Fiat Ducato - wayward temperature guage

[Eric Mc]

I have a 2005 Fiat Ducato based Bessacar and I noticed yesterday that as soon as I turned on the ignition, the temperature gauge shot straight to top temperature. As the engine wasn't even turning yet, it seems to me that the fault has to be with the gauge or the underlying sensor rather than there being any actual engine overheating or coolant problem. Does anyone have any idea how I can check this for sure?

[stevensdrs]

Unplug the wiring connector to the sensor on the engine. Usually near the thermostat housing. If the gauge stays at zero then the sensor is faulty.

[Eric Mc]

Would you know where the thermostsat is located? It's a Fiat 2.8 TD engine.

[mattcov]

They have a fault where sometimes you need to disconnect the ribbon cable on the dash cluster. On the cluster there are two screws and it comes towards you - disconnect the ribbon cable for couple of mins and reconnect. Normally though, it would probably go to half way instantly rather than full, but worth a try.

[Eric Mc]

How easy is that? I had a look yesterday under the bonnet and couldn't identify a cable like that. I'll have another look today. Thanks for the help so far.

[Eric Mc]

Realised that the way to access the cable and connections was through the cab rather than under the bonnet. The instrument binnacle is located by two allen screws on the top of the unit. Once these were removed it was easy to tilt the binnacle forward and access the connector behind the temperature gauge. It all looked nice and clean with no signs of corrosion or pest ingress so I just made sure that the connection was pushed in correctly and that there no loose wires.

When I turned the engine back on, the needle seemed to behaving itself.

Fingers crossed.

[mattcov]

Sorry, should have explained - what you did was correct - when I had this I disconnected the ribbon cable for a bit and reconnected - although what happened on mine was that it would go half way instantly.

[Eric Mc]

Would spraying the connections with a "connection cleaning solution" help?

Such as this?



Tried the ignition again yesterday and the temperature needle continued to behave. Hopefully, the "fix" has worked.

[mattcov]

I wouldn't bother. I've only had to disconnect it once, there was some talk of static build up or something daft causing the problem.