Imagine yourself driving peacefully on board your Alfa Romeo 156 and abruptly an engine warning light appears on your dashboard ! The typically seen kind of reaction is the worry of risking a major trouble. To know what accurately this light corresponds to, you will have to learn how to read an Alfa Romeo 156 fault codes, you may have already heard about OBD system, this is precisely what we are going to discuss. Our writers have decided to produce this content page to help you fairly quickly find the origin of this default code and to give you reassurance. To accomplish this, we will first look at the nature of a fault code on Alfa Romeo 156, then how to read an Alfa Romeo 156 fault code, and finally how to erase this fault code in order to turn off the light on your dashboard.

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What is a Alfa Romeo 156 fault code?

A fault code is a generic or standard code common to all automotive companies , they are also named DTC (Data Trouble Code), the objective is to guarantee that any diagnostic OBD can translate them. They will be represented by a standard format, such as example: P0255. Each data will have a precise meaning. Default codes are codes issued by the calculators of your Alfa Romeo 156. These ECUs will constantly monitor your vehicle’s exhausts, pressures, mixtures and when the values exceed the limits set by the vehicle’s ECU, the fault code will emerge. The advantage of understanding how to read a fault code on your Alfa Romeo 156 is that you will have access to specific info about your vehicle which will enable you to discover what issue you are struggling with.

How to read a fault code on my Alfa Romeo 156?

In this second section we will now focus specifically on what brings you on this site, how to read a fault code on Alfa Romeo 156. To access this precious data you will need to to purchase a diagnostic tool, also named OBD 2, named after the socket on your Alfa Romeo 156 to which you will have to connect. These diagnostic tools are easily obtainable, you will be able to find some in Bluetooth version which connects to your phone and some standard versions with a reader associated to the socket, as far as price is concerned, you will be able to find models between 30 and 100 euros. Once you have obtained an OBD2 diagnostic reader, you will need to identify the diagnostic plug on your Alfa Romeo 156, it is established on the left side of your steering column on the lower part of your dashboard, behind a hatch. It is easy to locate because it is triangular shaped and has 16 pins. All you have to do is connect with your diagnostic tool to read the fault code of your Alfa Romeo 156.

How to erase the fault code Alfa Romeo 156

Finally, to conclude this document, we are going to demonstrate you the methode to execute to erase a fault code on your Alfa Romeo 156. Once you have navigated through the menus, you will access the list of active fault codes on your car. Nevertheless, you will have to ask yourself an essential question, is it really productive to erase this fault code on Alfa Romeo 156? Absolutely, erasing a fault code without fixing the trouble corresponds to burying its head in the sand. Moreover, the computer of your Alfa Romeo 156 is made to take decisions depending to the data it collects, if a crucial fault code is on, it will likely adapt the engine overall performance to protect it. So if you erase the fault code, be sure you resolve the issue to which it is associated. Some OBD diagnostic tools do not allow you to do this. You have a dedicated navigation menu on most diagnostic tools that should allow you to clear this fault code on Alfa Romeo 156.

If you want more tutorials on the Alfa Romeo 156, go to our Alfa Romeo 156 category.