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Nutting in particulate

I have a 1.3 Multijet diesel, Lounge spec and took delivery of my cherished car in April 2008. It has done less than 3,000 miles and its annual service was carried out in February 2009 by Souls of Bletchley (the supplying dealer). There had been no problems apart from the oil light staying on and a number of the other warning lights coming on during a journey a couple of months after the service. I telephoned the dealer as instructed in the handbook and took the car straight in. I waited while they sorted the problem out. They advised me that the car's computer just needed to be reset and that this sometimes happened after a service. Last week my husband dropped me off at an early appointment and when he was driving the car home he noticed blue and white smoke pouring out of the exhaust. This rapidly got worse and the car filled up with smoke, severely limiting visibility. He almost immediately pulled into a bus stop, switched off the engine and took the key out. The car did not stop, in fact the engine revs increased and only after three or four minutes did the revs stop. There was so much noise coming from the engine my husband thought it was going to blow up. The car was towed by the AA back to the dealer. The following day the dealer phoned my husband and asked him for permission to examine the engine further. My husband contacted FIAT customer services who were unable to clarify the situation other than saying that permission had to be given by the customer. I should also mention that the dealership had no record of the car coming in for its computer to be reset. Since then my husband has made repeated calls to the dealer who has made no effort to keep us up to date with what's happening and seem to have no idea what is wrong with the car. The only information the dealer has given is that he thinks an injector is at fault. I feel very nervous now about getting in the car in the future unless I am confident they have thoroughly investigated and fully repaired the fault.

Asked on 28 November 2009 by

Answered by Honest John
It's quite a widespread problem with the diesel particulate filter. On 1.3 Multijets driven short distances the particulate filter clogs up and the extra fuel introduced to the combustion chambers to burn off the particulates ends up in the sump, contaminating the sump oil and eventually raising its level to a point where the engine starts running on its sump oil, and because it's a compression ignition engine, the engine cannot be stopped. Owners are warned on page 94 of the handbook that the ‘oil exhausted’ warning light flashes for about 60 seconds to warn of oil degradation long before the level gets too high, so they need to pay attention to this. FIAT has asked me to forward all instances of the problem to its customer relations department and I have done so, though have not heard back from FIAT.
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