Technical FIAT Panda clutch switch Euro6

[jrkitching]

I also recommend wired (USB) rther than wireless, a bit of interference during a critical phase of adjustment cout "brick" the ECU. Very rare, but not worth the risk.

That's a good thought, Robert. Using a mains powered computer carries a similar risk in the event of a mains spike or power outage; strangely I hadn't thought of this before.

If (like most folks) you're running this on a laptop, make sure you have a well charged battery before you start. A lot of old XP laptops (otherwise ideal for this job) will have batteries that are now well past their best.

 

[murphyv310]

Hi,
MES should work ok with virtual box, you can test it (for CAN INFO) with the demo (free) version.
The ELM 327 is just an interface, the same type is used for MES or Torque and does not affect functionality. MES is MUCH better than Torque for FCA cars. Thorque may not give accurate readings for some parameters.
The only extra you need for >2012 Panda is a A3 (Yellow) adaptor led for full access to some mmodules.
e.g.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152875225743?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152907210346?
or a set
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/162904443097?
Avoid the cheap <£10 interfaces from China they have a design flaw. I also recommend wired (USB) rther than wireless, a bit of interference during a critical phase of adjustment cout "brick" the ECU. Very rare, but not worth the risk.

Robert G8RPI.

Hi.
Thank you Robert for all the info above. I agree that torq can give incorrect readings and I was caught out with it before on the Rover. Using the correct T4 readings were different. On the Panda it also doesn't see the upstream O2 sensor properly whereas Alfaobd does. I can confirm both see the clutch switch. My ELM327 bluetotth dongle is quite an old one and has been 100% reliable on connections and reading, beware the newer ones.

Thanks for confirming Multiecuscan will work via virtualbox, I will try the demo first but for the Panda I believe it works in a different way, I'm sure I was told via canbus??? Don't quote me as I may be mixed up.

 

[murphyv310]

Hi.
Regarding bricking the ECU, the Rover T4 (Testbook 4) had safeguards built in so if the power went off or someone tripped on a lead and comms failed the ECU would not lock out. Surely on a more modern system it would have built in features to safeguard against this scenario?

In fact, a couple of years ago two rather clever Polish gentlemen reversed engineered a system to interrogate and write to the six ECU's on the 75 with the option to read and save all parameters to a file in the software. This made the replacement of duff ECU's a doddle, even coding in keys was simple. This showed how the good T4 could be bettered.
The Polish system was called Toaf.

 

[g8rpi]

Hi.
Thank you Robert for all the info above. I agree that torq can give incorrect readings and I was caught out with it before on the Rover. Using the correct T4 readings were different. On the Panda it also doesn't see the upstream O2 sensor properly whereas Alfaobd does. I can confirm both see the clutch switch. My ELM327 bluetotth dongle is quite an old one and has been 100% reliable on connections and reading, beware the newer ones.

Thanks for confirming Multiecuscan will work via virtualbox, I will try the demo first but for the Panda I believe it works in a different way, I'm sure I was told via canbus??? Don't quote me as I may be mixed up.

Hi.
The ELM 327 supports two physical interfaces, K-L or K-Line and CAN (Controller Area Network) Several communication protocols are supported and the decoding of these is done by the ELM 327. The communication with the PC is by serial ASCII commands similar to the old Hayes AT commands. Current FCA cars use CAN almost exclusely and the Panda has two CAN buses on the OBDII port one on the standard pins 6 and 14 and a Fiat specific one on pins 1 and 9. The Yellow adaptor swaps pins 6 and 14 to 1 and 9.
If MES runs to see CAN info in demo mode on virtual box all should work. You doe need to register to access other functions on newer Pandas.

Robert G8RPI.

 

[MuddyPaws]

Great write up and a well worth mod to do.
The MIL light doesn't come on if you are able to do the job and position the sensor/switch lever in the rest or equivalent of the clutch pedal up position. The little lever has a light spring and the lever should stay that way unless it's pressed, all should be fine.
Mine is neatly tucked behind the plastic footwell cowling.

As I don't have, or would know how to use, an electronic re-setting tool, I'm interested in what you say Murphy. Can you describe in more detail how you disabled the switch without disconnecting it please.

 

[MuddyPaws]

Great write up and a well worth mod to do.
The MIL light doesn't come on if you are able to do the job and position the sensor/switch lever in the rest or equivalent of the clutch pedal up position. The little lever has a light spring and the lever should stay that way unless it's pressed, all should be fine.
Mine is neatly tucked behind the plastic footwell cowling.

A nice bright and sunny day today so I thought I would get down on my knees and have a look at this. Yes, you can easily do this without having to disconnect the electrics from the end - so the warning light doesn't come on or have to be re-set. Mine had a zip-tie around the electrics end that held the feed wires close to the switch; this just slipped off the end so allowing me to push the 'weedy' little lever down. Pull the lever to the right by pulling at the base of it otherwise the lever just bends. To get enough 'wiggle' room to remove the switch I had to cut the zip-tie that holds the feed wires on the left (taking a lot of care not to cut the actual wires). That done, I pushed the whole lot upwards to remove from the peddle and then tucked it behind the plastic covering in the centre of the car. The light spring on the switch holds the switch in the original 'peddle-up' position. FANTASTIC! what a difference - I can now do a 'normal' take off without kangarooing down the road... Well worth doing. As nothing gets broken, bent or disconnected it can all be put back again to function as it did originally - but why would one ever want to do that! Brilliant folk on the Fiat Forum, thank you so much, I can now stop falling out of love with my little Panda.

 

[AB100]

A nice bright and sunny day today so I thought I would get down on my knees and have a look at this. Yes, you can easily do this without having to disconnect the electrics from the end - so the warning light doesn't come on or have to be re-set. Mine had a zip-tie around the electrics end that held the feed wires close to the switch; this just slipped off the end so allowing me to push the 'weedy' little lever down. Pull the lever to the right by pulling at the base of it otherwise the lever just bends. To get enough 'wiggle' room to remove the switch I had to cut the zip-tie that holds the feed wires on the left (taking a lot of care not to cut the actual wires). That done, I pushed the whole lot upwards to remove from the peddle and then tucked it behind the plastic covering in the centre of the car. The light spring on the switch holds the switch in the original 'peddle-up' position. FANTASTIC! what a difference - I can now do a 'normal' take off without kangarooing down the road... Well worth doing. As nothing gets broken, bent or disconnected it can all be put back again to function as it did originally - but why would one ever want to do that! Brilliant folk on the Fiat Forum, thank you so much, I can now stop falling out of love with my little Panda.

Yep - it's a revelation all right. Much nicer.

 

[murphyv310]

I'd say Fiat need a rethink about the zero advantages of this switch. The car will still roll forward on tick over quite happily as the ECU will try to compensate any dip in idle speed, its still great in very low speed traffic.
To me the switch is very much a retrograde step.
No doubt its needed for the SS models but not a base model cooking 1.2.

 

[benecol]

Honestly can thank you enough - had our 2014 Panda Easy since last March, and on its best day, it's been a pain in the arse... We live in a hilly bit of Gloucestershire, and adapting yer hillstart style to suit (especially after ten years driving a 1.9 Doblo JTD) took some doing.
Had it remapped (or some sort of ECU update) late last year year at the dealers, but it's still been slow to pull away, and like a pogo-stick hillstarting.
This came to a crux on Friday when my wife had to roll backwards down a (very, very steep) local hill because there was no way to coax the car forward in a hillstart. I went out and tried today, and true enough - a really steep slope was too much for the ECU and clutch position switch.
I'm a big old unit who doesn't really fit in the footwell (the step where you lift the yellow cage off was what confounded me), but I got there eventually.

Long story short: it's transformed the car. Thank you so much.

(also: first post - HIYA!).

 

[The Pretender]

Mine doesn't have stop start. Does any 1.2 Panda have it?

I don't think so, i don't think the 1.2 FIRE is up to code for that.

 

[Geoff 59]

I decided to fix this issue, but in my case handed it over to my local mechanic not being that confident of doing it right.
Having just returned from the garage all seems much better, no warning lights or other unexpected problems.
Just a car that drives normally where I'm in control of the accelerator, much like all my previous cars.
It still moves off in first or reverse just on idle speed, so can't see any downside to this modification.
Will report back if anything changes.

 

[murphyv310]

Hi.
Glad to read you have done the mod and even more so that a mechanic didn't refuse!!
There should be no reason why you'll have any trouble or even want to re-instate it, mine has been great for a year now.

 

[t0neloc]

Aaah....I think I might have understood it now by looking at some pictures of replacement switches.
Does the yellow section slide up within the arm section of the switch to reveal a gap allowing it to then be unhooked?
That's how it seems in this picture
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SWITCH-C...439072&hash=item3b1ae24a34:g:bHEAAOSwIr9bkNqH



===============================================================================



Hi folks
New owner of a 2014 1.2 petrol POP.
Can't say that I notice any of the symptoms described. There's not much power below 1500 rpm but I wouldn't expect that in such a small motor.
Tried some steep hill starts and it seems fine.
Thought I'd remove the switch and see if it made any difference to low RPM performance.

BIG MISTAKE.
I can flip the lever down and loosen the switch but it's impossible to remove the yellow section from the pin on the clutch arm. The yellow section is sealed at both ends and I cannot move it towards the centre of the vehicle as there is insufficient clearance between the plastic mounting bracket and the metal pin.


The photo in the original post does not have the same bracket mounting the switch. Mine is much bigger. Oo-eer!



How on earth do you free the switch from the pin? :bang:



I've shoved it all back on again for now after much sweating, cursing and what feels like a broken rib.

 

[murphyv310]

Hi.
The switch doesn't make any difference to out and out low speed torque, it just makes the drive more pleasant when moving off from rest. The idea of the switch in the 1.2 which doesn't have stop start is to sense when you depress the clutch and then lift it up to the biting point, it then tells the ECU to raise the revs to reduce the possibility of stalling the engine.

It doesn't do what its supposed to do as it is normal for any driver to put a little throttle on when taking away, the revs then rise to an uncomfortable speed and the reaction then is to ease off, this then reduces power and the car bogs down. Some seem worse than others and I have heard that some are quite happy as is. If you are not having any issues then leave it as is, there wont be any improvement in torque as I say and when your left foot is off the clutch its just the same as removing the switch.

 

[t0neloc]

Many thanks for that.

I've just been for a spin round the block to try out the anti-stall feature. If you know it's there it's quite manageable and does not get in the way apart from when doing a slow speed, low RPM manoeuvre such as turning into a driveway. In that instance it can sometimes start to accelerate just as you are wanting it to go slowly. I can anticipate some hairy moments if I ever went into a multi-story car park although I avoid these on principle as I don't like paying ;-)


I think this 'feature' is probably a generational divide thing i.e. old giffers like me have learned to be in complete control of everything and can only blame ourselves if we stall it. Younger drivers are more likely to have only experienced the car doing the work for them and probably don't think twice about it.


I'm still tempted to remove the switch just so that I'm in control of what's going to happen.


My overall impression of driving the car is favourable. If you use the rev range it goes like a scolded cat. The handbook says max power at 5500 RPM and max torque at 3000 RPM and it shows. When all's said and done it's a small, low powered engine that needs to spin to get moving. Use it and have fun.

 

[t0neloc]

Finally got round to detaching the switch as it's a sunny day.
Did it with the switch still connected to the wiring. Had to remove some plastic tape that was securing the cable in order to get enough wiggle room to move the switch out and away behind the centre console.

Definitely worth doing this mod. Much easier on hill starts, doesn't accelerate when doing low speed manoeuvrers, still able to creep forward in slow traffic without stalling but you do have to be a bit more careful monitoring the engine. Just seems to make the driving generally smoother.

Thanks to all for the guidance and information.

 

[benecol]

I did this on our 2014 Easy last summer; thought I'd replied on here when I did it (we live in a HILLY part of Gloucestershire, and there we some hills so steep, the clutch switch wouldn't put enough gas on, nor let us put enough gas on, so just sat uselessly nearly stalling, blocking traffic).

Much improved for having done it, previous post sums it up well.

Wanted to add - dropped it in to my local Fiat dealer for a service and MOT, and 'fessed up to having done it (said I was happy for them to come and try and hillstart it near me if they insisted on reinstating it). Sailed through its MOT, no complaints from the Fiat service team.

 

[t0neloc]

Final observation on this (although I could be talking nonsense).

Have now done around 300 miles since disconnecting the switch and the clutch bite point has progressively become much more definite over that period. When first done it felt like the clutch was slipping slightly but not now.

My theory is that the ECU controlled revs without a corresponding clutch adjustment had resulted in a light 'polishing' of the clutch plates akin to what you'd get if you ride the clutch over a prolonged period. The new fully controlled relationship seems to have roughed things up a bit resulting in a definite bite point and a very much smoother gear change & progress.

 

[AAB1992]

Am I the only one who likes the clutch switch!? It’s fine 95 percent of the time even on most of the hills around where I live on the Pennines. Really steep hills require just a quick blip of the throttle to get the car moving then I let off and let the car do the rest. In traffic it’s a boon, only lift the clutch up then once the car starts crawling use the throttle, it’s seamless. I really like it

 

[murphyv310]

Hi.
Removing the switch will have no influence on the biting point as a clutch is purely mechanical whether hydraulic or cable operated.


Re the actual feel of the car, the car will still creep along without the switch in either first or second gear, if the revs drop below around 700 rpm the ECU will compensate to keep the revs above this level no matter if you have the switch or not. Without the switch the ECU has no idea where the clutch is whether up, down or half way, in traffic with your foot off the clutch there is no difference with it in place or removed.

With the switch out the car drives like any other "normal" car without silly electronics trying to over ride the input of drivers who know how to use a clutch in a proper manner.