Fiat Seicento problems

fletch

My sister has a Fiat Seicento and has been noticing problems with the car when accelerating hard. The car chugs alongs and then there is a flat spot before the power is delivered. I brought this to the attention of my local Fiat dealership and was told that it may be the lamda probe that is causing difficulty but the car cannot be seen until 2 weeks time.
I am just wondering is this going to cost her much to repair?
Thanks

fletch

Gmodified

well if this is a model with injection it also could "mass air flow sensor"

what ever they do , it will be pricey

dogz

a lmabada sensor went on my car got a secondhand 1 from the ncakers for a tenner, theyre about 70 stg new though, my advice is try to get a usde one from the nackers and whip it in urself and see how it gos its not difficult at all if u can change a spark plug u can do this. actually it looks like a sparkplug with 4 wires off it and it is attached just below the manifold

is the car holding back in second or third gear and u then get a burst of power almost as if the car has a turbo as this hapeded to my m8 he was told it was an air mass meter, he got a reconditioned job 250yoyos fitted it and it got worse! turned out to be peetrol starvation and a new feul pump sorted this

alias no.9

Just a note - all new petrol cars since 1993 when catalytic converters became compulsary are fitted with fuel injection.

Back to the point, for anybody who ever has problems with a Mass Air Flow (MAF) sensor, the first step should always be to clean it, it takes about 15 minutes (including the time to remove and refit it) and all you need is a can of brake and clutch cleaner which costs about 5euro. For some reason garages never seem to do this!

Interceptor

The problem could be several things - post back with the age, mileage, engine/(model-S/SX/Sporting) and service condition. The Sei has an inline fuel filter forward of the fuel tank which could be blocking and causing the symptoms you describe, the 1108cc engine has a notorious flat spot just above 3k rpm, the lambda sensor, engine temp sensor and air filter condition all cause it to get worse as they deteriorate.

If you bring the car to a main dealer it will inevitably cost you more than if you bring it elsewhere but these cars aren't usually expensive to fix and second hand bits are plentiful. My money is on a blocked fuel filter...

'ceptr

Here are two good sites for Fiat info.

WebCento

Fiat Forum

fletch

interceptor wrote:

The problem could be several things - post back with the age, mileage, engine/(model-S/SX/Sporting) and service condition. The Sei has an inline fuel filter forward of the fuel tank which could be blocking and causing the symptoms you describe, the 1108cc engine has a notorious flat spot just above 3k rpm, the lambda sensor, engine temp sensor and air filter condition all cause it to get worse as they deteriorate.

Hey Interceptor,
Thanx for the info, heres the details you asked for. The car is an '00 Fiat Seicento SX 1108cc with 24,000miles on the clock.
When the car is at low revs and u plant the accelerator, the cars jumps and sometimes attempts to back-fire but once up in high revs is ok.

RicardoSmith

alias no.9 wrote:

Just a note - all new petrol cars since 1993 when catalytic converters became compulsary are fitted with fuel injection.

Is this true? Why?

dogz

ok so its not the clutch, in low gears does it seem to be misfiring then just suddenly accelerate hard

fletch

It happens in any gear once your at low revs and accelerate hard (Eg. doin 20mph and flooring it in 3rd gear).

dogz

fletch wrote:

It happens in any gear once your at low revs and accelerate hard (Eg. doin 20mph and flooring it in 3rd gear).

when this happens again try this

immediateely when this happens floor the clutch rev it hard about 3 times and let the clutch up as normal if it immediately recovers its petrol starvation and a damaged petrol pump or blocked filter/injector this happened to my m8s punto

fletch

dogz wrote:

when this happens again try this

immediateely when this happens floor the clutch rev it hard about 3 times and let the clutch up as normal if it immediately recovers its petrol starvation and a damaged petrol pump or blocked filter/injector

Will give it a go tonight and post the results back ere 2moro, thanks for the advice.

dogz

fletch wrote:

Will give it a go tonight and post the results back ere 2moro, thanks for the advice.

no probs glad to help the punto had us goin mad for months wouldnt inflict this on any1

BrianD3

It could be lots of different things. Spark plugs or HT leads maybe. Have the plugs ever been changed?

I had symptoms almost identical to yours on an old car of mine. The cause was a leaking rocker cover gasket which was dripping oil from the rocker box down onto the spark plugs.

BrianD3

fletch

BrianD3 wrote:

It could be lots of different things. Spark plugs or HT leads maybe. Have the plugs ever been changed?

I had symptoms almost identical to yours on an old car of mine. The cause was a leaking rocker cover gasket which was dripping oil from the rocker box down onto the spark plugs.

BrianD3

Initially I thought it was probably just the spark plugs or the timing so I got the car serviced and told the Fiat dealer to check the problem out. However since the service, the car has gotten progressively worse. I went back to the Fiat dealership and told them same and they said that I would have to book the car in again!(the next available slot being 2 weeks again). It is my sisters car and she is only learning to drive and keeps stalling and cutting out because of the problem which is obviously doing her confidence no good

dogz

yea if it was misfiring i would have said this but fletch says its not so i wouldnt think its ht leads or distributor. if its stallin its definately petrol starvation, do u live in dublin theres a place here that specialises in feul injection and its quite reasonable price wise and usually u just ring today drop it off 2moro

alias no.9

Originally Posted by alias no.9
Just a note - all new petrol cars since 1993 when catalytic converters became compulsary are fitted with fuel injection

Is this true? Why?

For a number of reasons
1. Catalytic converters sap power
2. It is necessary to meter the fuel more carefully to prevent unburnt petrol reaching the catalyst as it will destroy it - hence it is very unwise th push start a car fitted with a cat unless absolutely necessary as it can cause unburnt petrol to reach the cat
3. The along with cat's becoming compulsary there was new emissions regulations which again required much better metering of the fuel, something that is difficult with a carburetter

dogz

how is it behaving
day fletch

fletch

Well it was still having the same problem but for some mysterious reason...I took the car out for a spin yesterday and the problem was gone, although I'm not holding my breath. It's booked in 2 the garage on Thursday so we'll see how that goes. Thanks everyone 4 all yer help