General Recurring Battery Error After Alternator Change on 500L

[Action11]

Hi everyone,


I'm a Fiat 500L owner from Turkey. There is a group of people here who really love the 500L, but unfortunately, Fiat and the official representative company in Turkey don't seem to care or provide solutions when technical problems occur.


One recurring issue is this:

• After replacing the alternator, around 1 month later, battery warning messages start to appear.
• These messages can be cleared, and even after maintenance or checks, no fault is found.
• However, after a while, the same issue comes back again.

This cycle repeats itself and no real solution is provided by the official service.


I've been trying to find a forum in Italy where the 500L is more common, but I couldn’t locate one that discusses this problem in detail.


Does anyone here know more about this issue or have experience with it?
Any advice or leads would be greatly appreciated

 

[varesecrazy]

Hi, no direct experience..

But many times the 199 punto (and it's FIAT design flaw..) have been mentioned on here,

It's a regular complaint after Alternators have been replaced,

Like there is a missing code signal from a "non-original" component

Attempting to have the cars original alternator rebuilt seems to be the better way, but obviously that is not always possible

 

[JAMLAX]

Yes, as mentioned, if a "non-original" component part has been fitted this would explain the recurring warning message. I once had a simmilarly annoying warning engine management light coming on with a Peugeot diesel car - I repeatedly cleared it using my OBD scanner-fault-code-plug-in but after a day or two the engine management light always re-appeared. When I spoke to the Peugeot mechanic he told me the only way to permanently resolve the issue would be to remove my recently fitted non-Peugeot glow plugs and fit the "proper" Peugeot glow plugs. In the end I just decided to put up with the irritation of an engine management light.

 

[Action11]

A software update was performed on the 500L’s ECU, which was quite expensive — but unfortunately, the error warning still appeared afterward. Now, the original alternator has been replaced once again, and I’m currently in the testing phase.

It seems that solving electronic issues on the 500L is quite problematic. The system in the car isn’t really able to pinpoint exactly where the issue is.

 

[JAMLAX]

Once upon a time some coding (software engineering designers) experts could reliably alter a faulty code.
Other expert coders would park any electronic problem until the vehicle manufacturer took over responsibility.
After six months or so, the weary customer would discover no one had the solution.
Now, with the roll-out of Artificial Intelligence the inability to pin-point faulty lines of code just requires the apprentice to sum up any faulty electronic component by pointing to the computer print-out: NOT REPAIRABLE!