Technical CANCHECK? - Dealer Advice

[BobMaylor]

Hi folks, first post on here.... looking for help

I own a (nearly) new 2009 Punto 1.4 Grade, nice little car and up until now pretty reliable I've owned it since new.

Lately it's started displaying 'CANCHECK' on the radio but not exhibiting any other problems (dash lights, dead gauges etc..) usually the fault clears however last week it stayed on for the length of the journey (one hour) when i came back to the car an hour later everything was fine again. About the same time the buttons on the steering wheel to change radio channels would only cycle between station 1 and 2 in the memory (yet 1 -6 cycles normally if your cycling nearby stations, say after pressing the 'as' button)

Decided to take it back to the dealers who eventually agreed to take a look.

the techy came back and said the computer had returned a fault but it didn't say what fault. He offered to do a full reset of all the modules and take it from there.

He also made a point of asking what had been plugged into the USB port in the glove box. About 8 months ago i plugged my Blackberry Bold into the port to charge it (according to FIAT this is a 'smart phone'). Although he couldn't tell if this had caused the fault, it "could be any manner of things".

The techy said the USB cant handle anything like a phone, or memory sticks over 4GB and mentioned this could have caused the fault (after 8 months?) I dont remember reading anywhere in the Blue&Me books a list of things you can't plug into the USB port??

Anyway, the service manager appeared shortly after saying "if you want us to do the reset you have to pay £38.47, because you plugged a phone into the USB the fault was caused by you, our warranty only covers manufacturing defects" once it transpired I wasn't paying a penny he walked off without saying another word.

Does any one know what else i can do about this fault. The dealer the car was bought from has apparently washed their hands of the matter, but why should i have to pay to fix a fault on a brand new car??

Really not impressed...

Sorry for the extremely long ramble

 

[Shauncorwyn]

Sounds like whats usually posted here is called Proxy alignment where all the computers have to talk to each other through the canbus system.

Unfortunatly if they say you have caused it there is not a lot you can do but grin and bear the cost. Your only other option is it launch a complaint with Fiat customer service.

I know when i bought my GP the 3 year warranty only covered the audio equipment for one year(T&C's).

Anyway welcome to the forum.

 

[Andy Monty]

As above the car should still be covered by warranty if your not the original owner you need to send off the new owners form in the hand book and iirc pay a transfer fee

If your dealer has washed his hands of you try a different dealer

Fiat uk website has a live chat option with coustomer services which you can copy and paste the conversation and show it to the dealer should they play hard ball

 

[Mozarella]

(he's the original owner, Andy)

I found this:
Turn on the radio, the display should show ' CANCHECK 'while the set searches for the vehicles ECU. If the radio is being installed in its original vehicle then the set will switch on after a short while. However if the set is being installed in a new vehicle then after ' CANCHECK ' has been displayed ' CODE ' will appear on display. Input the code using [ Pre-sets 1-6 ]. To save use the station pre-set [ >> ]. The set will now operate.

Steering wheel controls intermittant? Loose wires? Why not pull out the radio with a pair of 'coathanger extractors' and check the plug on the back? Sometimes pulling the plug off and reseating it a couple of times cleans the contacts .

I can't imagine plugging a phone into a USB socket is going to murder anything, but what I know about electronics is er, zero.

 

[D4nny8oy]

The USB port is only really for music (via memory stick/ Ipod type device), and as such, the software looks for the relevant media files when the device is plugged in. A device which contains files or media that cannot be read by the Blue&Me, or trying to use it as a charging point, can cause a conflict and crash the media system. However, this usually causes the buttons/voice commands to simply be not responsive until a full Blue&Me reset is performed.

Whenever we would suspect a Blue&Me fault to be down to customer-error, we would usually perform a reset under warranty and inform the customer about how the system works and what they shouldn't do (afterall- everyone makes mistakes), and advise that if they cause the fault again then it would be down to the customer to pay.

 

[BobMaylor]

Thanks for all the replies, it's really appreciated.. thanks for all the help.

The dealership I used has its head offices further up north near Darlington, the next time this 'cancheck' error pops up (and hopefully it won't) I may just drive up there and speak to them, the service manger at the current dealership where I bought the car really came across as a bully.

It's interesting about the fragility of the USB system, until yesterday I had no idea how limited it was, in fact i read through the Blue&Me book as well as FIAT's website, both seem to agree that a smartphone can/could be plugged into the USB port?

Is it still possible that a device that was plugged into the system three times 8 months ago cause a fault now? seems very strange.

The service manager claims the fault is down to me for using an unsupported device but the tech guy who did the diagnosis said he really didn't have any idea what may have caused the cancheck error to appear...

Hopefully the error wont appear again and that's the end of it lol

At least I have learnt about the system architecture to some extent

 

[D4nny8oy]

It's interesting about the fragility of the USB system, until yesterday I had no idea how limited it was, in fact i read through the Blue&Me book as well as FIAT's website, both seem to agree that a smartphone can/could be plugged into the USB port?

True, some smartphones can be plugged-in, but to be used as a music media device like an iPod and stream music off to be played through the radio (hence why it mentions smartphones in the 'music' part of the Blue&Me section). Otherwise the system is connected via Bluetooth to act as a hands-free set-up.

The latest compatibility list on the Fiat site doesn't list the Blackberry Bold from what I can see, so it's possible that the software on it may cause an issue with the Blue&Me when it's plugged in.

It seems unlikely it should cause a fault 8 months down the line, but it's possible the affected area wasn't accessed within the system again until now. Like any Windows-based system, it doesn't take much to bring it to it's knees.

I do think your Dealer was wrong to try to charge you first-time round- there's always ways to claim the time/cost back from Fiat, but even then, sometimes you have to take it on the chin and just put it down as an hour lost.

 

[Shauncorwyn]

different usb devices use different voltages. It could your phone pulled more than the limit allowed.

 

[ChrisUK]

Not so much voltage, all USB is 5v it's the ampage that differs. I'd imagine a blackberry would sap a lot more than a memory stick / ipod.