ConfusedApe89
New member
Hello everyone,
I just joined the forum because I've been puzzling and searching youtube but I'm lost. I have some background mechanics but it's been ages and I've just started fixing an old fiat panda, this Punto199 from 2012 is a whole other beast, with a fancy ECU and all. Garage costs are not affordable at the moment, but I have time to spare(it comes with less money..) so I have to fix this myself or ride my bike.
So I will tell you guys how it started and what I did up to now. If anyone has had the combination of these codes and or symptoms and can tell me what it most likely could be that would be great, skip my clumsy puzzling story and guide me a bit in that direction. If not, than I hope that maybe someone can tell me what to test next and how to because I believe I might be doing it wrong.
So, the car had no problems, we bought it 2 years ago and it has had maintenance in a garage and a belt change a few months ago; but the wife just told me it's been consuming a lot the past 2 months(she keeps a good eye on this so I believe it to be true).
Also the fan(heating/airco) only worked on the hardest setting. and sometimes failed to work, sometimes worked just fine(I suspected a loose cable but never checked because it was a minor discomfort) An oily smell has been a problem since we've bought it, but has been viewed as normal sweating of an older car. So no real problems
Now 2 days ago suddenly my wife could not get back home after a short drive, the car did nothing when turning the key, as if the battery was completely dead all of a sudden.
So after jumpstarting it she could drive home but the steering support did not work(my english is not perfect and I don't know the term, she had to use a lot of force to turn the wheel while driving). Dashbord lights(check engine) started going on as well.
At home the car started and stopped within a second. The second time the battery drained my jumpstarter in a second. The battery after testing just gives 12.6V and seems to be fine(it's a new one so it should be fine). I don't know the Punto, I've had a bad starter before but all these checking lights, the steering etc, it made me believe it might be an ECU problem or something like that.
I did not check the alternator yet, because it was my belief that with a good battery the car should start and work a bit and I can't get under the car ATM/did not know how to test the alternator when the car wont start /keep running without having to dismantle it... If anyone is sure it's the alternator or definetly not please tell me, it spares me time I would waste on it tomorrow.
So having no experience with something like this, I bought an OBD2 reader and it gave me p0300 and U0001 (after failing a few times, because every time I tried turning on the contact the car flipped, and the OBD reader gave me blocks and pixels ad if it was broken. )
After looking them up I checked the ignition, the spark plugs look fine but I realised they are overdue for a change; I do not believe this could cause such problems but as P0300 means "misfires in multiple cilinders" it might? It might also be the cause of the rising fuell consumption my wife told me about. Also I've noticed one of the plugs sits very loosely in the wire(different brands), after testing the wires they seem fine; but this one that does not fit well might cause misfire in 1 of the cilinders.
The plastic block(bobine/coil plug?) for dividing these cables was tested also and seemed fine.
All these tests are with my eyes and a cheap multimeter, and I never did them, so I checked 5 times but after making a good contact the values seemed fine according to the guy on Youtube.
So my first step would be to replace these/this one spark plug wire, and also to renew the spark plugs as they are old. As I have no car I have to wait for delivery: this takes a few days.
As I have another error (U0001) that means "high speeed CAN-Communicationbus", I do not believe these plugs will fix the problem; unless anyone here can tell me that this could cause that error.
So I went on testing my CAN lines with the multimeter according to youtube.
I seem to be getting:
60 ohms on 6 and 14 (CAN high and low), so that's fine
on 4(chassis ground) and 14/ 4 and 6 I get 0.7Volts : this should indicate a short to Voltage because It should be zero
I also get 30 Ohms on these lines: indicating a short to ground
Now. First of all, I found the wiring for the heater and unplugged it, one (brown) wire is burned a bit, giving me hope that this was a cause of the problem..
Now here is where my problems begin. So when measuring the Can high it still gave me the same ohms, but the low gave 0 now. Again, I measure everything 5 times, BUT I am new to this. Anyways to be sure I plugged it in again, it gave 30 ohms like before: and unplugged it => still 30 ohms.
Okay, so I take it I've measured poorly and the problem persists.
I go on and unplug the big cable that seems to go right under the CAN module where my OBD reader goes, because I guess I needed to start unplugging **** untill I found the problem, right? This seemed like a major one so I started here.
My values are now fine, No more ohms, no more volts.
So this seems to be the place to start, but I do not own a manual and I can't tell what wire this is/what modules/...
So I move on and start unplugging stuff under the hood.I think I'll start with the ECU, problem solved, but 120 ohms 6 to 14 as expected. But problem solved: so this means its in this part of the circuit or is it logical that an ecu is connected to it all and would do this?
Anyways the first thing I see connected to the ECU is the wires going to the (I guess intake manifold?), so I reconnect the ECU and disconnect this intake manifold.
Now I still get Ohms, so short to ground.
But Volts = 0 this time;
soooo would I be right to say my short to voltage is coming from here(intake manifold), but my short to ground is from elsewhere?
Now the weird thing again, I reconnect the intake manifold; so everything is connected except the heater and spark plug component just as I started.
Voltage stays zero.
SO, my problem appears and dissapears: this might have to do with poor use of my multimeter, but I am asking if it could be a normal symptom for my kind of problem(I'm starting to see ghosts here)
Am I missing anything obvious? How do I advance?
I just joined the forum because I've been puzzling and searching youtube but I'm lost. I have some background mechanics but it's been ages and I've just started fixing an old fiat panda, this Punto199 from 2012 is a whole other beast, with a fancy ECU and all. Garage costs are not affordable at the moment, but I have time to spare(it comes with less money..) so I have to fix this myself or ride my bike.
So I will tell you guys how it started and what I did up to now. If anyone has had the combination of these codes and or symptoms and can tell me what it most likely could be that would be great, skip my clumsy puzzling story and guide me a bit in that direction. If not, than I hope that maybe someone can tell me what to test next and how to because I believe I might be doing it wrong.
So, the car had no problems, we bought it 2 years ago and it has had maintenance in a garage and a belt change a few months ago; but the wife just told me it's been consuming a lot the past 2 months(she keeps a good eye on this so I believe it to be true).
Also the fan(heating/airco) only worked on the hardest setting. and sometimes failed to work, sometimes worked just fine(I suspected a loose cable but never checked because it was a minor discomfort) An oily smell has been a problem since we've bought it, but has been viewed as normal sweating of an older car. So no real problems
Now 2 days ago suddenly my wife could not get back home after a short drive, the car did nothing when turning the key, as if the battery was completely dead all of a sudden.
So after jumpstarting it she could drive home but the steering support did not work(my english is not perfect and I don't know the term, she had to use a lot of force to turn the wheel while driving). Dashbord lights(check engine) started going on as well.
At home the car started and stopped within a second. The second time the battery drained my jumpstarter in a second. The battery after testing just gives 12.6V and seems to be fine(it's a new one so it should be fine). I don't know the Punto, I've had a bad starter before but all these checking lights, the steering etc, it made me believe it might be an ECU problem or something like that.
I did not check the alternator yet, because it was my belief that with a good battery the car should start and work a bit and I can't get under the car ATM/did not know how to test the alternator when the car wont start /keep running without having to dismantle it... If anyone is sure it's the alternator or definetly not please tell me, it spares me time I would waste on it tomorrow.
So having no experience with something like this, I bought an OBD2 reader and it gave me p0300 and U0001 (after failing a few times, because every time I tried turning on the contact the car flipped, and the OBD reader gave me blocks and pixels ad if it was broken. )
After looking them up I checked the ignition, the spark plugs look fine but I realised they are overdue for a change; I do not believe this could cause such problems but as P0300 means "misfires in multiple cilinders" it might? It might also be the cause of the rising fuell consumption my wife told me about. Also I've noticed one of the plugs sits very loosely in the wire(different brands), after testing the wires they seem fine; but this one that does not fit well might cause misfire in 1 of the cilinders.
The plastic block(bobine/coil plug?) for dividing these cables was tested also and seemed fine.
All these tests are with my eyes and a cheap multimeter, and I never did them, so I checked 5 times but after making a good contact the values seemed fine according to the guy on Youtube.
So my first step would be to replace these/this one spark plug wire, and also to renew the spark plugs as they are old. As I have no car I have to wait for delivery: this takes a few days.
As I have another error (U0001) that means "high speeed CAN-Communicationbus", I do not believe these plugs will fix the problem; unless anyone here can tell me that this could cause that error.
So I went on testing my CAN lines with the multimeter according to youtube.
I seem to be getting:
60 ohms on 6 and 14 (CAN high and low), so that's fine
on 4(chassis ground) and 14/ 4 and 6 I get 0.7Volts : this should indicate a short to Voltage because It should be zero
I also get 30 Ohms on these lines: indicating a short to ground
Now. First of all, I found the wiring for the heater and unplugged it, one (brown) wire is burned a bit, giving me hope that this was a cause of the problem..
Now here is where my problems begin. So when measuring the Can high it still gave me the same ohms, but the low gave 0 now. Again, I measure everything 5 times, BUT I am new to this. Anyways to be sure I plugged it in again, it gave 30 ohms like before: and unplugged it => still 30 ohms.
Okay, so I take it I've measured poorly and the problem persists.
I go on and unplug the big cable that seems to go right under the CAN module where my OBD reader goes, because I guess I needed to start unplugging **** untill I found the problem, right? This seemed like a major one so I started here.
My values are now fine, No more ohms, no more volts.
So this seems to be the place to start, but I do not own a manual and I can't tell what wire this is/what modules/...
So I move on and start unplugging stuff under the hood.I think I'll start with the ECU, problem solved, but 120 ohms 6 to 14 as expected. But problem solved: so this means its in this part of the circuit or is it logical that an ecu is connected to it all and would do this?
Anyways the first thing I see connected to the ECU is the wires going to the (I guess intake manifold?), so I reconnect the ECU and disconnect this intake manifold.
Now I still get Ohms, so short to ground.
But Volts = 0 this time;
soooo would I be right to say my short to voltage is coming from here(intake manifold), but my short to ground is from elsewhere?
Now the weird thing again, I reconnect the intake manifold; so everything is connected except the heater and spark plug component just as I started.
Voltage stays zero.
SO, my problem appears and dissapears: this might have to do with poor use of my multimeter, but I am asking if it could be a normal symptom for my kind of problem(I'm starting to see ghosts here)
Am I missing anything obvious? How do I advance?
- Year
- 2012
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