Technical Repairs to the immobiliser system

[Jostein]

Hello, all good people.

Some lowlife broke into our MY94 Cinquecento Sporting a few months ago. Nothing was stolen (there wasn't much to steal either..) but they managed to do some damage still. Worst thing was that the immobiliser aerial and the immobiliser ring which sits around the ignition lock was pulled out, so the car couldn't be started afterwards. Thought it had it, to be honest, but speaking to the insurance company, they wanted the car assessed and actually agreed to cover repair costs in the end. Well, that was based on the initial quote from the Fiat garage which had the car handed to them, but now they must have hit problems. Got a phone call from the insurance company yesterday signalling that the repair cost would be higher than first thought, so they said they were looking into offering us a lump sum for the car - and take it off our hands (and break it).

Well, we all love our Cinqs, and we're no exception. We'd rather keep the car than let it go to the big graveyard in the sky.

SO: The Fiat garage has clearly hit problems here. They called me some 6 weeks ago or something and asked questions which made me think that they don't actually know what they're doing. My thought now is to consider askinge the insurance company to get the car released, and get it repaired ourselves. But how complicated could it be? As this is fairly simple vandalism, and no immobiliser fault as such, could the antenna/aerial and immobiliser ring be changed and the immobiliser system be expected to work after that? Or is it likely that the the immobiliser system has been disturbed by this to a degree that more parts will need changing and immobiliser system needing to be reprogrammed? And, what about parts availability: could that become an issue?

Any advice or comments would be most welcome.

 

[fingers99]

Difficult to be sure. But the antenna and ring are simple enough (and shared with, at least, the Mk1 Punto). Failing that, chips for the ECU can be overwritten with the immobiliser, as it were, deleted (after which the fitment of an aftermarket alarm/immob -- someone was doing Toads for less than £100 on eBay a while back) would be wise. The latter would give you extras like remote locking and ultrasonic sensors.

 

[Jostein]

Thanks very much, Fingers !

I take it this is an operation you wouldn't get your Fiat garage to do (and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even want this particular garage to even try it..), so what sort of garage would be best to contact regarding this? Any good independent garage with fairly good diagnostics equipment where they know their stuff?

 

[fingers99]

Depends which way you decide to go. A search here will reveal the estimable McCritch who can do you a new chip to render the imob redundant, or I think reddy4bed can remove just the immobiliser, too. Best PM them.

These are easy peasy DIY.

If you want to proceed down the other route, an autoelectrician is probably going to be a better bet than a garage.

If the ring and lead is fubar by the thief, jiminwatford or CentoPainter can probably dig out a s/h one. The antenna lead and ring is a dumb device -- it just reads the chip and transmits the code to the code box.

 

[edbremner]

I have recently had problems with my immobiliser and despite changing the whole system: ECU/immobliser box/key/barrel/sender, the fault returned within 7 to 10 days, leaving the immobiliser stuck on.

Never got to the bottom of this problem, but as fingers99 says.....replace the ECU chip with a new chip without the immobiliser and off you go.

OK, you don't have an immobiliser any more, but the small rise in performance is certainly very welcome.

If you order a new chip, do make sure that you get one without the immobiliser. I think that most of the new ones, do now support the immobiliser, so you need to specify that you want a chip that doesn't have it supported.

It is a very easy fix to do.

On the other hand, if you want a sender.....pm me as I have two spare now!

later

eib

 

[Jostein]

Thanks very much for comments and advice.

The insurance guy phoned me this afternoon and now it's the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. Basically, the Fiat garage has given up on it, apparently due to missing security code card. Is that needed? I thought the brown master key was all that was needed? And if a code card was needed as well (which sounds a bit strange), shouldn't FIAT be able to supply this upon request from the dealer? I've been working for General Motors for 13 years now, and we deal with such requests every day. Weird.

Anyway, we've agreed that I get the car back (avoiding it to be scrapped, which has been my main issue all along), and the insurance company will pay for the parts ordered (locks and some panels) and waive the excess. In return I get the vehicle - as a non-runner - and sort out the repairs myself. End of story.

I've spoken to a colleague at work about it, and we'll get the car towed to our offices, stick it in the dealer technical training centre one evening after office hours and get our fingers dirty ourselves. Hopefully, we will get it sorted.

 

[fingers99]

Strangely -- or not -- it was the UK insurance companies that forced FIAT not to issue the code cards!

You'd think FIAT would have been able to supply the code (assuming it was ever really needed!) but maybe they've deleted the files?

The only code card I've ever seen was off a German Cinq.

 

[Jostein]

Haha Isn't that funny! The UK insurance companies seem to stick their fingers in many pies. I remember when the Vauxhall/Opel Vectra C was launched in 2002, the UK insurance industry forced GM to install one of these deformable crash boxes behind the front bumper, in order to reduce the frontal impact damages on smaller collisions - all to reduce the average repair bill on the cars. I suppose it also had to do with classification or insurance groups. So the Opel plant in Rüsselsheim and the Vauxhall Ellesmere Port plant had to make changes to accomodate this..

What regards code cards and all that jazz, I think our Cinq may actually be a German import.. Never seen that card, though.

Thanks again, Fingers.