So Fridays job was a little bit different, This Fiat Ducato Motorhome was flashing up a warning light on the dashboard. The P code showing was P250A which is oil level sensor, nothing sinister about that.
However, this vehicle wasn’t fitted with an oil level sensor and this was confirmed by Fiat as well! There’s no fitment for one in the sump and no wiring for it either, this all transpired after the vehicle had a new Auto gearbox fitted (it was fine previously)
The owner was a bit perplexed as indeed i was as well, non of it made sense other than, did the gearbox specialist flash the gearbox ECU and mistakenly altered the main engine ECU as well, know one knows as the gearbox specialist in Mansfield refused to comment on anything once the vehicle was collected.
I suggested that because there was no physical way to extinguish this annoying symbol on the dash that we try to delete the P Code associated with it i.e P250A. There Marelli 9DF ECU’s are a pain in that it takes 90 minutes to read via OBD, i usually take them out and boot mode them as it’s quicker, however in the end i read the injector codes etc through OBD so a long wait was ahead!
The good thing about these Marelli ECU’s is that even in OBD mode you do actually get all the information from the ECU, hence why it takes so long! So the P code deleted and file written back, all looked good! I started the vehicle numerous times, had it in gear etc all great! Job done!
Two hours later the customer was on the phone again, upon him starting the Fiat Ducato, the light was back on instantly 🙁 So back the nexday to check it all over again and i could see the same P code fault, a little head scratching later i used a different solution from MagicMotorsport that has a DTC delete software online, comparing the 2 files back to back i could see my error (it was my error) and a new flash to the ECU was conducted.
Light went off instantly and thus far (40 miles and 3 days later) it hasn’t come back on, fingers crossed it should stay off! Doing P Code deletes is usually not recommended, i certainly wouldn’t recommend doing them, better to fix the problem than hide it, but in this instance it really had to be done. The moral to the story? Always find out the full facts of the job before carrying out any work, plus just because you think it’s worked doesn’t always guarantee it to. Still, all sorted in the end and at a price a lot cheaper than any other option! Remap-UK to the rescue!
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