General Service coupon expired?

[Teresamc56]

my 2020 Fiat 500 was requireduu to have a full service in august 2021. It had 2300 miles on it. 5 months later, it has 3300 miles on it and the service due message started coming up a couple of weeks ago. Why? Of course, now the coupon has now expire and I have the spanner showing permanently on the dashboard. I have to take it in once a year for my warranty, but the car didn’t tell me that. The dealership told me that. There are no other warning lights. I know I have to do a diagnostic reset, but my question is why is it telling me to get a service when I had one 5 months and 1k miles ago? Surely, it cannot need a service this soon. And what is a coupon anyway?

 

[Ralf S.]

Service indicators work out when they think the car needs a service based on a number of parameters, such as (some or all of);

• How many miles the car has travelled;
• How long ago the previous service was
• How many cold starts the car makes
• The condition/viscosity of the oil.
• Etc.

In a text book situation, you travel 9000 miles in a year, for example.. the car tells you it needs a service.. you get a service and then repeat.

What happens in real life is that you travel 4000 miles in a year. The car doesn't "need" a service but the dealer told you you should get it serviced every 12 months, so you service it. The garage doesn't or can't re-set the service indicator, since it's not indicating a service is due.

The car drives along and doesn't know it's been serviced. So another five or six months later, it thinks it's now gone 18 months and has travelled 13,000 miles so it must be due a service, right?

With your low miles, the service light may have been triggered by a lot of short journeys (lots of cold starts relative to the mileage) but I don't think 3300 miles should trigger it, even if you've never had a service. It's more likely been triggered by how long it's been since it thinks it was last serviced.

Without knowing the 500 system, and if I was designing it, there should be an option to set the service indicator even if the service indicator isn't lit... so the car logs that it had a service in August 2021 and 2300 miles. If the 500 has a system like this, then it should have been re-set and probably wasn't. If it doesn't have this system and can only be reset once it's lit, then a) that's not very good and b) the garage owes you a free reset since they would have re-set it if they could and they obviously didn't reset it if they could have but forgot.

Not sure what the "coupon" is. Is that something in your service plan that's been "used" when you had the service?


Ralf S.

 

[John202020]

On our older car you can manually set the service interval such it never comes up, in the 7 years we've had the car now 12+ old at 95k it's never come up

 

[John202020]

Just for info ours turns out you can't manually change just read, about June we got the service coupon expired and the small spanner on the central speedo readout, 3 months to the day the warning has disappeared.

 

[The Panda Nut]

Service indicators work out when they think the car needs a service based on a number of parameters, such as (some or all of);

• How many miles the car has travelled;
• How long ago the previous service was
• How many cold starts the car makes
• The condition/viscosity of the oil.
• Etc.

In a text book situation, you travel 9000 miles in a year, for example.. the car tells you it needs a service.. you get a service and then repeat.

What happens in real life is that you travel 4000 miles in a year. The car doesn't "need" a service but the dealer told you you should get it serviced every 12 months, so you service it. The garage doesn't or can't re-set the service indicator, since it's not indicating a service is due.

The car drives along and doesn't know it's been serviced. So another five or six months later, it thinks it's now gone 18 months and has travelled 13,000 miles so it must be due a service, right?

With your low miles, the service light may have been triggered by a lot of short journeys (lots of cold starts relative to the mileage) but I don't think 3300 miles should trigger it, even if you've never had a service. It's more likely been triggered by how long it's been since it thinks it was last serviced.

Without knowing the 500 system, and if I was designing it, there should be an option to set the service indicator even if the service indicator isn't lit... so the car logs that it had a service in August 2021 and 2300 miles. If the 500 has a system like this, then it should have been re-set and probably wasn't. If it doesn't have this system and can only be reset once it's lit, then a) that's not very good and b) the garage owes you a free reset since they would have re-set it if they could and they obviously didn't reset it if they could have but forgot.

Not sure what the "coupon" is. Is that something in your service plan that's been "used" when you had the service?


Ralf S.

Service coupons. Just service intervals a menu name.

 

[Piccolo Nero e Bella]

Does the system display the actual mileage at which the next service is due or does it count down? Mine has never displayed any message related to servicing but it's now sitting on 7577 miles in the menu item 'Service' while the car has just ticked over 21790 miles.

 

[John202020]

Does the system display the actual mileage at which the next service is due or does it count down? Mine has never displayed any message related to servicing but it's now sitting on 7577 miles in the menu item 'Service' while the car has just ticked over 21790 miles.

Think it counts down ours is at zero

 

[Piccolo Nero e Bella]

Think it counts down ours is at zero

Thanks John. That sort of makes sense - the only time the 'service' item might have been reset was when I got FIAT to service the car at three year's old, just before the warranty expired. Despite the fact the car had only just over 10,800 miles up they performed a full 18,000 mile service without asking me(!). If I add the 7577 miles to the distance covered since then that equates to roughly another 18,000 miles. It would explain why I've never seen any messages.

 

[varesecrazy]

Just for info ours turns out you can't manually change just read, about June we got the service coupon expired and the small spanner on the central speedo readout, 3 months to the day the warning has disappeared.

Ours did similar.. 15 months.. But 10,000miles since its last garage service. (local indy)

It was the only time I had ever seen such a message..
Message had quit by the time I changed the oil myself!


A month later the panda did the same.. That's covered @15,000 in 2 years.. So I've no idea what the Italian specialist set it to...?


I will have to delve into the MESmenus to see what the options are..