Technical New Fiat 500 Twinair electrical woes.

[Please help]

Hi, I am new to this but wanted to see if any body could offer me any advise?

I purchased a fiat 500 lounge twin air, dual logic, automatic on a 61 plate at the end of January 2013. This is on a pcp agreement with FGA Capital.
The car had 1600 miles on the clock when I purchased it.
It was ok to begin with and then the car seemed to be getting confused with the 'stop start' function. I felt like something wasn't quite right with the car but couldn't put my finger on it! Anyway, whilst driving home on the motorway one day, the car lost all power without any warning! this was terrifying as I was in the right hand lane and had to try and glide across the lanes in busy traffic! well to cut a long story short, I broke down and the car was later 'repaired' by the fiat garage. I was told it had a chronic miss-fire and that they had replaced the RPM sensor and the problem was now resolved! Well needless to say, I was a little apprehensive about taking the car back due to the way it broke down! but I did take the car with every faith that the fiat engineer had repaired the problem with the car.
This was not the case! Just 1 day later I had to book the car back into the garage to be looked at as the gear changes were really erratic and the 'check transmission' warning kept appearing on the dashboard! Again, I was assured that the fault had been fixed and I took the car home. Only for the same fault to keep reappearing intermittently. I have since had the car back into the garage to be looked at and was not happy with the outcome and have therefore refused the car!
Since doing this I have had access to the previous reports from the garage. It seems that the car had a recall regarding coils back in january 2013 just before I purchased it. This was never mentioned to me but I am now wondering whether the problems I have encountered were connected to this? If so, then surely this car was not fit for purpose when it was sold to me?

If anybody does have any advise or can shed any light on this for me I would be very greatful. I refused the car at the beginning of Feb, 2013 and I am still awaiting a conclusion and outcome 4 months later!
Thank you

 

[loveshandbags]

Hi, I am new to this but wanted to see if any body could offer me any advise?

I purchased a fiat 500 lounge twin air, dual logic, automatic on a 61 plate at the end of January 2013. This is on a pcp agreement with FGA Capital.
The car had 1600 miles on the clock when I purchased it.
It was ok to begin with and then the car seemed to be getting confused with the 'stop start' function. I felt like something wasn't quite right with the car but couldn't put my finger on it! Anyway, whilst driving home on the motorway one day, the car lost all power without any warning! this was terrifying as I was in the right hand lane and had to try and glide across the lanes in busy traffic! well to cut a long story short, I broke down and the car was later 'repaired' by the fiat garage. I was told it had a chronic miss-fire and that they had replaced the RPM sensor and the problem was now resolved! Well needless to say, I was a little apprehensive about taking the car back due to the way it broke down! but I did take the car with every faith that the fiat engineer had repaired the problem with the car.
This was not the case! Just 1 day later I had to book the car back into the garage to be looked at as the gear changes were really erratic and the 'check transmission' warning kept appearing on the dashboard! Again, I was assured that the fault had been fixed and I took the car home. Only for the same fault to keep reappearing intermittently. I have since had the car back into the garage to be looked at and was not happy with the outcome and have therefore refused the car!
Since doing this I have had access to the previous reports from the garage. It seems that the car had a recall regarding coils back in january 2013 just before I purchased it. This was never mentioned to me but I am now wondering whether the problems I have encountered were connected to this? If so, then surely this car was not fit for purpose when it was sold to me?

If anybody does have any advise or can shed any light on this for me I would be very greatful. I refused the car at the beginning of Feb, 2013 and I am still awaiting a conclusion and outcome 4 months later!
Thank you

Sorry to hear about your troubles.

Most of the Twin Airs seem to have the coils changed & in some cases more than once. There's another thread on mis-fires but we never heard back from the OP on the outcome. It was thought that the spark plugs should have been changed.

Would you not persevere a bit more with the car logging more incidents. This would strengthen your case in refusing the car as not being fit for purpose. Hopefully you wouldn't have any more happen on the motorway.

P.S. Just realised that you haven't had your car for 4 months ! What have you been doing in the meantime ?

 

[The Twins]

Rejecting a car can be a long and expensive process if the supplier is prepared to play hardball - I know this to my detriment.
My TA had coils replaced and RPM sensor. It's been fine since.
I really feel for you in this situation but unless you really really are determined. I would get the car fixed and hopefully it will be fine.
The only other option if you can't get them to take the car back is to trade it in. It will cost you but not as much as fighting a big company who can afford for things to take forever while you are without a car that I bet you are still paying for.
Wishing you a good result.

 

[306maxi]

Hi, I am new to this but wanted to see if any body could offer me any advise?

I purchased a fiat 500 lounge twin air, dual logic, automatic on a 61 plate at the end of January 2013. This is on a pcp agreement with FGA Capital.
The car had 1600 miles on the clock when I purchased it.
It was ok to begin with and then the car seemed to be getting confused with the 'stop start' function. I felt like something wasn't quite right with the car but couldn't put my finger on it! Anyway, whilst driving home on the motorway one day, the car lost all power without any warning! this was terrifying as I was in the right hand lane and had to try and glide across the lanes in busy traffic! well to cut a long story short, I broke down and the car was later 'repaired' by the fiat garage. I was told it had a chronic miss-fire and that they had replaced the RPM sensor and the problem was now resolved! Well needless to say, I was a little apprehensive about taking the car back due to the way it broke down! but I did take the car with every faith that the fiat engineer had repaired the problem with the car.
This was not the case! Just 1 day later I had to book the car back into the garage to be looked at as the gear changes were really erratic and the 'check transmission' warning kept appearing on the dashboard! Again, I was assured that the fault had been fixed and I took the car home. Only for the same fault to keep reappearing intermittently. I have since had the car back into the garage to be looked at and was not happy with the outcome and have therefore refused the car!
Since doing this I have had access to the previous reports from the garage. It seems that the car had a recall regarding coils back in january 2013 just before I purchased it. This was never mentioned to me but I am now wondering whether the problems I have encountered were connected to this? If so, then surely this car was not fit for purpose when it was sold to me?

If anybody does have any advise or can shed any light on this for me I would be very greatful. I refused the car at the beginning of Feb, 2013 and I am still awaiting a conclusion and outcome 4 months later!
Thank you

How many times has the car been in? For how long? How many different faults has it had? Have any of the faults re-occurred? Why did you refuse the car?

 

[loveshandbags]

How many times has the car been in? For how long? How many different faults has it had? Have any of the faults re-occurred? Why did you refuse the car?

Judging by the write up the issue with the coils and then the dualogic broke her confidence in the reliability of the car. IMHO the dealer would need to be given more time to put right the issues before they take it back.

 

[varesecrazy]

Hi,
I read it as the OP took it in to be "fixed" , was not happy with the dealers opinion of their "fix" , and left the car with them..,
I may be wrong but that's how I interpreted their last post,

and YES I agree they should have persevered and gained more info to back their claim,

If it was me I would be doing the DVLA history check and trying to speak to previous owners / drivers,
you MAY even find that a few phone call to FIAT /dealers will find out what has been done to it previously,

Charlie

 

[Please help]

Hi,
The car has been in to be fixed 3 times. The 1st time was after breaking down on the motor way, this is when the RPM sensor was replaced, the car was in for 3 days. I then got the car back, reluctantly and 3 days later i had to have it back in the garage where it stayed for 7 days. The check transmission warning sign kept showing up on the dashboard and the car had really erratic gear changes which were making it very hard to control. I was told on this occasion that the engineers were not able to find any transmission fault! but had repaired some other "small" unrelated faults. The third visit to the garage was for the same reason as before, also with all 3 times the car lost power for no apparent reason. The car has been with the garage now since 27th February 2013 as on the 3rd visit to the garage the car had been looked at after 2 weeks of sitting in the garage and I was told that the engineers could not find the cause of the fault and they mentioned something about coils and then tried to tell me that the car was fine. This is when I rejected the car as I was not happy with the outcome and did not want to be fobbed off with a broken car.
I do not think I have been unreasonable with asking for my money back, as I did give them adequate chance to fix the car. They did not do this satisfactorily therefore I rejected the vehicle. Am I not well within my rights to do this?
Thanks

 

[Please help]

Hi,
I read it as the OP took it in to be "fixed" , was not happy with the dealers opinion of their "fix" , and left the car with them..,
I may be wrong but that's how I interpreted their last post,

and YES I agree they should have persevered and gained more info to back their claim,

If it was me I would be doing the DVLA history check and trying to speak to previous owners / drivers,
you MAY even find that a few phone call to FIAT /dealers will find out what has been done to it previously,

Charlie

Hi Charlie,
How do I go about checking dvla history? I know that the car came from motorbility. I would really appreciate some help in how to go about this please?
Thank you,
Sam

 

[MikeXL]

Hello!

On the 28th of June, my wife and I set out on our honeymoon with our new Fiat 500!

We drove from the west coast of Norway, through Sweden where we took the bridge over to Denmark, from which we then took the ferry over to Germany. From there we drove over into France (following the north coast), and then back into Paris before we headed off to Kiel to catch the ferry to Oslo, Norway! Spent about 13 hours in the car from Oslo, back to where we live.

We have all in all, just hit the 10 000 KM mark and we've had no issues at all with the car since the software update! Only had to fill oil once .

We packed two chairs, a table, a grill, a tent that fits three people, three bags, two sleeping bags, one air matress, one pump, a hammer, some tools and some other things! We came home with three extra bags, plus an electrical pump for the matress seeing as it got quite hot trying to stomp the sh*t out of ours in the blazing sun down in Germany.

The trip went smooth, the mileage was good and the car has no scratches! The honeymoon was a great success (people chuckled a bit when we told them we were going to use the Fiat for all of this).

Heck, we even had room for three more bags. Happy drivin'!