds a good idea

Being a JTD man, no direct experience of buying coil packs but I gather £30 - £40 each is the mean. I think if you look at the manufacturer then this should give a clue if they've been changed before.

Plenty of guys on here can give some tips

thanks for your help, I will get on the phone now.

It may not be the coils its possible you may have a dicky spark plug I normally check my cars over when I buy one and if anything is border line then change it the coils can be had from www.shop4parts.co.uk or from fiat them selves and remember you will need 5 good luck if you have any more problems post it up and the massive will be here to help if possible

Could take it to a local garage and get them to extract the codes off the Engine Node; it is OBD-II compliant (as is EEC law) so any garage with a modern code reader will be able to help.

Oh, and indeed welcome to Stilo ownership. There are people on here who complain about them, but they aren't as bad as everyone makes out; remember it's not a Toyota!!

Had a bad experience with one then RRoope.

Seem to remember I hired a pretty crap one in Cyprus once

Nice to know that he will have to shell out cash JUST to find out what is wrong isnt it

All depends on your relationship with the dealership

Correction: ....what might be wrong with it

[quote=Stuart DemonD]All depends on your relationship with the dealership [/quote

Or his wife and Agonaught I stand corrected isnt it

Indeed Stu, free Examiner time is always good; got 2 hrs free labour a week or two ago when the EPAS went in our other Stilo