[DGO]

Thanks for your thoughts. Battery fully charged. I'll run an alternator test at the weekend.

As far as I can see the Fiat engine doesn't suffer from the wiring issue on the aircon pipe

Has been suggested to me that the connections to the front fuse box/earths at the front might be a problem. Has been snowing and raining here since I last used the car and suddenly I have issues

 

[DGO]

Well I had half an hour to have a quick look this morning. With the faults there are more issues than I had found initially. Indicators, screen washers, door unlocking from the fob (I'll replace the battery in case) and high beam don't work - but the doors do unlock and lock with the touch function.
1. I checked all the fuses in the front fuse box - all were OK and the fusebox is dry
2. I "wiggled" (technical term) all the relays to make sure they're seated. Do the relays just pull out?
3. I found 3 earth points, 2 just in front of the fusebox and the jump start one. The latter looked a bit corroded, I cleaned and tightened all 3. The main power at the front under the red cover is also clean and tight
4. I checked the rear fusebox and battery. It's dry there too but I didn't get a chance to check all the terminals and body earth connections yet

Started the car but no better. Had another thought and pressed the ignition "on" (press button start on my car) without my foot on the brake pedal and left it for a while until all the checks stopped and then started the car - success for now at least.

So there are some more things I will be doing, hopefully at the weekend:
1. Does anyone know where the main engine earth is on Gen 2 cars?
2. Is the HID earth still in the same place behind the grill at the front of the engine compartment? Might have to take the bumper off and check everything under there
3. I need to have a look under the fusebox in case there are any more connections underneath
4. Battery and alternator test to run - my code reader has a specific function to test this
5. I'll check the connections in rear fusebox and the battery at the back of the car too.

 

[DGO]

Thanks. I will try swapping some of the relays around and check the terminals aren't corroded. I'll see it I can setup a way to test them too

Will have a search around the engine for the earths, first time I've had to crawl around the VM Motori diesel

Thanks for your help so far

 

[DGO]

Only the 3 codes I listed unfortunately UO104 (Cruise), U0121 (ABS) and U0212 (SCCM). Definitely seems like a power or communication problem to me, given it just suddenly happened

 

[DGO]

Well just maybe....

After several hours checking relays and fuses front and back, followed by disconnecting the battery to reset the systems in the car, checking the earths at the back of the car by the battery and the rear fusebox. Each time no further progress, still No ACC, no FCW though somehow I have managed to clear the wiper and indicator problem (sort of).

So by mid-afternoon yesterday I was thinking I must check the ACC sensor as that's used in both the cruise and front collision system (I believe that's very expensive to replace). So I looked for it behind the grill where it is on Gen 1 without luck. Thought I might end up having to pull the front bumper off next weekend 🙁

Anyway after some internet searching I found the sensor, it's inside the black dome down next to the front fog light. Mine had a piece of leaf stalk about 4 inches long wedged in the slot and sticking across the front of the sensor slightly off centre. There's a horisontal slot to let water drain off the front of the sensor housing (guess it needs that being sealed and so low down on the car). It looks like I must have picked up debris in the rain last week. Pulled the stalk out and cleaned the outside of the sensor housing. Since I did that I have tried the car several times yesterday and this morning - so far no issues at all

It would be mad, but just possibly understandable, if that was the cause. I'm wondering whether, as the sensor goes through its checks when the ignition is first turned on, it was getting a confusing signal and causing the car to throw codes.

Still need to do the alternator and battery check and to rescan for codes but so far so good!!

 

[DGO]

I guess it does make sense that failure of a sensor on startup should throw a code but multiple issues being caused by something so simple seems crazy. I guess that's a feature of us driving computers on wheels these days

So far so good, it has been four days and I have used the car each day without the problem reappearing, I was worried I was in for a £1000+ sensor (hope I haven't spoken too soon!).

Going to do another code scan and a battery/alternator test over the weekend. But yes I do hope anyone having a similar problem in future will try cleaning the outside of the sensor housing first!!

 

[DGO]

Well I did speak too soon

Been out this morning and I'm getting U0212 fault (Lost Communication with SCM) again but this time the symptoms are different - This time it's knocking out the instrument panel !

The problem goes as follows:
1. Get in the car and all looks OK.
2. First press of the ignition (ACC), systems start up - all still looks OK
3. Foot on brake and start car - still all seems to be OK
4. About 5 or 6 seconds after the car starts up the instrument panel goes dark - all lights out, speedo and rev counter stop working, EVIC goes blank
Stays blank until the car is switched off - then there's intermittent lights around the speedo and rev counter and the instrument needles twitch even after the car is locked

I've disconnected the battery to see if I can get the systems to reset after an hour or to but this is getting beyond my detective skills now!

 

[DGO]

I had a similar problem with the instrument panel/wipers and interior lights, several years ago after hitting flood water at high speed on the motorway. I discovered splash marks on the Front Control Module (FCM) and the problems vanished after the car was left to dry out for a few days.

I don't know if the FIAT engine has a similarly located FCM which could be liable to water ingress - maybe through connectors, but this module does control a lot of functions.

Thanks for your thoughts. I moved the car so it sat in the sun over the last couple of days and guess what - it's working again (for now).

Anyway if that's the fix then I need to do on a water incursion hunt! More fun this weekend

 

[DGO]

Well I'm resurrecting my old thread. Haven't used the Gen2 for about a month. Went out this morning and started her up. Similar message as above when I started this thread - FCC not working, service adaptive headlights and wipers wiping even though the switch was off.

So remembering this I turned her off and tried again, same problem! Turned off again, went outside and cleaned the dome in the front bumper which had a really small piece of leaf stuck to it. Can't have been more than 1/4". After cleaning - guess what..... fault cleared.

Seems to me that the FCC sensor is extremely sensitive to matter that disrupts it and causes some odd errors, at least in my car.

 

[DGO]

What year and engine is your car?

Mine's a 2014 and a diesel (still manufactured in the same plant but the engine is different). I started a second thread (Link) after I had another fun time earlier this year, though I only had 6 codes.

I tracked the latter set of problems to two issues:

1. There was a dodgy relay in the front fuse box which I found by moving the relays around and tracking where the error moved to (inside the lid of my fuse box it has details of the circuit that the relay handles). I didn't have a relay tester to hand otherwise I would probably have tested the relays out of the car first. In the end I got the relay problem to the AC circuit and replaced it for less than the equivalent of $10

2. On my car there are two big connectors for the wiring looms which sit towards the back of the engine bay (example in photos below). I disconnected these, cleaned the connections and reconnected them; I believe there's another one down somewhere by the transmission. I saw a video (which I can't find again at the moment - sorry) about a Ram truck with a strange set of electrical communication issues which was tracked to one of these connectors. That inspired me to try the same. The mechanic in that case recommended cable-tying the two halves together to make sure you get and keep a good connection. I haven't had to do that yet.

I have heard of bad earths causing problems (are you in an area with salted roads in the winter?) and failing alternators (there was a recall on certain model years at one stage), did they test yours or just read codes?

You can check your car recalls here: Link

Hope this helps