Technical Stop Start On An Automatic Panda 64

[badbackbilly]

Hi Guys

Please help, we have a Fiat Panda 64 plate Petrol Automatic 1000cc. How on earth do you get the stop/start to work, its turned on as it says it on the display. Its new to us and as we do long trips often as yet its never kicked in but then we are not 100% how to either eg foot on brake and so on.

Also none of our cups fit the dam holders any ideas to get round it, a mod maybe?

Thanks guys really appreciate any help given

 

[FiatMatt94]

These cars do take some getting used to if you're new to them, it took me a few months to get fully used to mine when I first brought it. If it is a 64 plate It will be the twinair dualogic which is semi automatic as they were the only engines in 319 Panda range to get dualogic gearbox



This is a picture of the Panda interior with dualogic. The start/stop on off button is on the switch panel on the end nearest the steering wheel as the red arrow in the picture shows. To be honest your probably better just having it switched off as having a car stopping and starting everytime you pull up to a junction or traffic lights would wear the starter motor & battery out quicker. Any car I have driven with this function on has never worked properly anyway, including a brand new Hyundai I30 which was a courtesy car when I crashed my old Cinquecento.

 

[chris3234]

These cars do take some getting used to if you're new to them, it took me a few months to get fully used to mine when I first brought it. If it is a 64 plate It will be the twinair dualogic which is semi automatic as they were the only engines in 319 Panda range to get dualogic gearbox

View attachment 219590

This is a picture of the Panda interior with dualogic. The start/stop on off button is on the switch panel on the end nearest the steering wheel as the red arrow in the picture shows. To be honest your probably better just having it switched off as having a car stopping and starting everytime you pull up to a junction or traffic lights would wear the starter motor & battery out quicker. Any car I have driven with this function on has never worked properly anyway, including a brand new Hyundai I30 which was a courtesy car when I crashed my old Cinquecento.

While it takes a strain on the battery there's no wear on the starter motor

I've seen very few starter motors faults reported on here on modern Cars with start stop

 

[Marcus Daly]

The anecdotal evidence on here is that stop/start is one of the first things to fail as the battery ages. A new battery might fix it. It seems to fix nearly everything on the Panda.

The square cup-holders are hilarious. An elaborate practical joke by Fiat.

 

[Jerseywurzel]

The start stop engine in my 1.2 manual works perfectly since new 2 years ago.

Compared with my old 2011 panda 1.2, I'm getting around 5 miles per gallon extra. So worth using from my point of view

 

[murphyv310]

The start stop in my 2017 city cross workwd for a short time after purchase then was temperamental. The battery was OK but eventually a code came up saying brake booster vacuum switch failure. Replacement cured the issue, then a month later I had a further catastrophic failure..... Leading to parting company with the car unfortunately.

 

[badbackbilly]

Hi Guys

Thank you a few things to look at maybe the battery is the problem after all. What is the way that starts off the stop/start mode. In neutral with foot on brake, or in gear and hand brake on, Its this part I'm unsure about. Thanks again

 

[Herts Hillhopper]

The stop/start system is turned on (ie it will try to stop/start) when the light in the switch is off. If the light in the switch is on, it shows the system has been disabled. The digital display on the dash should say 'stop.start connected' when the button is pressed and the light turned off. The system monitors battery voltage, and will not operate if the voltage is low. It continues to monitor the voltage after the engine has stopped, and can choose to restart the car 'early' to stop the voltage dropping so far that it can't start again. I believe the system also monitors the brake servo vacuum, and can restart the engine if the vacuum 'pressure' drops too. Mine has been faultless over the past three years, but the car is used regularly (every other day and at least 20 miles round) so the battery remains in good health. However, it won't always stop the engine if lots of short trips, or if there's a high load on the battery (eg lights all on, wipers going, blower on full etc)

On the manual cars, the engine stops if the car is stationary, in neutral and the clutch is fully up (ie foot off the pedal). Pressing the clutch restarts the car. My car's handbook doesn't mention stop/start with dualogic (automatic) transmission... but I'd expect it to need the footbrake to be pressed as a minimum, but might not need to be in neutral.

 

[WitleyPanda]

As for cup holders, try buying a McFlurry, the cups are a proper fit. Maybe this was the stable of the designer?

 

[richie17]

With Dualogic, the engine stops whenever you come to a rest with the foot brake. For longer stops, engine stays off when you apply handbrake, move into neutral and release foot brake. Then starts again when you press foot brake and put it in gear.

 

[dante giacosa]

reviving an old one, here!

The best problems always come back..

Day2 of ownership of the 20-plate MHEV City-Cross today, and all sorts of things have suddenly started working! The regenerative-braking system has started to accumulate charge on deceleration, actually showing charging-progress and energy gained on the display. "great!' Perhaps it wasn't on yesterday, as the car has sat for a while before being bought.

Start/Stop, also started working and achieved a couple of brief predictable conk-outs in traffic this afternoon.
Until this evening at temporary lights, where the system conked out, and wouldn't restart! Nothing, no-reaction to my pressing the clutch down.
Suddenly a beep and 'start/stop unavailable' appears on the dash..

as it happens, I can live with that; I just need the car to restart NOW, as I have queuing traffic behind me!!
I had to turn it off with the key and restart it.

I type to ask if this kind of little foxes-paw, is indicative of the kind of thing that constitutes failing Start/Stop, as a symptom of battery degradation...?
Or, put another way, when people say the Start/Stop is failing; is this the kind of thing that happens..?

Thanks for your help!

 

[AnthonyH]

I made a sleepy post, the one below is better.

 

[jackwhoo]

reviving an old one, here!

The best problems always come back..

Day2 of ownership of the 20-plate MHEV City-Cross today, and all sorts of things have suddenly started working! The regenerative-braking system has started to accumulate charge on deceleration, actually showing charging-progress and energy gained on the display. "great!' Perhaps it wasn't on yesterday, as the car has sat for a while before being bought.

Start/Stop, also started working and achieved a couple of brief predictable conk-outs in traffic this afternoon.
Until this evening at temporary lights, where the system conked out, and wouldn't restart! Nothing, no-reaction to my pressing the clutch down.
Suddenly a beep and 'start/stop unavailable' appears on the dash..

as it happens, I can live with that; I just need the car to restart NOW, as I have queuing traffic behind me!!
I had to turn it off with the key and restart it.

I type to ask if this kind of little foxes-paw, is indicative of the kind of thing that constitutes failing Start/Stop, as a symptom of battery degradation...?
Or, put another way, when people say the Start/Stop is failing; is this the kind of thing that happens..?

Thanks for your help!

That should not happen as the car should monitor the starter battery state and keep engine running if there is any chance of stop start being unable to restart engine.

You have had car 2 days! report it in writing to the supplying dealer straight away.

Do not attempt to charge the battery yourself unless you 100% confident with stop start systems, if you do try to charge DO NOT tell dealer or they may try to blame you.

 

[Herts Hillhopper]

reviving an old one, here!

The best problems always come back..

Day2 of ownership of the 20-plate MHEV City-Cross today, and all sorts of things have suddenly started working! The regenerative-braking system has started to accumulate charge on deceleration, actually showing charging-progress and energy gained on the display. "great!' Perhaps it wasn't on yesterday, as the car has sat for a while before being bought.

Start/Stop, also started working and achieved a couple of brief predictable conk-outs in traffic this afternoon.
Until this evening at temporary lights, where the system conked out, and wouldn't restart! Nothing, no-reaction to my pressing the clutch down.
Suddenly a beep and 'start/stop unavailable' appears on the dash..

as it happens, I can live with that; I just need the car to restart NOW, as I have queuing traffic behind me!!
I had to turn it off with the key and restart it.

I type to ask if this kind of little foxes-paw, is indicative of the kind of thing that constitutes failing Start/Stop, as a symptom of battery degradation...?
Or, put another way, when people say the Start/Stop is failing; is this the kind of thing that happens..?

Thanks for your help!

Mine is 2018, so not MHEV, but is stop start. If the car turns itself off, it will either then restart when you press the clutch, OR it will restart ahead of that if it senses the battery voltage is dropping too fast. If the battery doesn't have enough charge (eg after several stop/starts in row, or a failing battery generally owing to battery ageing), its doesn't stop itself. But with the MH version there's the added challenge of two batteries to monitor., one of which is a tiny lithium thing hiding under the front seat (and which no attempt should ever be made to charge separately)

Failing stop start on pre-MHEV versions is simply seen as the stop start stops stopping -- basically it turns that function off more and more until eventually you forget it was ever there. It comes back to life after a new battery is fitted.

Question: do you drive many miles? All stop/start system needs the car to be frequently driven (eg 50-100 miles a week minimum with a journey of 15-20 miles frequently too) to keep the batteries sweet. If used much less, then they will loose charge but also become less easy for the electronics to accurately monitor their state of charge and so may fail (as yours did) and need you to turn the key.

MHEV is, frankly, a con, a marketing fudge... its not a hybrid in the real sense (the car cannot be driven in electric mode the way a Prius can – the 'original' hybrid – before that word got redefined by marketing departments ) and is certainly not suited to low use, low mileage cars

OOh - just spotted is a 20 plate. So registered during lock down, so probably sat in a dealer for a very long time... I'd be wary of the batteries being healthy still, especially if they sat not being driven in their earliest weeks of life...

 

[dante giacosa]

Thanks or going into detail over this, 'Hillhopper.

In short; I am very familiar with the overarching start/stop strategy, as we gave up my partner's Nuova 500 (1st Gen) for this City Cross.
I'll entirely defer to your judgement on the relative merits of the purported MHEV functionality- it's not a car I would have chosen personally ( I wanted the 'real' Cross)

The number of miles driven is irrelevant at this point, as we have only had the car 6 days. I can tell you that it just did 650 miles to Wales and partially back a couple of days ago. It was a fascinating game of keeping the engine on peak torque at 3250prm, in order to sustain motorway speeds in 6th- anything less and it would bog-down and lose momentum. I could also have driven slower in 5th of course- but that is a separate thread.

However, circumstances have taken a turn for the worse- perhaps I should have mentioned earlier than upon the moment where 'one' would expect the engine to restart during the start/stop functionality; I could hear a distant rotational-whining. I could also hear such a noise (admittedly getting worse) during the regenerative breaking cycle, and didn't really think much of it.
I also run a Coupe (175) from '99 and it makes a variety of fabulous rotational-sounds until warm (highly serviced as it is). and I thought that the City Cross might have been experienced similar recommissioning 'isms, having only 8k miles on it despite being four years old.

However, I can see now; how wrong I was! It's funny when all the symptoms come together to define a failure point.

Halfway up the M6 on Friday afternoon, round about the junction with the M61 at Chorley; the power steering failed, this was shortly followed by a dashboard warning for battery, then ESC failure, then ABS, and then Airbags. At this point the car started to judder. I like to think that despite my optimistic idiocy of ignoring the other symptoms already described before this event, that I made up for it in managing to immediately traverse four lanes of busy traffic (two of them merging) to make it to the hard-shoulder, before the thing conked out.

Thereafter followed two hours on the hard-shoulder as the extended warranty had not been put through properly by the dealership, and then once this was resolved at the car recovered, the truth was revealed. The tensioner for the Aux-belt (I assume) has disintegrated, and been ingested by the belt, partially lifting the belt off the alternator. The car could not be repaired at the recovery depot, we spent the night in a Premier Inn in Preston, and returned North to Edinburgh by train yesterday.

The car will return by trailer in due course (or it can just not bother being returned as far as I'm concerned).
The outfit we bought it from in Fife assured us that it had been freshly serviced, despite it's low miles; and as an idiot I believed them. I thought; at this age and mileage, it'll be a couple of years before I need to worry about anything. How wrong I was!

 

[Andymul29]

Hi,
Can I ask what happened in the end? I’ve just bought a Panda MHEV, had a few incidents where the auxiliary belt has been squealing rather loudly, generally happening when starting back up after sitting in traffic for a few minutes. The battery no longer charges up on regenerative breaking while squealing.
Thank you