General Problems with Fiat Stilo Multiwagon

[Fraggle1]

Hello,

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced the same due to cold weather. When we start our car we have to leave it running for ages to heat up. Anyway, setting off we are lucky if we can get into 2nd gear - it just has no power or 'umph' lol. We crawled it to the garage and they said it was the ECU but I'm just wondering if temperatures it hasn't seem before -10.5 for example could possibly be causing this problem.

It just seems abit strange that we only noticed these problems since the extreme cold weather and not before?

thanks for any comments in advance.

 

[Deckchair5]

Is it petrol or diesel?
Any warning lights?
If you stop the engine and restart it after it has warmed up a little, is it still the same?

 

[Fraggle1]

Hiya

It is Diesel and the we had the following warnings lights come up: Loose connection; ABS failure.

When we had it running for 10 mins it was fine, then after we had parked up and got back in it was fine.

the other day when it was -10.5 I had it running for at least 10 mins and it wasn't having any of it, it was struggling to get up to 20 mph and it had white smoke coming out of the exhaust....but that could of just been the cold...

thanks

 

[sixpotman]

At these temperatures it's not been unknown
for diesel to freeze in the past, modern diesel
does have an antifreeze but may still cause problems.

Battery condition in low temperatures is critical
as a lot of faults are caused by low voltage.

John

 

[Shadeyman]

Sounds like your battery is on its last legs and the cold weather is making things worse. My advice would be get your battery checked, probabely needs replacing.

 

[Muppet1]

Hmmmmm bung in a good high power battery (do you know the age of the battery) and see what happens, Try and see if there are any fault codes stored.

Mine has seen temp's of -10 at least on the in car temp gauge and i have had no issues what so ever with my Mw jtd.

 

[Fraggle1]

hiya

Thanks for your replies. The battery is a couple of years old. The car starts fine every time, it's just once I get it off the drive it's sluggish and I knock it into 2nd gear and it just has no power, if it was the battery then it wouldn't start very well?
I'm going to pick it up from the garage tomorrow and leave it on the drive until weather improves, if it's still bad when everything back to normal then maybe it has got something to do with the ECU - off to the breakers we shall go! lol

Thanks everyone....hate not knowing what is wrong and I'm not taking it to a Fiat Dealer - be best buying a new car rather than that! lol

 

[yampug]

what's your location? maybe some one local could plug there fiat ecu scan software into your car and see if there's any faults on it.

 

[vladof]

White smoke everyone, white smoke.

I think you may have a cylinder misfire caused a failing component. You should definitely put the examiner on it to see.

When the car is running fine, do you still see the same white smoke coming out?

 

[Fraggle1]

Hiya.

I'm in Manchester - who has the ECU scan software?

When the car is running fine there is no white smoke.

I picked it up from the garage today and it managed to get upto 30mph and 3rd gear! lol It looked like it had been sheltered over night and wasn't all iced up which is one of the reasons I thought the cold may not be helping.

It's going in next week to get the correct indicator stalk put on cause there is a fault with that which is causing it to short so hopefully once that is done we can get the other problem looked at. I really love this car but this is really getting me down - boooooo

Thanks for all your replies

 

[Muppet1]

You really need to get the error codes to be able to have any real idea of whats going on with these cars, The software you can get from a link near the top of the Stilo section, In that post is also where to buy the cable from.

Then all you need is a laptop and bingo................. Codes will appear.

 

[Fraggle1]

Thats fantastic! Thanks so much for your help, gonna get a cable and see whats happening.

 

[Fraggle1]

Hello again.....

so, decided to take the stilo out for a run after we'd let her warm up abit....after about 15 mins of being sluggish the power suddenly kicked in and acted like there was nothing wrong. Stopped at my friends for 1.5 hours and got back in and again nothing wrong. If it was a problem with the ECU would it really be intermitent? We are going to take it to a FIAT garage next week but just seems strange that it's been great since the power kicked in, it's just bugging me what on earth could be wrong with it, can't believe I've got to wait til Thurs - trust it to be daft over christmas!!! lol

 

[ramborobert]

Well mine is bringing u all these errors in the cold too and ive ordered a new battery, i did take my battery out and try and charge it but to no avail. Also when i start only for the 1st minute the revs is very sluggish too but then its fine. Could be your batterys a lil worse than mine.

 

[brimar]

I too had these 'messages' in the very cold weather. The car just would not pull and if I took my foot off, it just stopped, even though the engine was fine. The same week, I took it for M.O.T. and the engineer showed me that the rear brakes had frozen ON. He freed them up and did a bit of lubricating, known as a 'rear brake service' to him. Been fine since then, even when the weather was 'brass monkeys'. Hope this sheds some light on the 'problem'. Mutiwagon 1.9 JTD.

 

[Wymar]

I've got exactly the same problem except mine refuses to start. The battery has been changed and even the new one sent back to the manufacturers to check, so no problem there. Yesterday it wouldn't start. Today it won't start but the dash has been flashing on and off with random error messages. (loose connection, airbag failure, water in fuel etc) I think it's an ECU problem but would welcome other suggestions. It only ever happens in cold damp weather. Not had a problem all summer.