Technical 2017 Fiat 500x, 'Check Transmission' 'Drive Mode Not Available'

[ShaunJohn]

To put a long story short; Around 3 months ago my car started saying 'Check Transmission' 'Drive mode not available', however, this only comes up after about 10 minutes of driving and occasionally will go off itself and then come back on. If I need to put my car into park whilst this light it on then I need to restart my car otherwise it's locked into park. It's not effecting the car really, I can still drive no problem, it's just inconvenient and a tad annoying.

I am so absolutely irritated right now and I just need some answers. Most garages will not even look at my car because it's a semi-automatic and they don't do automatic transmissions.

I had 2 garages connect my car to a diagnostic machine, nothing came up to indicate any issues.

I then took it to an independent FIAT garage, who had my car for 6(ish) hours, hooked it up to a fiat specific diagnostic machine and again NOTHING. Luckily he didn't charge me because he couldn't find an issue, other than it saying 'Check transmission' 'Drive mode not available'.

So I decided to get a car service, thinking it might help as they top up the oils and such. This also didn't fix it and they reported no problems.

It's passed its MOT with no problems.

Im so desperate!!!

 

[2FiatsRon]

To put a long story short; Around 3 months ago my car started saying 'Check Transmission' 'Drive mode not available', however, this only comes up after about 10 minutes of driving and occasionally will go off itself and then come back on. If I need to put my car into park whilst this light it on then I need to restart my car otherwise it's locked into park. It's not effecting the car really, I can still drive no problem, it's just inconvenient and a tad annoying.

I am so absolutely irritated right now and I just need some answers. Most garages will not even look at my car because it's a semi-automatic and they don't do automatic transmissions.

I had 2 garages connect my car to a diagnostic machine, nothing came up to indicate any issues.

I then took it to an independent FIAT garage, who had my car for 6(ish) hours, hooked it up to a fiat specific diagnostic machine and again NOTHING. Luckily he didn't charge me because he couldn't find an issue, other than it saying 'Check transmission' 'Drive mode not available'.

So I decided to get a car service, thinking it might help as they top up the oils and such. This also didn't fix it and they reported no problems.

It's passed its MOT with no problems.

Im so desperate!!!

I am assuming that you have an automatic car. I had a very similar problem with my car, the guy who does my servicing put his machine on it and came up with the P/R sensor failing. as he was not an auto gearbox specialist he didn't feel ha was the right person to deal with it. I took it to my local Fiat main dealer who came up with an enormous list of things that needed doing to fix the problem, about £5000's for parts plus plus fitting. Strangely enough they did not mention the sensor, but I did get the car washed!

This took mr breath away so it made me do some internet research and I found a company that just deals just with auto transmissions. They tested it came to the same conclusion as my regular man, they immediately contacted their parts supplier and ordered the replacement sensor at a cost of £60.00 plus VAT. Went back a few days later to have it fitted and no problems since. The fitting charge was a bit more than I thought but apparently this sensor requires some stripping down to access it, 3 hours labour.
The moral of this is do not trust the dealership but find independent advice.

As a matter of interest my car is a 2016 model with a similar mileage to yours.

Hope this helps

 

[s130]

I am assuming that you have an automatic car. I had a very similar problem with my car, the guy who does my servicing put his machine on it and came up with the P/R sensor failing. as he was not an auto gearbox specialist he didn't feel ha was the right person to deal with it. I took it to my local Fiat main dealer who came up with an enormous list of things that needed doing to fix the problem, about £5000's for parts plus plus fitting. Strangely enough they did not mention the sensor, but I did get the car washed!

This took mr breath away so it made me do some internet research and I found a company that just deals just with auto transmissions. They tested it came to the same conclusion as my regular man, they immediately contacted their parts supplier and ordered the replacement sensor at a cost of £60.00 plus VAT. Went back a few days later to have it fitted and no problems since. The fitting charge was a bit more than I thought but apparently this sensor requires some stripping down to access it, 3 hours labour.
The moral of this is do not trust the dealership but find independent advice.

As a matter of interest my car is a 2016 model with a similar mileage to yours.

Hope this helps

I find these stories of Fiat Dealers (so called experts and probably the only experts Fiat UK recognise) not being able to find faults and fix Fiat cars very annoying, depressing and it make me very angry. I would be writing to the Fiat UK managing director complaining bitterly. He / she probably gets a new Fiat (more likely a posh executive Alfa) every month so never have to go through the what the rest of us customers sometimes have to put up with.

 

[porta]

I am assuming that you have an automatic car. I had a very similar problem with my car, the guy who does my servicing put his machine on it and came up with the P/R sensor failing. as he was not an auto gearbox specialist he didn't feel ha was the right person to deal with it. I took it to my local Fiat main dealer who came up with an enormous list of things that needed doing to fix the problem, about £5000's for parts plus plus fitting. Strangely enough they did not mention the sensor, but I did get the car washed!

This took mr breath away so it made me do some internet research and I found a company that just deals just with auto transmissions. They tested it came to the same conclusion as my regular man, they immediately contacted their parts supplier and ordered the replacement sensor at a cost of £60.00 plus VAT. Went back a few days later to have it fitted and no problems since. The fitting charge was a bit more than I thought but apparently this sensor requires some stripping down to access it, 3 hours labour.
The moral of this is do not trust the dealership but find independent advice.

As a matter of interest my car is a 2016 model with a similar mileage to yours.

Hope this helps

This is a sensor that went on the wife’s renegade, (same car just in dungarees rather than a dress). Wehn the fault repeated it was one of three sensors, one in box one a position sensor and one on the lever/mechanism…turned out it was the same sensor, PR, again. It’s been alright since, last two years