Technical The one and only Dualogic failure thread

[jrkitching]

Guys!
I have a 2008 Fiat Punto 1.4 v8 Dualogic with just 61.5k miles on it and I'm in the UK.

Hello and welcome to the forum :wave:.

The garage want £1,900 to do the work including parts and labour

Ouch! That's not a nice payment to be contemplating and I have real sympathy for you.

Are there any other options?

Sell the car "as is". Put whatever you get with the £1900 it would cost you to fix it toward a better car.

Will the leak get worse?

Probably. After all, it's worse now than it was before the leak started.

It doesn't seem a big leak and if it doesn't get worse and I cleaned it up and put the aluminium tray over it, would the MOT man notice?

Who knows?

Personally my eyes are always drawn toward any part which looks unnaturally clean.

If it's leaking transmission fluid onto the highway it ought to be failed.

Fluid spilt on the road is lethal to motorcyclists. A better question to ask might be "Do I want to be responsible for the death of another human being".

This makes for sobering reading.

Is the car a scrapper?

I'd prefer to think of it as a car which should now only be owned by someone capable of repairing it themselves. I doubt it's any longer a cost effective car to own if you are dependent on a garage to fix it.

 

[rolydixon]

Hello all, I’m new on the forum although I have to admit to being an avid reader of your posts in times of need. Until now I’ve always been able to find the answer I need but this time I find I’m stumped by the old favorite dualogic box.

The problem car is my son’s 08 Panda 1.2 8v with 5 speed dualogic. My daughter previously had a Grande Punto 1.4 dynamic so I know these can be tricky and I’ve already bought Multiecuscan software to try and understand what is going on. Until now I’ve been able to keep both cars running but the Panda’s latest fault is proving hard to diagnose from the symptoms even with the ecu data. I can’t see them symptoms described in the one and only .. thread. I believe that there are 2 or possibly 3 separate faults so here are my symptoms; btw the fluid is up to the mark and the box works normally most of the time.

Fault 1; The gear stuck in neutral as the car came to rest in traffic on the Oxford ring road. No gears were selectable and when we connected multiecuscan the hydraulic pressure registered as zero even though the pump was running and cutting out as usual. I disconnected and reconnected the battery a couple of times and the gearbox recovered and was fine on the 40 mile drive home. I’m assuming that this is probably a bad connection in the sensor wiring leading the computer to think that there is no hydraulic pressure.

Fault 2; The car occasionally stalls as it comes to rest or when shifting into reverse. The stall can also occur when the car is standing stationary with the engine idling in which case a sudden electical load such as the cooling fan kicking in will also cause the stall. Studying the ecu data indicates that when the hydraulic pressure is low (less than 40 bar) an odd gear selection can trigger the stall. The car also occasionally sticks in an even gear which to me indicates a problem with the odd gear selection being too weak or slow to avoid stalling but it may also be that at that low pressure the clutch starts to drag resulting in the stall.

Fault 3; This is the worst fault and is identical to one we had with the Punto and for which I ended up swapping the robot out for another one. In this fault, if the driver is lucky, the gear gets stuck in neutral. On an unlucky day the car gets stuck in gear and immobilised, sometimes in 5th, sometimes in 1st. In this case the ECU readout shows that the hydraulic pressure has dropped just below the 38 bar at which the pump is supposed to kick in. At 38 bar the warning chime sounds and once it does the driver is doomed. From this state the hydraulic pressure gradually reduces, I guess through internal leakage of the seals until it reaches zero. It can take between 15 to 25 minutes to reduce to zero and until it does the gears remain completely unselectable. In this state, the pump will run as normal when the door is opened or the ignition turned on and off but the pressure reading does not increase it just keeps dropping away very slowly. There is nothing I can do to make the pressure bleed more quickly, even tried running the system depressurisatrion from the ipad to no avail. Once the pressure reaches zero, the pump kicks in, the system repressurises and the gears work as normal again. I believe that this happens because the robot is disabled when the pressure drops below 38 bar but I cannot understand why the pump runs but the pressure keeps dropping. With the car stationary the robot will cycle all day between 50 bar and 38 bar repressurising itself every time. All I can think is that a software fault leaves too small a difference between the pressure at which the pump operates and the pressure below which the box is disabled.

With the Punto this fault would mainly occur on long motorway journeys when the gear warning would suddenly sound indicating that the pressure had dropped below the critical 38. The only option was to keep driving to the next services and stop with the car stuck in 5th then wait 25 minutes for the pressure to bleed right down. The ‘workaround’ was to monitor the hydraulic pressure on the ipad and make a shift down to 4th and back up to 5th causing the pump to repressurise the system before the pressure dropped below 38. I was never able to fix that box and ended up cannibalising the robot to fix another one that I bought from a breaker.

Given that both cars, Panda and Punto, have experienced this identical fault I’m thinking (I daren’t say hoping ?) someone else must have seen this too and possibly found out the cause. Any advice or comment on what I might be missing would be much appreciated.

Sorry for such a long post but it seems with these boxes nothing is simple.

 

[jrkitching]

Hello all, I’m new on the forum...

Hello and welcome to the forum :wave:.

From what you've posted, you sound more knowledgeable than most regarding the workings of these gearboxes. As you know, correct operation depends on the integrity of numerous seals and sensors and a weakness in any one of these can cause erratic and sometimes inexplicable functioning, leading to much frustration. Proper fault diagnosis requires a combination of experience, good Fiat-specific diagnostic tools and logical thinking. Fortunately you appear to have all three.

If you're a regular reader, you'll know about the rear beam issues on older Pandas, but it's worth checking that all is well in that department before committing significant resources in time and/or money, only to find it fails its next MOT leaving you facing another significant repair.

Many folks here are dependent on garages to fix stuff like this, and for those, I'd be saying this is probably an end of life car, but given your knowledge and skill, I'd say it's worth persevering with this for a little longer yet. Given your capabilities, you might consider buying another non working dualogic box (which ought to be cheap), and rebuilding one good unit out of the two.

Unfortunately when it comes down to the nitty gritty, with dualogics, information, parts, and expertise are all hard to come by. Almost all garages (and this includes franchised dealers) are rarely interested in doing more than exchanging complete modules, which isn't justifiable on cost grounds on an older car. Many get bodged and quickly sold on; folks generally should be particularly wary of any dualogic which someone has only owned for a short while.

Good luck, whatever you decide to do.

 

[Bam6059]

There is a delay in the transmission during the change from gear 1 to gear 2 and 3 Its made my body to go forward cuse of this issue everytime shifting from 1 to 2
And i found out that if i just remove my feet from the gas padal and push it easy just before shifting it will overcome this issue and it will not be delay shifting.

My car is dualogic transmission

 

[jrkitching]

And i found out that if i just remove my feet from the gas padal and push it easy just before shifting it will overcome this issue and it will not be delay shifting.

Well, my advice would be to just remove your feet from the gas padal and push it easy just before shifting .

More seriously, once these gearboxes start going wrong, they're often a shedload of trouble, so if it does get any worse, I'd give serious thought to getting rid of the car.

 

[Rhian500]

Hello all,

Another newbie. I originally posted a detailed thread in the 500 forum section and was pointed in the direction of this thread.

I can't post links as I'm new, but please go look at the original thread in the 500 section if interested.

Moderator's edit: this is the original thread.

In summary:
2014 Fiat 500, I've had it for 2 years (to the day next week), 60k miles on the clock. No issues other than bog standard maintenance up until now.

A week or two ago I was driving along and the dash beeped with an error message, but it disappeared so quickly I couldn't read it, but vaguely caught a red light in the top right corner of the dash.

Yesterday while driving along, I was turning left on to a road (dropping down from about 50mph to say 15mph) and all of a sudden dropped in to neutral and would not go back in to gear - leaving me over-revving, half hanging out the junction and could have caused an accident. (And the red dashboard light was the same, which turned out to be for the transmission)

Cannot find anywhere that will take a look at it. Gearbox specialists and transmission specialists not wanting to touch it as it's semi-auto. Fiat garage in Bristol closed down and tried 7 of the next nearest dealerships in 40 miles and only two would take it in; one not for a month and the other 40 miles away that wants £144 then £90ph after that just to look at it.

My boss is a petrol head and spoke to his old school mechanic who said if it is this one specific problem, he might be able to fix it. But he doesn't have an electronic reader thing (it's been a long day!) and suggested I go to an auto electrical place for a diagnostic run.

So I took the £54 gamble and went to get the error codes looked at. I'm now armed with the error code and was wondering if anyone can suggest solutions based on: "P060A-79 Customer gear control valve safety level 2 error, mechanical linkage failure fault". The word solenoid has been thrown around, but I need to research more but I understand this is what changes the gear on the semi-auto.

Reading the other posts in this thread it looks like an expensive fix if the entire gearbox has to be changed - and not the sort of money I have. Really hoping to avoid that. This was the first time I bought a "new" car (for me at least being 3 years old when I got it) and had hoped to avoid such disasters and buy something I could run into the ground - I just didn't think that would be 2 years down the line!

 

[jrkitching]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Sorry to hear of your troubles.

You've already found the right thread, and by now will know that:

a) it's common to have issues with these gearboxes well before what one would regard as the reasonable life of a transmission

b) expertise is hard to come by and most independent garages won't want to know

c) franchised dealers will charge you an arm and a leg even to do diagnostic work; generally they will then only replace complete modules at exorbitant cost

d) non-specialist independents don't usually have the appropriate marque-relevant diagnostic tools to do a proper code read and fault analysis; any repairs they do rarely last long.

The solenoid is one of the cheapest (relatively speaking) things that can go wrong, but from what you've posted thus far, I don't think the independent you've taken it to is sufficiently specialised to definitively have diagnosed that this is a) definitely the cause of the issue and b) the only fault with the transmission. Crossing your fingers and throwing parts at this in the hope of a resolution is probably the most expensive way there is not to achieve a proper, lasting repair.

I'm sorry I don't have an easy answer for you. Pragmatically, a lot of folks in your position have had a cheap repair done to put out the warning lights and then quickly traded the car in. Unfortunately there are also a lot of folks who've bought cars whose previous owners have done precisely that.

 

[Lee1ones]

Good evening all. It is with great displeasure that I have to join this page. I bout a 2011 fiat 500 1.4 duologic just 3 months ago and guess what- the gearbox/clutch self destructed. The most upsetting part on this is that it was literally just 4 days after the dealers 3 month warranty runs out. DOH!!!

My wife was happily driving home from work when it jumped out of gear and started making a loud whining/grinding noise.

It transpires that the clutch bearing collapsed causing clutch damage & failure. In addition, the steering control arm bush had also come detached.

Great!!!

I've had all this fixed for just shy of £1,000. Thankfully, having mentioned the phrase 'consumer protection act' to the dealership i bought it from, they agreed to contribute £400 to the job which i guess is fair considering i ploughed ahead with the repair rather than informing them first.

 

[jrkitching]

Sorry to hear of your problem and unexpected expense.

It transpires that the clutch bearing collapsed causing clutch damage & failure. In addition, the steering control arm bush had also come detached.

This sounds like clutch failure and a worn steering/suspension component, rather than a fault with the gearbox or selespeed unit itself - if either of these had failed, the bill would likely have been significantly larger.

All legitimate wear and tear parts, so you did well to get a contribution from the selling garage.

Experience from this (and other) threads is that clutches on dualogics only last about half as long as clutches on manual cars.

Out of interest, what sort of mileage has your car covered?

 

[Ady500]

Hi all

Brand newbie at my wits end so please be gentle!

I own a 2008 Fiat 500 1.4 Automatic. No problems so far, a few warning lights which I've managed to clear in the past, but this one has me beat.... "Check transmission".

Following some advice from Google, I topped up the transmission oil which was just below the minimum. However, the warning message still appears and I cannot engage gear at all.

I've called Fiat who say bring it in for a look, which I'd love to do, but guess what... I cannot engage gear!:bang:

I would appreciate any advice or tips to try for me to at least get it back on the road to be checked out at a garage.

Thanks all!

 

[jrkitching]

Re: Fiat 500 - 2008 - Check Transmission

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Sorry to hear you've got a problem.

As you'll see when you read this thread, issues with these transmissions, whilst not exactly common, are by no means unusual.

Unless you have a clear case of clutch failure (a tolerable cost, if not exactly cheap), then generally there are no easy fixes that will provide a lasting solution. Sometimes topping up fluid levels and clearing any fault codes gets things going again, but the problem will likely return. If you do manage to get it working again, I'd suggest you think seriously about trading in the car.

 

[irc]

It is a real pity that there is no way to remove most of the "advice" available on the internet about how to "fix" Dualogics. Hopefully you found some of the better information. Anyway...

Firstly, when you added transmission oil, what did you actually put in, and where did you put it?
Transmission oil goes in the gearbox, same as a standard manual gearbox.
Selespeed (or CS-speed) fluid goes in the plastic reservoir on the actuator.
Hopefully the right stuff went in the right place, as otherwise it'll cause damage, in which case you need a real expert now to sort it out, and ignore the rest of the post.
(Although there is a procedure for checking and topping up the actuator -just adding some fluid is probably pointless, and can actually make things worse. Again, hopefully this was in the advice you found)

Secondly, did it leak before you had a problem?
If so, then it needs to be reconditioned or replaced.
If not, it may be that it just needs a new accumulator (fairly cheap fix, and often the cause of low Selespeed fluid level).

Third, most "Check Transmission" errors are actually electronic, caused by a failing sensor, bad battery, wiring problem or brake switch. Fix the cause and it should work fine.

Fourth, does the pump motor run for somewhere between 6 and 15 seconds when you open the driver's door? If not, the pump has failed, or you have a blown fuse. Again, a fairly cheap fix, although the usual underlying reason for the pump or fuse to fail is a failed accumulator.

(If the clutch has failed and the mileage is less than about 150000 then it has probably not been driven correctly by someone - usually someone has been trying to drive it like a conventional automatic. Same thing as would happen in a manual if driven around slipping the clutch excessively. If driven correctly the clutch should last at least as long as an average manual one)

There's a lot of talk about how unreliable these Dualogics are, and a lot of very bad advice, which often leads to a much bigger problem than people started out with. As with any mechanical device, failures are possible, but as a rule they are actually a very reliable system, if used as intended.

 

[chris3234]

Did you just top up the. CS speed fluid?
Or did you depressuise the system first? If you didn't it likely to it wasn't low at all as you sent supposed to check the level when it stil has pressure as the fluid level won't be correct to check

 

[screamer76]

Hi All. As many, I was brought here by a check transmission light on my Fiat, surely it happened when I was driving to work, but I was somewhat able to get there, sometimes missing 4th and also sometimes 2nd gear. When I had to shift to Reverse to park at my workplace, it stopped. I've switched ignition off hoping it may reset and then when I turned it back on, it worked again, so 1st task for the day was completed. I'm an engineer with a mechanical background, so I decided to do some research. I've contacted my FIAT dealer (I was always servicing my and my wife's FIATs with them and the last service on my car was done about 5000 km back, a 60000 km service) to ask for advice. I've been told that it most definitely would be an actuator replacement and they were talking thousands of dollars in parts and labour. OK. I decided to have a look on Youtube, various FIAT forums, etc. and came up with the following:

1. If the car is relatively new and hasn't done many kilometers, then first thing is to check the fluid level. If it is too low, the symptoms could be exactly what I've had and up to losing any shifting completely.

1. 
   Electric connections, specifically ground terminal bolted to the top of the transmission housing, but not a bad idea to check all connectors as well.

I've started from checking the fluid level. There's an aluminium cover on the front of the transmission, covering the expansion tank, hydraulic accumulator, etc. It's held by 4 10mm hex head M6 bolts (2 each side). May be a bit of a tight squeeze, but there are Youtube videos on how to do it, so during lunch break, I've borrowed some tools and a creeper from our workshop mechanics and managed to get it off. I've been quite devastated with the fact that the bolts still had original factory Loctite on them as well as paint marker lines made by whoever assembled this car still not broken! I used my iPhone camera to check the fluid level as I couldn't see it trying to have a peek from both top and bottom. Needless to say that I was very disappointed to find it about 20 mm below the Min mark (just under an inch)... I've already checked what fluid I need for topping up and surely the closest place to get it was my FIAT dealership. After work I went direct to them (the shifting was more or less OK, only missing 4th sometimes; it looks like this specific problem is getting worse when it's colder and it's warmed up through the day, maybe that's why it became better), bought a bottle of fluid (AUD50), and topped it up in their parking in front of a few their employees who's seen it (I've already had a small funnel with a piece of a garden water hose connected to it to be able to top up without any spills ready). They've reacted to this provocation and came up offering their services (I was already done and testing the shifting without driving off yet), to which I politely refused saying "No, thank you. I've already been quoted thousands of dollars for repairing this car to only find out that in 5 services that I've done with you guys (1000 km check-up and then every 15000 km), you have never managed to even check the fluid level and top up as required. So thank you for the kind offer, but no, thanks, from now on I'll find someone more competent and less crooky."
I guess it's a common thing these days that dealerships and mechanics are only trying to make more money out of their customers, but how damaging is such an attitude to the car manufacturers! I've heard so many devastated comments in this thread that could be just this simple. I remember a comment from one guy from Israel who paid $1500 for the actuator replacement back in 2015 and the original actuator with the bottle that had low fluid level shown to him as proof it was no good (as well as the fluid colour was mentioned to be too dark)! I've got no more to say about this that would not be a reason for me to be banned forever from this forum as a technical person myself... On the brighter side, I've also read comments from experienced and honest mechanics who were stating this system is quite reliable compared to other car maker's systems, giving reasonable and useful advise, etc. So good luck to all of you out there who get the same 'check transmission' warning and as a general advise, if it sounds too bad and too early, it may be just an attempt to rip you off!

P.S. The correct top up and factory fill fluid is Petronas Tutela CS Speed W75 (Petronas code 1508).

 

[irc]

Glad it's working again.
However, to be fair to the dealer, I'm not even sure checking the actuator level is in standard servicing. They aren't supposed to use or lose any.
Which does lead to the question of why yours was low.
Could be a slow leak (bad news, but have been known to soldier on for years if you're lucky), or could be a failed accumulator (fairly cheap and not difficult to change), in which case you should get it changed sooner rather than later, as the pump motor gets over-worked and eventually fails.
(When the membrane in the accumulator fails, the whole sphere fills up with hydraulic fluid as the gas escapes, which obviously affects the level in the reservoir)

 

[chris3234]

Hi All. As many, I was brought here by a check transmission light on my Fiat, surely it happened when I was driving to work, but I was somewhat able to get there, sometimes missing 4th and also sometimes 2nd gear. When I had to shift to Reverse to park at my workplace, it stopped. I've switched ignition off hoping it may reset and then when I turned it back on, it worked again, so 1st task for the day was completed. I'm an engineer with a mechanical background, so I decided to do some research. I've contacted my FIAT dealer (I was always servicing my and my wife's FIATs with them and the last service on my car was done about 5000 km back, a 60000 km service) to ask for advice. I've been told that it most definitely would be an actuator replacement and they were talking thousands of dollars in parts and labour. OK. I decided to have a look on Youtube, various FIAT forums, etc. and came up with the following:

1. If the car is relatively new and hasn't done many kilometers, then first thing is to check the fluid level. If it is too low, the symptoms could be exactly what I've had and up to losing any shifting completely.

1. 
   Electric connections, specifically ground terminal bolted to the top of the transmission housing, but not a bad idea to check all connectors as well.

I've started from checking the fluid level. There's an aluminium cover on the front of the transmission, covering the expansion tank, hydraulic accumulator, etc. It's held by 4 10mm hex head M6 bolts (2 each side). May be a bit of a tight squeeze, but there are Youtube videos on how to do it, so during lunch break, I've borrowed some tools and a creeper from our workshop mechanics and managed to get it off. I've been quite devastated with the fact that the bolts still had original factory Loctite on them as well as paint marker lines made by whoever assembled this car still not broken! I used my iPhone camera to check the fluid level as I couldn't see it trying to have a peek from both top and bottom. Needless to say that I was very disappointed to find it about 20 mm below the Min mark (just under an inch)... I've already checked what fluid I need for topping up and surely the closest place to get it was my FIAT dealership. After work I went direct to them (the shifting was more or less OK, only missing 4th sometimes; it looks like this specific problem is getting worse when it's colder and it's warmed up through the day, maybe that's why it became better), bought a bottle of fluid (AUD50), and topped it up in their parking in front of a few their employees who's seen it (I've already had a small funnel with a piece of a garden water hose connected to it to be able to top up without any spills ready). They've reacted to this provocation and came up offering their services (I was already done and testing the shifting without driving off yet), to which I politely refused saying "No, thank you. I've already been quoted thousands of dollars for repairing this car to only find out that in 5 services that I've done with you guys (1000 km check-up and then every 15000 km), you have never managed to even check the fluid level and top up as required. So thank you for the kind offer, but no, thanks, from now on I'll find someone more competent and less crooky."
I guess it's a common thing these days that dealerships and mechanics are only trying to make more money out of their customers, but how damaging is such an attitude to the car manufacturers! I've heard so many devastated comments in this thread that could be just this simple. I remember a comment from one guy from Israel who paid $1500 for the actuator replacement back in 2015 and the original actuator with the bottle that had low fluid level shown to him as proof it was no good (as well as the fluid colour was mentioned to be too dark)! I've got no more to say about this that would not be a reason for me to be banned forever from this forum as a technical person myself... On the brighter side, I've also read comments from experienced and honest mechanics who were stating this system is quite reliable compared to other car maker's systems, giving reasonable and useful advise, etc. So good luck to all of you out there who get the same 'check transmission' warning and as a general advise, if it sounds too bad and too early, it may be just an attempt to rip you off!

P.S. The correct top up and factory fill fluid is Petronas Tutela CS Speed W75 (Petronas code 1508).

Fyi the fluid shouldn't need checking or topping up on a service is you lost fluid it's leaking someplace and need looking into

That being said did you depressuise the system before checking the fluid level?
If no I believe it gives an artificially low fluid level if it isnt

 

[Ady500]

Update folks.


FIAT in Reading, UK have carried out diagnostics that a new gearbox actuator pump is required. This is due to an internal short to earth electrical fault within the pump which cannot be repaired individually - a whole new unit is required.


Cost…. £1500!


At the moment, it is stuck with FIAT due to the restrictions on movement due to coronavirus, so it will be at least a month until the repair can be carried out.

 

[irc]

If I was d-i-ying it, I wouldn't choose to change out an otherwise working non-leaking actuator for a motor problem.

Short-to-earth in the pump motor would indicate a replacement pump motor would be a good starting point. Part number is on the casing of the old one (or talk to Shop4Parts - I believe they sometimes have them)

Usually about £100, although you normally have to change over the pump head as they tend to come with Alfa version.

About an hour, all-in, but use of a ramp is helpful.

Depending on mileage I'd probably spend another £100 on a replacement accumulator too, as pump failures are often caused by a failed accumulator.

Neither swap requires recalibration, just spanner work, but depressurising needs Fiat Examiner, MultiECUScan or similar to do safely.
(And a slight top-up of CS-Speed fluid to replace what is lost inside the accumulator.)

 

[rolydixon]

Just thought I would post an update on my son's Panda 1.2 Dynamic dualogic which had all these faults when we bought it - post #562 in this thread. It may be tempting fate to say so but it seems that we may have finally managed to resolve the issues as it has now been driving without problems for the last 3 months - even if somewhat less than usual due to the covid situation Previously we were getting frequent failures and at least one on any long trip.

To recap the Panda was; dropping into neutral at lights, stalling frequently, sticking in gear on the motorway and then taking 20 minutes before resetting iteslf. Here's a short resume of what we did;

Firstly we spent ages going over the gearbox readouts from the AlfaOBD and multiecuscan applications trying to figure out what was going wrong. Although we got lots of seemingly useful information there was nothing there which pointed to any specific solution. Cost to this point was 50 euros for a multiecuscan update to run on an ipad (it has worked fine on a laptop previously, didn't work properly on an iphone but seemed to do everything ok running on an ipad apart from resettiing the clutch point but in the end that didn't matter).

The stalling was probably the most annoying fault due to the frequency of it happening so we went for that to start with. There was some suspiscion that the clutch may have been out of adjustment, especially since multiecucan adjustment routine wasn't working and I had also noticed a slight leakage of fluid through the clutch position sensor. Given that I have a second robot unit under the bench in the garage I swapped over the clutch position sensors and did the end of line calibration of the gearbox using the software. There was no improvment but thankfully no more expense either.

Next we considered it could be something with the engine iteself, first cleaning the throttle body (no change), changing the MAP sensor (no improvment) and finally the crank sensor (result!). No more stalling and cost £25 for the sensors from ebay.

Now we came to fixing the real gearbox issues it was hard to know where to start. The softwares both seemed to be telling us that all the sensors were working correctly and that for most of the time the pump was running and pressurising the system as it should. On the occasions we were both in the car and could monitor things as we were driving the only noticeable thing was that if the hydraulic pressure dropped below 38 bar the gears would not change again until the pressure had very slowly bled away down to zero. It was clear that the pump was not restarting but given we knew the pump was otherwise working it seemed an unlikely candidate and far too expensive to change on speculation without more evidence.

On one occasion, giving the robot a sharp tap on top with a spanner (17mm ring I think it was) made the pump restart and got us moving again. but other times this tactic did not work so I'm not recommending it to anyone here. As a result of this I also tried swapping out the pressure sensor on the top of the robot but with no effect.

Renewing the hydraulic fluid (Tutela from ebay £20) seemed to improve things for a while but not completely.

Warning THIS NEXT BIT COULD BE DANGEROUS AND CAUSE YOUR CAR TO CATCH FIRE IF YOU DON'T ABSOLUTELY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING! To get a better handle on what was going wrong with the pump I fitted a long trailling lead to the pump relay in the engine fuse box. If you don't know which relay it is you can listen for it clicking as someone opens the driver's door. The trailing lead was pushed into one of the coil (small) terminals on the relay and the was long enough to touch on to the positive battery terminal thereby operating the relay and starting the pump thus confirming that both the relay and the pump were working correctly.

Taking extreme care that the end of the lead could not short out to earth, I coiled it up and left it in situ with instructions to my son to use it next time the gearbox locked up.
Sure enough it was not long before I got an elated call saying that the box had failed and that the trailing lead thing had restarted it. The question now was why??? It took us a while to ponder this, all the while using the lead to unstick the gearbox until one day I got the not so elated call that the box had stuck again and that the pump was not starting at all. By the time we had towed the car home it had of course reset and was all working again but this was finally the evidence we needed - the relay was working but the pump had stuck even though most of the time it was working perfectly.

I was now able to swap the pump out with the one from the spare robot. That was 3 months ago since when the car has driven faultlessly doing long and short trips with no stalling and no gearbox errors. If I hadn't already had the pump under the bench the cost would have been around £200 for a new one.

So it's true what they say about intermittent faults being the hardest to trace and I pity any owner or garage who is faced with a problem like this. Given that the software was not at all conclusive about any of the issues it's totally understandable that the only solution a dealer would offer is a replacement unit. But it goes to show that with persistence and probably more than a little luck problems can sometimes be solved.

I hope my story may help someone out there resolve a similar problem as I have been helped by others countless times in the past. Thanks all and keep up the great work on the FIAT forum!

 

[deedeedee]

whenever anyone gets in my 2012 Fiat 500 with me, after a while the car beeps and the display says “stop start unavailable check transmission” and the yellow triangle warning light pops up and the car will go into neutral the next time I brake and wont go back until I restart the engine, It only happens when others are in the car with me. I always restart the engine and it’s fine for a while. But last time I drove, it happened 4 times in one journey.

It’s been an issue since I got the car, but 6 months ago the warning came up during a journey and when I restarted the engine, the car wouldn’t change from neutral to drive until a few attempts later. At that point I switched off stop start and the issue stopped for a while, but it’s started again in the last month, even with stop start deactivated. I’m getting worried about this and garages are still closed, could I get some advice on where to go from here??