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Hello, and advice for 2.0TS please

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20ts
1K views 11 replies 8 participants last post by  gazza82 
#1 ·
Firstly wanna say hi to everyone, i have been pointed towards this forum from Pistonheads, so hello!

I recently (around a month ago) bought a 156 2.0TS, and am (mostly) loving alfa ownership. However the fuel injection light keeps coming on. I have taken it to Ken Ball (alfanatics) twice, one just to assess the warning light, and once for a cambelt (which turned into spark plugs and a exhuast cam shaft too :wow: ) at which point he plugged into the diagnostics as well and turned the light off.

The trouble is he tells me he cannot tell me what is wrong, and i dont want to keep paying just to have a light turned of if there is nothing wrong / if the problem cannot be diagnosed.

The engine seems to run fine (other then being a but tappety on start up), and the the light does go out after a while before coming back on a week or so later.

So does anyone have any suggestions? I've been told i can download the diagnostic software and buy a cable to plug a laptop in, if so can anyone post a link to where i can get these from :D

Thanks all, James
 
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#4 ·
The trouble is he tells me he cannot tell me what is wrong, and i dont want to keep paying just to have a light turned of if there is nothing wrong / if the problem cannot be diagnosed.

The engine seems to run fine (other then being a but tappety on start up), and the the light does go out after a while before coming back on a week or so later.
If there is fault code, it can be read what it mean.......change the garage....there is no problem that cannot be diagnosed....
 
#5 ·
Not sure about the diagnostics bit. (I need to do buy that too.) But i had the noisy tappets on start up too for a while.
Now, i may get some grief for this, but i put Slick50 in during an oil change about 40, 000 miles ago and haven't had that noise since! Although i always switch to MAR before putting my seatbelt on, then starting it, just to give it time to wake up.
Some peolpe swear by it and others warn against it, but ive used it in all my cars and its always worked a treat.

May be worth giving it a go.
Good luck with the warning light...
 
#8 ·
Thanks for the replies everyone.

Speedmaster, i saw the print out and some of the faults were "unknown" and others were to vauge to pinpoint a specific problem. He did mention something about an idle control valve though but the idle issue seems to have sorted itself out now.

It's not the variator as this was also changed during the cambelt, i was hoping that this was the problem and it would go away when the variator was changed but unfortunatley not.

The light went out on the way to work this morning, so its definatly intermitent. If its a sensor can it just be ignored until i'm feeling a little more affluent?
 
#9 ·
If it is the cam sensor, then you'll need to get the belts changed again .. so it's not cheap. I've got this on mine. The problem on mine is very intermittent and doesn't appear to be affecting the performance when on ... so I'm going to leave it until the next belt change which will probably be next year.

A duff battery can also throw up spurious errors ..

BTW if alfanatics can't tell what the error is, you need another mechanic .. ;)

And if you are looking for free diagnostic software, try FiatECUScan. Haven't used it myself yet, but some on this forum have. You'll need the same VAG-COM KKL interface cable as AlfaDiag.
 
#10 ·
Yeah you need a garage with examiner,

my local garage could see faults with their computer and clear them, but no information whatsoever about what they were. These bog standard computers are meant for run of the mill cars and not Alfa's.
 
#11 ·
Thats pretty annoying, its not affecting the performance at all on mine either, but obvisouly i wasnt planning on changing the belts for another 3 years.

Alfanatics came quite highly reccomended, they're the closest alfa specialists by quite a way, but from what you guys are saying maybe i should look elsewhere :confused:

Thanks for the tip about the free software too, will try it!
 
#12 ·
Depends on the model .. but the earlier cars (pre-2004) didn't have a standard diagnostics system which is why you need AlfaDiag or FiatECUScan (or Unidiag but I've struggled with than one).

Alfanatics are probably still OK .. but may need to look at getting a different diagnostics system. Examiner is ££££s which is why garages don't want to invest, but a cheap laptop with one of the other packages and a KKL cable off ebay (or from rarebear) would be just a good .. and possibly better. They might be appreciative of the info ...
 
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