I've got a weird problem with my 1996 Uno Fire 1100. I've recently changed the thermostat and temperature sensor which were both inoperative. My problem now is that when the engine is cold I get a misfire at very low throttle opening and the engine sometimes stalls. It will restart immediately with no other ill effects. This symptom continues until the temperature gauge rises to, maybe, halfway between cold and normal. After this the car runs perfectly with no other issues. I have changed the distributor module and disabled the anti stall solenoid all to no effect. This never happened before I changed the temperature sensor so I do suspect this although I'm not sure how this could affect the ignition. I do wonder if there are not different temperature sensors for different models of UNO. I will appreciate any advice or help from anybody who may have had a similar experience.
Technical Suspect Engine Temperature Sensor
- Thread starter Sods
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Technical Suspect Engine Temperature Sensor
Is the sensor a Fiat one or something that came out of a box with no name on it apart from some Chinese writing in the corner?
Crap sensors are properly crap. I believe you have a crap sensor.
If you can find/borrow a second-hand Fiat one for not much money then it's worth a try, just to see if the problem goes away or changes in nature.. that would prove that it's the sensor, before you spend a load of money on a new genuiune parts one.
Meanwhile I would run some injector cleaner through the tank. If you can't find a decent injector cleaner you can use kerosene.. add 250ml to a full tank of petrol for the next 4 tanks of petrol (so you use up the whole 1 ltr bottle of kerosene you're going to buy).
Additionally take the spark plugs out and have a look at them and also the HT leads. Cold running issues are always worse if even a single component is a bit lazy so if the plugs look old, dirty or badly gapped, fit new ones or clean yours up as most appropriate.
If one spark-plug looks black, wet or oily and the others look dry, clean and grey then that's a problem.
But these suggestions are just cheap/free checks you can make to give you something to do until your new sensor arrives.
Ralf S.
Crap sensors are properly crap. I believe you have a crap sensor.
If you can find/borrow a second-hand Fiat one for not much money then it's worth a try, just to see if the problem goes away or changes in nature.. that would prove that it's the sensor, before you spend a load of money on a new genuiune parts one.
Meanwhile I would run some injector cleaner through the tank. If you can't find a decent injector cleaner you can use kerosene.. add 250ml to a full tank of petrol for the next 4 tanks of petrol (so you use up the whole 1 ltr bottle of kerosene you're going to buy).
Additionally take the spark plugs out and have a look at them and also the HT leads. Cold running issues are always worse if even a single component is a bit lazy so if the plugs look old, dirty or badly gapped, fit new ones or clean yours up as most appropriate.
If one spark-plug looks black, wet or oily and the others look dry, clean and grey then that's a problem.
But these suggestions are just cheap/free checks you can make to give you something to do until your new sensor arrives.
Ralf S.
Thanks for this Ralf. Iv'e done most of the checks you mention. The teperature sensor is from Echlin who are a reasonably responsible company but it's still possible that i've got the dud. What I can't understand is how the temp sensor can affect the electrics. I know it's an electrical problem as I did get a backfire when coming down a hill with the throttle closed. So it's clearly not a fuel problem. I've had the car over 20 years and loved it because it's so simple but this has me stumped. Maybe I should just go and buy another sensor and see if that fixes it.
