Technical Rapid clicking. Won’t start

[Guerciotti]

Battery is dead. If an overnight charge doesn’t do it get a new battery. I had exactly the same. Charged overnight, nothing. New battery. Vroom!

Thanks. The battery does seem to have charge (12.4v according to my multimeter). I was going to check the earth strap today but do you think just go to buying a new battery?

 

[John202020]

Thanks. The battery does seem to have charge (12.4v according to my multimeter). I was going to check the earth strap today but do you think just go to buying a new battery?

A quick check for the earth strap, use a jump start cable and connect to battery negative and any good point on the engine, if it cranks fine then its a good bet its the earth strap, though given your hotter climate it may not fail as fast as ours here?, Borrow any good battery if you can and test starting with it before replacing or see if you can get the original battery load tested?

 

[Guerciotti]

Cheers John. Although we are in Portugal the car did spend the first 2 years of it's life in Germany so probably colder winters than the UK !

I've just run a continuity check across the engine using my multi-meter (connecting one end to the negative point on the battery and another on various points on the engine (there are YouTube videos on this) and it's failing (i.e. implying a bad earth strap).

I also just ran your test and the car is still in the same state (i.e. implying in not the earth strap).

The battery is still showing 12.4V on the multimeter.

Shall I just buy a new battery?

 

[John202020]

Hard to say 3 years is not long for a battery my Mszda's is over 6 and still ok

 

[John202020]

Does the clicking sound continue if you just leave the ignition on without starting or does it stop, is the noise in the car or under bonnet if u see bonnet place finger on relays u til you find which one? Could also be a fuse box earthing issue?

 

[Guerciotti]

Hi,
The clicking noise comes from the fuse box and does stop after a while.

Since my last post I have run a test over both the ECU earth and the main engine earth and they are both ok. My wife is buying a new battery as I type this...

 

[Guerciotti]

Sorry just to confirm was referring to the fuse box in the engine compartment (reading the manual I didn't realise that the Fiat 500 has two).

 

[Guerciotti]

New battery arrived 10 mins ago. I wired it up and all of the problems are solved !

Thanks everyone for your input - much appreciated.