MA13: Applause & Disaster

Fair warning: this post is going to be a bit more text-heavy than usual.
As you’ll probably understand after reading this post, taking photos wasn’t exactly our top priority while all of this was happening. Most of the time we were too stressed, too busy troubleshooting or simply too exhausted to even think about documenting things properly.
So instead of lots of pictures, this one is mostly about the story itself.

This post was tough to write, because it brings back some vivid memories. But let’s not jump ahead in the story. Then again, it only took 45 minutes to go from yaaay to noooooooo!

As you might recall from our last post, we were leaving the wonderful campsite where we had been tucked away under palm trees, enjoying a sunny day after a couple of rainy ones.

Everything was fine and we were in an excellent mood. After a little while, we drove through yet another small village. It was absolutely packed with kids. We figured school must have just finished.

Suddenly, the kids started cheering. Some even started clapping.

We didn’t quite understand what was happening at first. One thing was clear though: the cheers and applause were directed at… us!?

Then we realised.

We were in a very conservative area of Morocco and Kathrin was driving. And she wasn’t just driving any vehicle, but a rather large van. The kids were obviously not used to seeing that — but it was great to see how much they loved the idea.

I should add: Kathrin absolutely deserved the cheers and applause because she is an excellent driver. (No, she was not standing behind me with a gun 🔫 to my head while writing this. I swear. It’s true. Really. 100%)

After leaving the cheering kids behind, we reached a section of road where water had washed parts of it away. Nothing dramatic, but there were several long muddy puddles. We gave way to an oncoming truck and watched how deep the puddles were by looking at the truck’s tyres. It didn’t seem deep at all — maybe 10 to 15 cm.

Once the truck had passed, we carefully drove through the mud.

And Wilma made a loud DING sound.

The kind of sound you never want your vehicle to make. The kind that instantly gets your attention. The kind you will hate forever.

The display read:

CHECK ENGINE

CHECK TRANSMISSION

DRIVING ASSISTANCE SYSTEMS DISABLED

…accompanied by aggressively alarming icons that made one thing abundantly clear:

We are screwed 🖕.

Kathrin immediately pulled over. Our first thought was: let’s call our garage back home — our trusted mechanic.

Then came the next realisation: we had only bought data SIM cards and our German SIMs didn’t work in Morocco. We tried anyway and, by sheer luck, the call went through. Even luckier: the right mechanic picked up.

We weren’t expecting an instant diagnosis. We just needed to know what to avoid and whether we could safely drive even one more metre.

He confirmed that we should head to a garage ASAP, but that it was probably okay to continue driving carefully.

Google Maps revealed a FIAT Professional garage in Agadir only about an hour away. Plans changed immediately and we headed there.

Once we arrived, the local mechanics started reading the OBD (On-Board Diagnostics) logs straight away. After around 20 minutes they confirmed there didn’t appear to be any serious issue — probably just a temporary hiccup. They cleared the errors and sent us on our way.

Super relieved, we celebrated with a massive shopping spree after spotting a Carrefour just a few hundred metres away.

When in Rome.

Fully stocked up, we returned to our original itinerary and started driving towards Taroudant — our actual destination for the day.

We were just admiring Agadir airport when…

D I N G! 🖕🖕🖕

Once again the display read:

CHECK ENGINE

CHECK TRANSMISSION

DRIVING ASSISTANCE SYSTEMS DISABLED

This time it hit much harder.

Because now it was obvious: there really had to be a problem.

We immediately turned around and headed back to the garage, completely forgetting that it was Ramadan. We were swiftly reminded by the CLOSED sign on the door and the Ramadan opening hours underneath it.

At that point we realised we had no other option than to camp directly outside the garage — alongside about five other camper neighbours who were also eagerly awaiting 8am the next morning, when the garage would reopen.

At 8am sharp the next day, I marched into the garage, explained that we had already been there the previous day, explained that the issue had returned and explained — once again — that it had first happened immediately after driving through a large muddy puddle.

That last detail felt important. At least to us. We were desperately hoping this was simply a faulty sensor reading, a broken sensor, a ripped cable or maybe just some sort of electrical grounding issue.

This time official paperwork was filed. (Probably because I mentioned about 17 times that we were still within the warranty period.)

Two mechanics walked over to the van and the show began.

Mechanic number 1 — male — did not speak French. He also didn’t speak Arabic. He only spoke Berber.

Mechanic number 2 — female — seemed to speak both Arabic and Berber, which meant she became the translator. Unfortunately, since we didn’t speak Arabic either, we had to use a translation app to communicate with the translator mechanic.

This did not improve the situation. At all.

The chain of communication basically became:

German → translation app → Arabic → translator mechanic → Berber → mechanic

As you can imagine, quite a lot got lost along the way.

At various points:

Wilma apparently had a broken elbow.

Wilma had too much sugar.

Yes, Wilma suffered from many medical conditions that cars generally do not have.

Still, we had no choice but to continue.

After the mechanics once again insisted it was probably only a temporary issue, I pushed for a test drive — and they agreed. However, only the male mechanic came along.

Which somehow made communication even harder because now he had to interpret Arabic… a language he didn’t actually speak.

The test drive lasted around 90 minutes and for the first 65 minutes everything seemed fine. We slowly started becoming cautiously optimistic. The mechanic confirmed everything looked good.

“So God willing — inshallah!”

About two minutes later…

D I N G! 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕

Once again the display read:

CHECK ENGINE

CHECK TRANSMISSION

DRIVING ASSISTANCE SYSTEMS DISABLED

We returned to the garage. The mechanic checked everything again and tried to explain that he believed it was an electrical issue.

For another 20 minutes we attempted to get some sort of reassurance: could we continue driving or did we need to return to Europe immediately?

“No problem, no problem.”

He kindly gave us his personal phone number and assured us he would help us no matter what happened and no matter where we ended up.

Clearly, this garage had taken us as far as they could, so we decided to head to the nearest campsite, calm down and discuss what to do next.

Of course, on the way there…

D I N G!

All the warnings returned once again.

The hope that this was “just” an electrical issue was comforting, but deep down it simply didn’t feel right.

We had taken the full OBD report and emailed it to our mechanic back home. His first reply was not particularly encouraging.

The following day another email arrived. After thinking it over, he now believed everything pointed towards a transmission failure.

At this point it’s worth mentioning that Wilma has a ZF 9-speed automatic transmission — the very one that caused FIAT a significant number of issues until they released a software update changing the torque curve.

We had received that update only after already driving around 12,000 km — mostly in ECO mode, another factor suspected to contribute to transmission failures.

We decided to continue to Rabat, where Morocco’s largest FIAT Professional garage is located. We figured: if any garage in Morocco can help us, surely it’s this one.

The drive to Rabat, however, turned out to be extremely difficult.

Normally Wilma handles mountain passes without any issues, but this time things were very different. On inclines we struggled to maintain speeds above 60 km/h and a new warning appeared:

Transmission oil overheating. (🖕)

Yet another very clear sign that something was seriously wrong and that we were no longer believing in the “electrical issue” theory ourselves.

By the time we arrived in Rabat we were completely exhausted. After sleeping on it, we decided there was little point in trying the local garage.

Even if they managed to diagnose the issue, we had heard that spare parts often take a very long time to arrive — and if this really was a transmission failure, the wait could be even worse.

So, with very heavy hearts, we decided to drive straight to Tanger Med and take the ferry back to Europe.

Surely garages in Spain would be able to help us. 🤞

Rebooking the ferry was surprisingly easy. Within three minutes we had tickets for the next ferry and returned to Europe the very same day.

Unfortunately, the Tarifa/Algeciras area presented the next challenge. It’s incredibly hilly and mountainous, meaning we could barely drive anywhere without the transmission oil overheating again.

We researched several FIAT Professional garages, but the reviews were devastating. Most German reviewers described waiting weeks — sometimes months — for appointments, only to leave again with unresolved issues.

After another sleepless night of discussing every possible option, we decided we simply needed to get back to Germany.

Back to the garage we know and trust.

The plan was to slowly drive home.

That plan failed rather quickly once we realised we would probably not even make it out of southern Spain because of the mountains. Reaching France suddenly felt unrealistic altogether.

We called our insurance company, explained the situation and they sent a tow truck. We were towed to a garage and, since it was Sunday, were told to come back the next morning.

Monday arrived.

We walked into the garage and explained our situation.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No, we were towed here.”

“What is the problem?”

“Check engine light, check transmission light, transmission oil overheating, driving assistance systems failing.”

“We can’t help you. The vehicle doesn’t fit into the garage.”

🤬

Yes.

This was a FIAT Professional garage that could not service FIAT Professional vans because they were too large.

Fantastic.

Why we had been towed there was completely beyond us.

We called the insurance company again and explained the situation once more. The person on the other end sounded equally confused and admitted this was a first for them.

Normally, if a garage confirms they cannot repair the vehicle within three days, recovery transport kicks in. But since this technically wasn’t even an attempted repair, they weren’t quite sure how to proceed.

“We’ll call you back within three hours,” they said.

Three hours came and went.

We called again.

This time the lady on the phone could barely hold back her laughter.

“Do you insist on having the vehicle repaired in Spain?” she asked.

We explained that we had understood the decision wasn’t really ours, but that we had at least wanted to try before recovery became an option.

She informed us that the local agent had found an appointment at another garage — approximately 140 km away — in two weeks’ time.

She asked whether we wanted to accept that option.

The question was clearly rhetorical because she immediately followed up by saying:

“Recovery is definitely the best option.”

And that was that.

Wilma was picked up the next day while we made our way to Málaga, where there happened to be a direct flight to the airport closest to home five days later.

We ended up enjoying four sunny days in Málaga, which we desperately needed, before finally flying home.

Wilma followed four weeks later.

Another ten days after that, the garage called and confirmed what we had already feared:

It was indeed a mechanical transmission failure.

Wilma now has a brand-new transmission.

In the end, all the decisions we made turned out to be the right ones. Things could have gone very badly wrong had we tried to continue the journey.

One final thing to add:

At the time, all of this felt incredibly stressful. It genuinely felt like the world was collapsing around us.

But now that some time has passed, we realise it was merely a brief bump in the road.

And, viewed from a satellite perspective, it’s barely even a blip in an entire lifetime.

That’s probably the biggest takeaway from all of this:

Try to stay calm in the moment.

Try to think a little further ahead.

Because eventually you realise that every problem — no matter how huge it seems at the time — has a solution.