General the Mystery of Code P1481

[Greggers]

Does anyone know what the ODB code P1481 "fan secondary low with high fan on" actually means? (in words of one syllable that I can actually understand)

The AA told me it was logged in my ECU when I had the pleasure of their company the other day

Thanks!

 

[Deckchair5]

In words of one syllable? Ha! It's a Fiat and too sophisticated for one syllables

Ok when the engine temp gets pretty high the rad fan comes on at slow speed, just a few degrees more and it switches to faster fan speed. It'll also do some fancy stuff if you switch air con on to turn the fan on to blow air through the condenser if required.

So obviously, it's detected something up with that circuit. If you know what you're doing I've described a cheap and easy to make test gear you can use to check out your rad fan operation in the Stilo Guides without running the risk of your engine overtemping

Each Stilo type is different as to how the rad fan is made to work, I think yours is the same as the diesels in that you have a separate fan control module next to the radiator which often causes problems. Not a bright place to put electronics but there you go

 

[john55]

Each Stilo type is different as to how the rad fan is made to work, I think yours is the same as the diesels in that you have a separate fan control module next to the radiator which often causes problems. Not a bright place to put electronics but there you go

I got a spare one of these if you need it.

 

[Greggers]

Hi guys. Thanks to you both for your posts, it's really appreciated.

Decks, my engine temp never goes above halfway on the gauge so I'm assuming this is either an intermittent fault or maybe just a fault with the A/C control of the rad fan. I'm going to get an EODB reader so I can keep an eye on it and see if it keeps reappearing or if maybe it's just a historical fault which has since been rectified before I bought it (I only bought the car a couple of weeks ago so I'm trying to figure out all of it's "issues" and get them sorted as I find them - at the moment, the gearbox is my priority )

John, many thanks for your offer. I'm going to keep an eye on it first to see what's actually going on but the cars in the garage at the moment having it's gearbox examined. I may very well get it touch with you soon about acquiring it

I have to say, it's people like you guys that make these forums work so well and be a great place to come, so many thanks again.

Greggers

 

[Deckchair5]

Yes it could well be an old logged fault. The reason your eng temp doesn't go high is because the low speed fans works but i would guess it wanted hi speed fan at some point and it wasn't there when requested and so is sulking to you now

 

[Greggers]

Yes it could well be an old logged fault. The reason your eng temp doesn't go high is because the low speed fans works but i would guess it wanted hi speed fan at some point and it wasn't there when requested and so is sulking to you now

Ah, I see. I'll keep an eye on it once the ODB reader arrives and see how it goes. How long does the ECU hold onto the fault codes for?

Cheers!

 

[Deckchair5]

Forever but i have the feeling fault codes won't be there for long once you get your EOBD reader. Remember when you clear your fault codes you reset the ECU too

 

[Greggers]

Forever but i have the feeling fault codes won't be there for long once you get your EOBD reader. Remember when you clear your fault codes you reset the ECU too

Hmmm... resetting the ECU doesn't sound good What are the impacts of resetting the ECU? Or are you talking about the Fiat specific fault codes held by the ECU which the EOBD reader can't read?

 

[Greggers]

Decks, you seem to be the man to ask about OBD stuff so here goes... :worship:

Would you go for something like the following:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/U480-CAN-OBD-...ZWD1VQQ_trksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem

Or something like this instead with relevent software for the PC:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ELM327-USB-OB...ryZ30921QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I'm wondering whether the PC route might be too ecessive but I do like the options it will give me in the future for looking deeper into things... but all I do really need at the moment is to read fault codes... oh the dillemma!

Would the PC one be able to read Sillyspeed fault codes or is that an Examiner only domain?

Cheers dude!

 

[minimad99]

Hmmm... resetting the ECU doesn't sound good What are the impacts of resetting the ECU? Or are you talking about the Fiat specific fault codes held by the ECU which the EOBD reader can't read?

Resetting the ecu just requires the battery to be disconnected for a few hours or overight.
the only thing you'll loose is your radio settings and your average mpg, etc on the trip computer.
I think some have mentioned they had to reenter the radio code after reconnecting battery but i have never had to and i've had my battery off quite a lot over the years.

With regard the code readers, do a search as we've had loads of threads with lots of helpful info.

 

[Deckchair5]

Resetting the ECU is fine and i reckon everyone should do that every 10k miles as it seems to latch onto the best settings pretty quickly at the time but then seems to lock on and not adapt so much to the engine changes over time.
Particularly if you've changed a major tuning component like air filter or plugs then i always reset the ECU. It will do no harm as Minimad says and just puts back to base settings a few driver options like radio etc

Personally I''d go for the laptop - interface and software everytime as you can do so much more.

Re the selespeed, it'll pick up the P codes (Powertrain) and U codes (can bus) but interpreting them is a different ball game

 

[Xen]

the ELM chips arnt the best if your wanting to do realtime logging - they just dont cut it but are fine for grabbing a few values, reading and resetting error codes etc. many people have had issues with the USB version aswell, so go for the RS232 if you can.

 

[Deckchair5]

I think your ELM chip must have Dutch ELM disease then.

Here's a running trace of 4 parameters using a very old ELM 323 chip.

The only limitation is how fast your car's ECU can output the data

 

[Greggers]

Decks,

What do you make of this? Would you recommend it?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ELM327-Blueto...ryZ30921QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Cheers!

Greggers

 

[Deckchair5]

Mmm. That'll do the nicely. You can have some fun with that.
Email them first though so it's their decision as to whether they think it will work and get a money back guarantee if it doesn't.
It should plop straight in but it's a long way to return stuff to China. I've bought stuff from China with no problems though

Bluetooth is handy as it saves having cables trailing around if you're doing on road tests

 

[roy lovelock]

ouch that delivery price is a bit much, i got my elm 323 usb from talk to my car delivered for the same price, plus it came the following day.
roy

 

[Greggers]

Well, now that I've had my car a bit longer, I'm slowly starting to try to get all of the niggles sorted.

Following the Selespeed problem and fix, it's time to move onto the air-con...

When I turn the air-con button on on the dual-zone climate control, everything happens as expected eg. the air gets cooled, but not as much as I'd expect...

So I've had a look under the hood and there's a squeeking coming from where the compressor is and it only happens when the air-con is on. So I'm thinking, compressor bearing might be on the way out? The next thing is, I notice that the rad fan hasn't come on with the air-con. I've kept an eye on the engine temp as well and it never goes above half way on the temp guage but the fan still doesn't come on. So now I'm thinking that the fan ecu might be shot as well?

What do you guys think, is the compressor squeek something to worry about? Could the fan not running have damaged the air-con system? Should I just take the car into a specialist and get the whole system inspected? I've got a decent warranty that should cover the best part of it plus I'll be covered for "wear and tear" in about a month's time as well. Should I just wait a month and then get it sorted under the warranty?

Cheers in advance guys!

 

[Deckchair5]

Well, regardless of your air con you need to make sure your rad fan is going to be working at higher engine temps otherwise your engine will be toast in a traffic jam. I wrote a Stilo guide on how to test the operation of your rad fan without cooking your engine. Up to you if you feel competent enough to do that

Without your rad fan working then your air con will struggle when you are stationary

I think your system is similar to the JTDs in that there is a separate rad fan ecu next to the radiator in which case that's bad news as they're pretty unreliable and in a terrible place for electronics

Your compressor only works hard when switched on so your squeeks may be just belt squeeks but difficult to say if that would be uneventful or not, depends on what the squeek is

 

[Greggers]

Thanks Decks. I'm going to go around the rad fan circuit tomorrow checking voltages and fuses and the ecu etc to see if there's anything obviously wrong.

Out of interest, at what temperature (position on the guage), does the fan usually kick in? My car never seems to go above halfway on the guage, even when I'm stuck in traffic! When I'm driving down the motorway, it drops to about 1/3 of the guage. This makes it seem to me that the rad fan does kick in when it hits halfway, the problem is that it's really hard to see if the fan is spinning on the Abarth as the engine is so big and blocks your view

 

[Deckchair5]

Sounds as if your engine thermostat is stuck open.
Classic signs are
engine slow to warm up
heater never really hot
not great fuel consumption
eng temp never above mid position
cools down too much on a long motorway cruise to below mid position

i think you have all of them

Good test is to start engine from cold and feel the coolant pipe near the thermostat
It should be cold for minutes and then suddenly surge very hot as the thermostat opens. If it just very slowly gets warm then your thermostat is jammed open. After 5 mins the pipe should be too hot to keep your hand on. If it isn't then your engine is running over cool

You have a two speed rad fan
I forget the figures but the first speed is around 92C then 2nd speed 96C i think. You'll hear the fan and maybe feel the wind blast when it starts

So do the thermostat test and fix that if necessary and then test your rad fan operation using my "How to" in the Stilo Guides