Fiat 500 Power Steering, steering wheel airbag removal, steering clunk issue, changing key battery 

Most welcome Salvatore! A synthetic grease works well because it does not dry up.

You’re welcome Jon I hope it helps. The steering clunk issue is a widespread problem and it can often be resolved with repacking the shaft overlap with some synthetic grease that will not dry out.

Just mark the shaft bolt head position and shaft connection with a magic marker, remove the hex bolt (behind the gas pedal) and pull the shaft up, lubricate it well with white lithium grease and put it back, torque it down to its original position, it may just go away. This is very common problem.

@@fiatofgreenville Thank you!

It’s possible that the battery is either low charge or the terminals especially the negative has some corrosion on it, take those off and inspect them very well and then try to again. If you have the original battery they only last about four years

@@fiatofgreenville thank you but I fix the problem I removed the esc fuse and power steering fuse they were not blown but had signs of arching burn marks cleaned them off and now I no longer see the indicators on but it's only been 10 mins since I've done that. I'm aware that its quite possible that it's only a temporary fix. Also found out that the brake switch underneath the brake padel sometimes are faulty went ahead and replaced it some people had said that had fixed the problem as well. The part is only 8 dollars

@@fiatofgreenville but thank you I'll still take that under consideration incase it happens again

Hi Mike I think will make it easier for you is to take the knee airbag out, remove the steering wheel assembly, carefully take off take the clock spring out and disconnect the intermediate shaft in the back...then you really have just two bolts and you can work the unit out without having to bring it forward just drop it down toward the pedal area.

many thanks to you John, i will try it

So the whole front panel doesn’t have to be taken out in order to change the steering motor? I.0

Hi Barry., I had an issue similar on mine before it finally stopped working. My suggestion is to really take a look at your battery and it’s condition. You may have a weak battery especially with a cold so if the battery is more than three years old I would consider changing it, or at the very least clean the cables connections especially the negative ground. If you can get under the car to clean the two wire mesh engine ground strap connection points that would be helpful. I have been buying a NAPA #7547 legend series battery that has 660 CCA which is far better than the Fiat 500 CCA battery and it’s often lower in price.

@@fiatofgreenville Hi John.thanks for the reply. I bought the car with 80k Sept 2018..and all was great within first week after driving to work, I turned the key and lights on but no crank no nutin! Long story short this happen 4 or so more times over the course of the year with a few tows later, we replaced the starter and cleaned out the shifter assembly. I heard about that mesh part and my mech friend replaced that part.so far so good. He told me the power steering is electric. The battery is 1 year old. So, I was hoping you might know. Do you think replacing the power steering assembly might help. Its got 94k on it now. I was told as a preventive measure to replace the timing belt? Thanks for your advice. I subscribed to your channel too!

@@Barrycomedian1 just make sure your grounds are good on the mesh strap and also you can slightly loosen the starter bolts and then retighten to make sure there’s no corrosion around them. The battery post connections are very important because they can be the cause of a number of false codes. Replacing the steering unit is not easy as you see in the video. You’ll see a big red wire connecting the steering assembly right near your left knee sitting in the driver seat, make sure it is plugged in good, it could be a simple as that.

If you take the video and go to the nine minute 50 second mark you will see the terminal connections under the steering unit.

@@fiatofgreenville thanks John..Im going to show the video to my mech. Appreciate it...be safe!

Rotate steering wheel to expose the bottom bolt on the intermediate shaft behind the gas pedal. Mark bolt position so you can return it to the exact same placement later.Take the bolt out of the bottom of the intermediate shaft it is a 17 mm socket and be sure to mark the bolt position before you remove it so you know exactly how much to tighten later. You don’t need to take the shaft out from the top just the bottom connector Lift the shaft off of the lower connector and then pull to extend it fully. Use some synthetic grease like Super lube (shown in video at 11:30 mark) on the inner shaft moving it back-and-forth several times open and close to try to get as much grease in there as possible. Reconnect the shaft at the bottom put a little blue Loctite on your bolt and reinstall.

No I believe they’re all the same. Remember you’ll have to swap out the key switch. It’s been pretty rare to have a power steering unit failure so I will just make sure that you don’t have some minor issue somewhere that is causing it not to work. Try swapping out the battery with one it’s for sure good because a weak battery could cause a power steering to not work.

@@fiatofgreenville Was diagnosed by her dealer as needing a new module for $2650 but I'll give everything another check. She does live in a area with cobblestone streets and drives like a maniac, so all that vibration might have contributed to a failure. ;-) When I was looking around for solutions online I noticed there are services in the UK that will rebuild FIAT (and other electric) power steering modules for you, wish people did that here. I'm guessing its as simple as a failed resistor or bad solder on the board but everyone wants to throw the whole thing out rather than try and track down and fix the actual issue.

I don’t think it makes any difference if you have a pop sport lounge or Abarth model donor car. You will have to change the ignition key by removing the bolts as shown in the video. I don’t think it’s possible to swap out the electronics so it’s better to get a complete unit. I would check LKQ or pull apart yards because you can buy those units for less than $100. I was just saying that be sure to check all fuses related to it and like I said a weak battery could cause the power steering unit to at least temporarily fail.

@@fiatofgreenville Thanks for the reply and info not sure I'd try doing this without your video. Got the old unit out today, gonna put the "new" one in there tomorrow and hope it all works.

@@hozjo it’s not that bad just take your time as I said in the video the special offset box end wrench will help you get the two bolts loose