Technical The one and only Dualogic failure thread

[burrowsdeano]

Ps there is no filter in the system

 

[Mikeyuk66]

Drained the fluid and replaced with new fluid to the correct level. Started the car and shifted between 1st and reverse a few times to clear any air. All seemed ok.

Left the engine running and got out of the car to finish tidying up, could hear the dualogic clonking every few seconds like it was trying to calibrate or something (similar sound to when you put it in gear). I got back in the car and selected a gear then back to neutral, that sorted it.

I then drove a short distance and reversed into a space which slopes gently forward. This is where I started noticing the original problem, and would you believe it - it threw up a warning light and gears not available message.

It seems I did overfill it previously, but during the time it was overfilled it did not fail once. Any ideas as to why this might be?

I drained 700ml out (remember it was overfilled) and added about 550ml to get back to the max mark.

 

[burrowsdeano]

You can't apply logic to dualogic!!! They are a nightmare, always really intermittent and a pain to pin point the exact cause of the problem

 

[Mikeyuk66]

Still here, still having problems.

I have now changed the transmission oil and also replaced the actuator oil (again) in the desperate hope my issue will be resolved. Sadly not, but its behavior has changed a little.

Prior to doing anything, I would occasionally get the "check transmission" error when stationary and only ever before the car had warmed through properly. Now I have a new symptom, that is the car sometimes not downshifting as I slow for a junction, then going to neutral when stopped and requiring a number of restarts to get gears again. This also only seems to occur before the car is fully warmed through.

I have now ordered a multiscanecu package which will hopefully come tomorrow and offer a bit of an insight as to what might be going on. Once the car has got nice and warm it drives like a dream with silky smooth gear changes, kind of hoping it will be a relatively simple fix without too much expense.

 

[Mikeyuk66]

MES turned up and connected, P2917 / P1742 / P2916 / P1773 / P2914 reported. Cleared codes and monitoring. Covered about 60 miles today and no codes have returned so far, drove like a dream.

 

[Reg Sturt]

Below is an email I sent to Fiat Customer Services. The reply was that although sympathetic because of the age they would not helped. I pointed out that my car has done only 5500 miles per year and that Fiat seemed incapable of making a gearbox/controller fit for purpose. Am now writing to Fiat Sales.

Dear Sirs. I have bought new Fiat cars since the 1980s, mainly for quality and design. My last 2 vehicles have both have dualogic gearboxes. I had no problem with the first one but my second one a Fiat Grande Punto, reg EJ56 JCX has left me with cause for concern. The car was bought new in 2006. In February 2010 there was a problem with the gearbox which was later diagnosed as a control problem requiring part number 0055222254. The car had done 18834 miles. I complained to Fiat because although just out of warranty I could not believe that Fiat couldn't produce a gearbox and control that didn't last longer than nearly 19000 miles. Fiat conceded the point and covered half of the control box cost. Case Reference 31517167. Imagine my further concern that the same thing has happened again 36000 miles later. My car is being towed to a Fiat dealer/repairer on the 13th February for further diagnostics but the control box is again suspected. I cannot see why Fiat cannot produce a gearbox/control that doesn't last for more than 36000 miles. It just doesn't make sense. I certainly wouldn't expect to have 3rd gearbox/control over a short mileage period. My vehicle is averaging about 5500 miles per year which is hardly excessive and is serviced annually. If this is the same problem I would hope that Fiat will again concede that any customer should not have to deal with this cost alone. I await to hear your comments.

 

[Mikeyuk66]

Early days but appears to be fixed.

 

[John202020]

Dear Sirs. I have bought new Fiat cars since the 1980s, mainly for quality and design.

Design is great, but, sorry, Quality has always been poor to terrible, I've replace more parts on our 59 plate 500 than I've on all my Accords combined

 

[Mikeyuk66]

Look around the back of the unit for a black plastic cover with magneti marelli written on it. it's held in with three torx 20 screws (if I remember correctly).
Remove those screws, And peer inside the unit. It should be nice and dry, no oil or dirt and definitely no water.

Spot on, thank you. After much searching and spending over £200 on Multiecuscan, I finally got around to taking this cover off! There was a fair bit of oil and dirt inside which was stopping the piston sliding back and forth freely.

For anyone else having the following symptoms, I would suggest checking inside this cover for dirt / oil / water.

Symptoms: Gears unavailable message when stationary and stuck in neutral, randomly getting stuck in gear under braking with no throttle and then gears unavailable message and stuck in neutral when stopped. This mostly happened from a cold start and when the car had been running for less than 30 minutes, dependent on outside temperature.

DTCs: P060A, P2917, P2916, P1742 in various combinations.

Cause: There is a small aluminium piston in a bore behind the black cover at the back of the actuator (near the bulkhead). It needs to be able to move backwards and forwards freely as this motion is the same as moving the gearstick in a manual car from side to side to align to 1st or 2nd, 3rd or 4th, 5th or reverse. If there is dirt in the bore, movement is not free resulting in incorrect location of the piston and hence the failure.

Solution: I flushed it out with a can of brake cleaner and then regreased the pins before closing it up again. I also removed the solenoid from the side of the bore and cleaned that, if you do this be careful not to lose the little spring from inside.

Considerations: My car is almost 5 years old and started having this problem a couple of months ago. My wife has the same car and had the same issue just after she purchased it at just over 3 years old and 13,000 miles. The actuator on my wife's car was replaced under warranty, but it probably just needed cleaning. I don't believe a drop of oil in the bore would cause an issue, but there was a lot of aluminium sludge caused by wear from the back and forth movement. It is a simple job to do and so for me, I will just check / clean / regrease as required once a year.

Hope this helps others with dualogic issues.

 

[Mineshp100]

Hi,

I'm hoping someone on here can help me out. My mums fiat 500 suddenly stopped working in terms of getting into gear. It comes up with a transmission error. So we narrowed it down to a leak under the car. So, what I need to know is where is the selespeed fluid tank for me to refill the tank to spot the leak and fix that. I really hope someone can help me asap to get my mum back on the road.

Thank you so much!

 

[ahmett]

Re: Fiat 500 Duologic Transmission error selespeed

Hi,

I'm hoping someone on here can help me out. My mums fiat 500 suddenly stopped working in terms of getting into gear. It comes up with a transmission error. So we narrowed it down to a leak under the car. So, what I need to know is where is the selespeed fluid tank for me to refill the tank to spot the leak and fix that. I really hope someone can help me asap to get my mum back on the road.

Thank you so much!

Here, check this thread out : https://www.fiatforum.com/500/425006-one-only-dualogic-failure-thread-21.html

 

[jrkitching]

Re: Fiat 500 Duologic Transmission error selespeed

Hello and welcome. Sorry it's in such sad circumstances.

Dualogic problems are not altogether unusual on those 500's fitted with this transmission.

This thread dedicated to this issue; please continue the discussion here so as to keep everything in one place.

It's not quite as simple as just looking at the tank - the system is supposed to be depressurised before you check the level. Start reading here.

Once these start to go wrong, they frequently keep giving trouble unless the selespeed unit is replaced complete - this is unlikely to be cheap. If you can patch it up so that it runs without triggering any warning lights, I'd suggest you give serious consideration to trading the car in now. And be glad your Mom doesn't live in Australia - getting these things fixed there seems to cost silly money and folks are now importing parts directly from Europe.

We're up to 21 pages of posts since I started this thread, which gives you some idea of how commonly these units give trouble once the cars have a few miles on the clock.

 

[Mineshp100]

jrkitching ahmett thank you very much for your help.

I am going to check the fuses and jack the car up this weekend to find the leak and see if there is an oil shortage.

I see throughout the thread, we should be using tutela cs speed oil for the replacement. However, its a bit difficult sourcing this in time for the weekend. Do you know any other compatible oils which are also good?

Thanks,
Minesh

 

[ahmett]

jrkitching ahmett thank you very much for your help.

I am going to check the fuses and jack the car up this weekend to find the leak and see if there is an oil shortage.

I see throughout the thread, we should be using tutela cs speed oil for the replacement. However, its a bit difficult sourcing this in time for the weekend. Do you know any other compatible oils which are also good?

Thanks,
Minesh

No use exactly the same oil to avoid any problems. It's a very specific oil as its not only the specification, but the additive Fiat uses.

Filling the oil is a temporary solution if there is a leak as it will work normally until the oil goes low again and then start giving problems. I had done this several times over a period of a few years before the problem kept on returning and only disappeared completely when the whole unit was replaced.

If you do not want to pay 1200 GBP or so to replace the whole unit, fill the oil and sell it as i really doubt simply adding oil will be a permanent solution.

 

[arthur daley]

Had a scary moment when arriving at a roundabout slowed to walking pace, no traffic so accelerated a few feet then gearbox went into neutral, revs rose and no drive! stranded in middle of road. switched off and restarted, still no drive! paddles flicked and gear lever moved through all settings and nothing but the annoying "ping ping ping" .
pushed the car to safety and after five minutes of restarting engine and trying to select gear finally had drive again.
Drove to dealership with car behaving perfectly.
Diagnostics revealed selector pins faulty and as car is over three years old have been quoted £450 to repair.
Car has done 42000miles and still on 4 year PCP.
Any thoughts.................

 

[jrkitching]

Had a scary moment when arriving at a roundabout slowed to walking pace, no traffic so accelerated a few feet then gearbox went into neutral, revs rose and no drive! stranded in middle of road. switched off and restarted, still no drive! paddles flicked and gear lever moved through all settings and nothing but the annoying "ping ping ping" .
pushed the car to safety and after five minutes of restarting engine and trying to select gear finally had drive again.

Sorry to hear of your difficulties.

have been quoted £450 to repair.

Ouch!

I guess you basically have three choices:

1. You pay to have it repaired. The warranty on the repair should cover you for the rest of the pcp. Definitely the recommended option if you plan on keeping it at the end of the agreement; dualogic problems rarely just go away.

2. You do nothing and hope the problem doesn't recur. If it comes back again, it'll likely keep recurring until it's fixed.

3. You contact Fiat CS and try to get them to make a contribution to the cost of the repair. I'd say your changes of getting at least something are about average; I doubt very much they'd pay all of it.

How much longer have you got on the pcp, and what are you planning to do at the end of it? If you are planning on keeping it, you might want to read the rest of this thread.

 

[arthur daley]

Sorry to hear of your difficulties.



Ouch!

I guess you basically have three choices:

1. You pay to have it repaired. The warranty on the repair should cover you for the rest of the pcp. Definitely the recommended option if you plan on keeping it at the end of the agreement; dualogic problems rarely just go away.

2. You do nothing and hope the problem doesn't recur. If it comes back again, it'll likely keep recurring until it's fixed.

3. You contact Fiat CS and try to get them to make a contribution to the cost of the repair. I'd say your changes of getting at least something are about average; I doubt very much they'd pay all of it.

How much longer have you got on the pcp, and what are you planning to do at the end of it? If you are planning on keeping it, you might want to read the rest of this thread.

Do plan to keep car as like the twinair engine and the paddle gearbox, so will be option 1 and then contact Fiat customer service for some kind of contribution as goodwill, fingers crossed.

 

[jrkitching]

Do plan to keep car as like the twinair engine and the paddle gearbox, so will be option 1 and then contact Fiat customer service for some kind of contribution as goodwill, fingers crossed.

Personally I'd do that in reverse order; if you contact Fiat CS after you've authorised the repair, they might not be so generous.

 

[arthur daley]

Personally I'd do that in reverse order; if you contact Fiat CS after you've authorised the repair, they might not be so generous.

OK do you suggest email or phone call?

 

[jrkitching]

OK do you suggest email or phone call?

Why not both?