9orchard Posted April 4, 2014 Share Posted April 4, 2014 Hi please read my same problem .( 9 orchard ) i cant back my unit onto drive without clutch burning i have read all manuals and am an engineer by trade this is not good only has 2000 miles on clock i took to northern commercials at fiats request and was told this is a common problem go back yo fiat my dealer is not interested i have 90k worth of unusable motor home and am not happy can any one help please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9orchard Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 hi arjxh56 MY GOD !!!!!!!!! I really dont hope my problem becomes as long as yours but its started already by northern commercials wanting £85 per hr plus vat just to look .. to all other comment writers you can be assured I have taken on board all your valuable comments and am worried at this very early point in time and not looking forward to sorting out my reverse problem especailly due to northern commercial first comments on thursday well monday I will be on phone to fiat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brambles Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 How steep and long is your drive, and what weight is your Motorhome? Just asking because you may be asking it to do something it just is not capable of doing. This then may raises the question of exactly what rate of incline is the vehicle suppose to be capable of and to this I have no idea but will be a heck of a lot less as the motorhome weight goes up. p.s. Bet the answer is level and flat!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike88 Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 arjxh56 - 2014-04-04 9:07 PM The ECU is just a small box with a few sockets in it. Nothing special to look at. Since getting the van back I have noticed the gear change is almost silent. Previously, ever since I purchased the van, the gear change has been very obvious and noisy (clunky?) I thought the noise was normal and it was never mentioned at services. I am now wondering if it wasn't ever calibrated correctly?? I assume, and hope, the silent gear change is normal and means my van is working at 100% Does anyone else have the confortmatic box? Can you hear the van change gear when sat behind the wheel? Is it clunky or silent?? Thanks The gearchange is silent and there is absolutely no clunk on mine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolandrat Posted April 6, 2014 Share Posted April 6, 2014 arjxh56 - 2014-04-04 9:07 PM The ECU is just a small box with a few sockets in it. Nothing special to look at. Since getting the van back I have noticed the gear change is almost silent. Previously, ever since I purchased the van, the gear change has been very obvious and noisy (clunky?) I thought the noise was normal and it was never mentioned at services. I am now wondering if it wasn't ever calibrated correctly?? I assume, and hope, the silent gear change is normal and means my van is working at 100% Does anyone else have the confortmatic box? Can you hear the van change gear when sat behind the wheel? Is it clunky or silent?? Thanks Can you let us know how much the ECU cost, you say that they also charged you for 3 hours labour apart from another 10 hours at a different rate? Surely it wouldn't have taken 3 hours to swop an ECU over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
armstrongpiper Posted April 6, 2014 Share Posted April 6, 2014 The changing of gears on my Autotrail Tracker is silent and clunk-free. 27000 miles on the clock. Neil B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arjxh56 Posted April 6, 2014 Author Share Posted April 6, 2014 Hi stalwart, I don't have a copy of the internal billing between fiat and NC but they told me the ECU was about £360 and then 3hrs labour. Depending on the year of vehicle, BBA Reman sell reconditioned ones and they can repair yours if sent in. I didn't ask them for a price as they didn't have one for my year, but it's only a phone call should you need to know. Glad to know the gear change should be silent, I must have always had a calibration issue then? Oh well, it's sorted now. :-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arjxh56 Posted April 28, 2014 Author Share Posted April 28, 2014 Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.... First trip out and I'm now broken down again with transmission failure light, same symptoms as I had prior to the new ecu. The only difference this time is that the light temporarily goes out... It then comes back again after a short wait. I'm not happy!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverback Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 bummer 8-) ask them to look at the connections where it plugs to the wiring loom if its had water damage they go green and give errors, then tell them to move the plugs to under the wing out of the way, then sheet all that area up with thick plastic sheeting and zip ties to stop more water ingress that's asuming that is the problem jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pampam Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Arjxh you poor thing were you off on a holiday? I know how you feel hope you get it sorted quickly pp :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveH Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 Superb thread - really good info - hope you get it sorted Arjxh - the technical input on here must be a great source of help and comfort. It has, with my own personal experience, certainly put me of these "steptronic" (?) gearboxes. We had one on a small Peugeot car and It was great to drive - I loved it - both in manual and auto modes. We had three years trouble free - Then we had new brake pads fitted and that involved disturbing the speed sensor on the front wheel hub. From that day on the ruddy gearbox was a nightmare - it would pop up "Auto Gearbox Fault" and you could not select any gear - but if you did manage to fiddle with it and get second gear you could at least drive it in a kind of limp home mode. But it refused to recognise 1st gear or reverse and speed seemed "limited". We did get it fixed by replacing the wheel sensors - but only in as much as it still happened but not so frequently. In the end we lost faith in it (it was bloody dangerous!) so we traded it in. What they did to "cure" it:- Disconnect battery for 30 min - this resets the ECU apparently - this worked for a few days and then the problem reappeared. Sprayed all the associated electrical connections - including the selector switches at the base of the "gear-lever" and the "Auto" on/off button on the dash with water dispersal liquid (WD40) - this worked best of all but gradually after a month - the problem came back again. But we did wonder if the problem was exacerbated by the fact that we were driving the car in some of the wettest weather I have ever experienced! - Water and ECU's - and ECU connected wiring and associated sensors was never going to be a good idea. When the interrogated the ECU sometimes said their was a problem with the "Valve Body". Many hundreds of £'s to fix and so we gave the ruddy thing a WD40 "bed-bath" and drove it to the garage (it drove faultlessly on this journey) and picked up another car with a bog standard manual gearbox! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pelmetman Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 Curiously we had some friends staying over the weekend, and they'd recently bought a Toyota with one of these steptronic gearboxes...............It also has problems where it will suddenly not select any gear, they have to switch it off and wait a few minutes for it to sort it self out *-)....................needless to say its been back to the dealer on several occasions without a cure :-|............. I have to say I found the gear change very rough when they took us out for the day.......... He intends to get shot asap as its downright dangerous and buy a traditional automatic, something the OP might be wise to consider? ;-)............... Progress eh?....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveH Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 Certainly my view Dave - the Auto box on the Discovery has done starship miles by now and apart from a Filter change and oil change at 100k miles it behaves totally as it should. And if it does pack up - I can easily pick up a reconditioned exchange unit and have it fitted at a fraction of the cost of just the labour bill cited above! Interesting that my experience of problems with our little Pug started when something was changed. Euroserv - I think stated that his two 100K plus tiptronic boxes did not have an oil change because this had been flagged up as causing problems. Seems to me that these 'boxes are only OK up to a point - after this arbitrary "point" most service people know sod all about them. Best for me to stick with tried and tested it would seem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arjxh56 Posted April 29, 2014 Author Share Posted April 29, 2014 Update..... The light has decided to go off (on its own i think?).. It was sat in reverse for a few seconds and the transmission failure light just went off. I have now been able to drive the vehicle home. Since then, i have had a few interesting glitches but the transmission failure hasn't come back. Firstly i had a scenario where i turned on the ignition to start the vehicle and it ran the checks, turned out the dash lights as normal, but then didn't engage the starter motor? just nothing happened. This happened a few times and then went back to normal after i turned it on and waited for a while longer than normal before trying to start the engine? Maybe i did something wrong on start up or maybe i was a gremlin? I have also had the vehicle started a few times on the drive and on one occasion it was dropping back into neutral from both forward and from reverse after a few seconds. I did have the driver door open and i didn't have my foot on the brake so maybe this is supposed to happen? Saying that, i haven't been able to recreate it. At the moment the vehicle has returned to normal, it starts up, drives, and works as it should. I am now concerned about using it as i am just waiting for the transmission failure to come back again! I am going to replace the earth strap again tomorrow, the one that goes from gearbox to chassis, but are there any others i should be replacing? I was told here is one form the alternator to the block but the only fat wire i can see on the alternator disappears in the plastic coiled protection of the wiring loom? I cannot see another earth from chassis or alternator to the engine block either, should there some? I have found the small earth wires under the passenger light fitting, fastened to the bodywork, there are quite a few of them. They have never been removed as i can see he paint sprayed over the nuts is perfectly intact. Should i take these off and clean them up or should i leave them alone?? The wires feel very hard/brittle and so i didn't want to fiddle with them unless i really had to. I have also noticed there is what looks like a thin black earth wire coming out of the wiring loom, attached to a large black canister, looks like a motor of some kind, that is next to the oil filter at the bottom of the engine. The large black canister has 2 very large red wires going into a black plastic connector and a small black wire connected to the can. There is also a wire strapped between it and another small silver canister about 20mm away.. is this the starter motor? Should i take that black wire off the large been tin and clean it up as it looks a little rusty. I have sprayed the earth wires/connectors/etc.. with contact spray, not sure this will help but tried it anyway? One thing i did to try to recreate the issue was to take the main earth wire (gearbox to chassis) off and turn the ignition to see if the gearbox light came on (i wondered whether if this earth was faulty it would throw the gearbox light on) .. it didn't, i just got a 'check glow plugs' message and flashing glow plug light.. I reconnected the earth lead and started the engine and the warnings went away and it ran normally. I am totally lost at what to check / do next... The new ECU made the van work perfectly for a while but there is clearly something else at play here. I wonder if the ECU wasn't the primary fault and something else caused that to fail?? Maybe the primary fault is still on the loose? I have noticed that the original transmission failure fault and then the recurrence after the new ECU, and all of the other glitches, have all happened after the vehicle has been driven and then parked up for a short while. Its when returning to start the vehicle that the warning lights come on.. It has never been that any of the errors or lights have occurred whilst the vehicle is running. Does this point to something specific, or is it just that this is when the vehicle run its checks and spots something it doesn't like? I guess once its running it doesn't check things until the next time you try and start it???? Anyway... I have a 4hr drive to do in it this Thursday evening so i wanted to try and do as much as i can to find/resolve the problem before setting out again. I have now been recovered twice on my breakdown and so i have only 1 recovery left this year before i lose my cover. I have notified Fiat that this error has reappeared and they tell me to take it back to Northern Commercials and leave it with them for further investigation. My only concern is that they have already billed me for 10 hrs investigation last time, plus the 3hrs that Fiat paid for, and its been made clear to me by Fiat that investigation work is not covered by goodwill so will be at my expense. Fiat will cover the ECU should that turn out to be faulty again? I don't have a money tree and so would like to try the 'basic' investigation items myself if possible. Please help! :-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arjxh56 Posted April 29, 2014 Author Share Posted April 29, 2014 OK, figured out the black canister is the starter motor.. :$ (I'm learning!) I will take the black wire off tomorrow and clean it up and re fit it.. just in case this isn't helping the situation. I also noticed the gearbox to chassis earth strap sparked when putting it back on? Is this normal.. I assume this is because the tracker, immobiliser etc.. are drawing power even when the keys are out of the ignition? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brambles Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 arjxh56 - 2014-04-29 11:24 PM OK, figured out the black canister is the starter motor.. :$ (I'm learning!) I will take the black wire off tomorrow and clean it up and re fit it.. just in case this isn't helping the situation. I also noticed the gearbox to chassis earth strap sparked when putting it back on? Is this normal.. I assume this is because the tracker, immobiliser etc.. are drawing power even when the keys are out of the ignition? I do not think cleaning the starter motor earth will make much difference, as the motor works fine. Yes, normal for main gearbox earth to spark as various things power up again. What I would do though based on past posts re this strap , is double up the earth strap from gear box to chassis, by this I mean add an extra strap from say the engine block to the chassis main earth point so you reduce the impedance ( resistance) of this connection. This appears to fix the problems often mentioned by Nick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arjxh56 Posted April 30, 2014 Author Share Posted April 30, 2014 Thanks for the quick reply. .. I assume you mean i have the usual gearbox to chassis earth strap as mentioned, and then attach another new earth strap to the same chassis point as the gearbox one, and then to a random bolt on the engine block somewhere? Should i also put another one on the alternator as this has been mentioned somewhere before too?? I have also seen someone mention a new earth strap directly from the battery terminals to the chassis point. Should i add this whilst i am at it as well ?? Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveH Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 Certainly the "belt and braces" school of thought would suggest this is sensible. I will bow to others greater expertise in vehicle electrics - but when fitting things like spot lights I always run the earth lead to the battery earth rather than rely on earthing via the chassis. I appreciate this is not so easy when you have substantial earth straps such as those you are dealing with. But relying on a chassis earth can be bad news. Also - how old is the battery? not sure if anyone has covered this??? - we had an intermittent problem on the Discovery with the Alarm and the immobiliser and it was because the battery was not holding its charge. I mention it because the circumstances were very similar to those you state - i.e. try to restart after a short run - I assumed this was because the battery was "going wobbly" after being charged. A new battery solved our issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pampam Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 Arjkx 56 if you are anywhere near doncaster stoneacre here are a fiat commercial garage who i discovered after our fiasco with our comfortmatic gearbox and the dealership who took TWO MONTHS and still couldnt find the fault in the clutch i only took it to dealership on breakdown lorry because i thought it would be under warranty ....what a joke ! We ended up trading it in and getting a new van with manual gearbox ......it was still on the ramp with gearbox out when we exchanged :in retrospect i would have asked relay to take to stoneacre but hindsight is a marvellous thing we had lost faith in van cos of gearbox anyhow but i would highly recommend the team at stoneacre (fiat commercial) even tho havent a van at all at moment good luck pp:)......... Oh yes the dealership was Brownhills Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brambles Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 Re engine earth strap from gearbox. The simplest way is to use a bit of flexible welding cable and have tags with a 6mm hole? added to both ends. The lead should be approx 10 inches long and is added in addition to existing strap from the chassis earth point to another bolt on the gearbox end plate. Check harnesses where they run past other equipment or flanges. I believe there is one harness whch runs under the headlight and in this area can be damaged...you need to refer back to Nick's posts s he has mentioned. There is also I believe a point on the harness where it is close to the wiper motor mechanism and can get damaged by the wiper mechanism so look for this. Connections to fuses boxes and Engine managemnet sytes can also be prone to damp getting in and corroded contacts so need checking, as well as damaged cables due to so many being in thr same proximity and some get stressed and can break. Treat all cabe cnnections with great care not to cause any damage, it very easy as so much force is needed to manipulate massive bunches of wires that one slightly shorter wire in the group ends up being pulled and damaged. DO NOT, go adding odd earthing cables willy nilly from various engine items to the chassis or battery zero volts, it could add more problems than it is worth and also be dangerous should main earthing for engine fail for any reason. Even some mechanic, be it yourself or not, disconnects the gearbox strap and trying to start the engine means all the starter motor current goes through your addition added earthing thin lead so it burns out and could go on fire. The chassis is used as the main earthing/zero volts point not the battery negative terminal. However make sure your battery earth connection is sound as well as all positive connections. Also make sure there are no items connected to the chassis also resting against the engine block gearbox or exhaust which could be adding an additional ground loop. For example a wire strap from exhaust to chassis, or say a heat shield for the exhaust is bent/detatched and resting against something connected to the engine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
euroserv Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 Hello, Sorry for the delay. I have just read the updates and it looks like some of our other friends are steering you in the right direction. I can say with some certainty that your problem is insufficient earthing. You need an additional earth strap, and here is how to prove it..... If the problem is regular and predictable; meaning you know that if you go out to the vehicle in the morning and it behaves in a similar way each day, there is a simple test to perform: Get a decent quality jump lead and attach one end to the earth stud under the bonnet. It sticks out above the grille on the nearside, close to the headlamp. Attach the other end to the engine. There should be a lifting eye visible at the gearbox end of the engine close to the end of the plastic cover or a metal hoop in much the same place; these are ideal. Make sure any excess cable is clear of any moving parts such as fans. You should now switch on the ignition and start the vehicle. If you don't have any warning lights, your need for an additional earth is proven. I should also say that normally when there is an earth problem the first sign is that the engine revs a couple of hundred revs higher than normal and gradually builds to this over about a minute, This is because the ECU is not getting enough earth (power) and believes that there must be something wrong with the alternator and tries to compensate by making it produce more power. There are many symptoms that are cured by the same solution. The addition of a second earth strap will not provide world peace or an end to poverty but it may well solve all of your problems! Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveH Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 euroserv - 2014-04-30 11:35 AM I should also say that normally when there is an earth problem the first sign is that the engine revs a couple of hundred revs higher than normal and gradually builds to this over about a minute, This is because the ECU is not getting enough earth (power) and believes that there must be something wrong with the alternator and tries to compensate by making it produce more power. . Now that is interesting - The Discovery does this but mainly when it is wet. Over this winter it obviously did it a lot. It has been better of late tho. Quick cure was manually flicking it over to LPG rather than the automatic transfer. But the tick over was still erratic which is a nuisance when reversing a trailer (the torque is so great we usually do this on tick over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arjxh56 Posted May 1, 2014 Author Share Posted May 1, 2014 Update.... There are a couple of conflicting snippets of advice so I'm not sure if what i have done is good, bad or ugly! I have removed the original earth strap and thrown it away. I could only get a 240A rated cable made up and i believe i needed at least 250Ah or more so i have added 2x brand new 240Ah (35mm2) rated cables from the original chassis point to the gearbox. Just out of curiosity i checked the resistance of the new earth cables and the old earth strap and the figure was identical. I have also added 1x 240Ah rated cable from the battery earth to the lifting eye mountings on the engine block. (this is the part that i see conflicting information about) I cleaned up the earth connection on the starter motor and sprayed all of the other chassis earth points under the wing with contact spray. Next I started the engine, with the door open and interior light on. As previously the engine starts, the interior light is average brightness, and the revs slowly creep from about 800 to 1100. When the revs hit about 1000 the interior light gets brighter as though the voltage has increased, the engine revs stop increasing at about 1100 and then drop slowly back to 800 and remain there. This all happens over a period of about 30 seconds. My friends Ducato of the same year does the same thing but is this actually normal??? I haven't seen the gearbox failure light come on since getting it home the other day. As you know i tried to recreate the issue before making any changes to the earth wiring and couldn't. I have since swapped the wires as described above and will use the vehicle and see if the problem comes back. I haven't seen any difference to anything after changing the earth wiring? I have not yet had the time to take the covers off and check the connections under the passenger headlights as i tried to do it last night and the heavens opened! I didn't fancy doing it in the rain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brambles Posted May 1, 2014 Share Posted May 1, 2014 You should not need to add a cable from battery negative to the engine mounting lug, I would remove it as could actually cause more problems that it is worth. It can cause undesirable ground loops. If it does cure the problem then it is because it is highlighting an issue elswhere so should be seen as a temp fix. Now the two main earth straps. Connect both to chassis earth point as you have, but connect to two different points on gearbox. Again there is good reason for this as it wil reduce effective resistance and impedance a lot. For all anyone knows it may actualy work because of high resistace in the alloy around the bolt for the 1st cable, adding a second to same point will have little effect. Using a separate bolt reduces the resistance of the overall connections. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
euroserv Posted May 1, 2014 Share Posted May 1, 2014 Brambles is exactly right. I did not (nor did anyone else) advise fitting any other earth leads between the battery and the engine. I don't think this would be a good idea. What i did suggest was trying a jump lead between the under bonnet earth point and the engine for the purposes of testing; IF there was a fault present on starting on a regular basis. In any case, what you have done (once the battery to engine cable is removed) is exactly what we have done in the past; what Fiat dealers were instructed to do and what we know works in almost all cases like yours. Try it. It is probably ok now. If not it's time to hit the wiring paying particular attention to anything that has been disturbed or un-plugged recently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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