ePER: The Catalog Behind Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Lancia Parts

What ePER actually is

ePER is the electronic parts catalog for the Fiat group marques, published by Fiat Group Automobiles, the company that is now part of Stellantis, and it is the system our Fiat and Alfa Romeo catalog pages name as Stellantis ePER. Its manual, still online on Fiat's own parts help site when we read it on 28 August 2026, describes it as an application used by the Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Fiat Professional, Abarth and Lancia dealer networks for consulting the group's technical catalogs. The same page says it runs in a browser over the internet or an intranet, or from a DVD that has to stay in the reader while you use it, and that around eight editions of that DVD are distributed each year with the updated database.

That DVD is why a search for ePER turns up release numbers with dates hanging off them. A disc is a photograph of the data on the day it was pressed. It will not resolve a VIN from a car built after that date, which is the same limitation the old Renault discs carry and the same reason the web delivery is the one that answers on a current vehicle.

The marque list above is ePER's own. Our coverage is narrower and worth stating plainly: the Fiat catalog on VINsearch covers Fiat, and the Alfa Romeo catalog covers Alfa Romeo and Lancia. Both sit on ePER, so they open the same way and use the same numbering. Learn one and you have learned the other.

How a lookup runs in ePER

Type the 17 characters into the VIN box and ePER answers with a window of vehicle data before it shows you a single part. The help documentation lists what comes back: the MVS or SINCOM code, the model description, the engine number, the vehicle number and the production date. Confirm that vehicle and the catalog then shows the parts and products compatible with it, with the vehicle's main features displayed at the top of the screen in the Active filters section.

One field in that window deserves a sentence of its own, because it is the one nobody recognises the first time they see it. MVS and SINCOM are the group's internal codes for the vehicle version, and the manual lists that code first among the main vehicle data ePER returns from a VIN. You are not expected to decode it, and nothing printed on the van carries it. Its job is to tell the catalog which version of the model it should be filtering down to. The habit worth building is to copy it into the job card next to the VIN, because when a supplier or a colleague comes back a day later asking which build you were looking at, that code and the production date settle it in one line instead of sending you back through the VIN search to reach the same screen again.

The alternative route is where the mistakes come from. You can pick a model and go straight into a catalog without giving ePER a vehicle at all, and it will show what its own documentation calls the unabridged version of the catalog, with no filters applied. Nothing on that screen is inaccurate. It is every part that model was ever built with, so it is correct for somebody's van and possibly not for yours, and it looks exactly like a filtered result to anyone who has not been shown the difference.

So the habit is small and it holds: before writing down a number, glance at the top of the screen and confirm the active filters are populated. If that strip is empty you are reading the whole model, not the vehicle.

Production date is the field to respect out of that list. It is the build date, not the registration date, and on a range like the Ducato that has run for years with rolling changes it is what separates two vans registered in the same month.

Eight digits, and what the shape does not tell you

Fiat group genuine references run to eight digits, and the ranges beginning 5 or 7 are the common ones. That is the format our own OEM lookup holds for the Stellantis Europe family, alongside twenty eight other manufacturer families.

What eight digits will not do is identify the group. Plain eight digit numbers are used by GM, Stellantis Europe, Volvo and SAIC alike, so the shape is shared rather than a signature. Our lookup reports every family a number could belong to instead of picking one and sounding certain, and on a bare number off an invoice that is the honest answer.

That is the situation worth having a routine for, because a number with no vehicle attached arrives more often than anyone plans for. A customer forwards an eight digit reference off an invoice from four years ago, or a supplier quotes a figure over the phone and nobody writes down which catalog it came out of. Our OEM number format lookup takes the bare number and reports which manufacturer families use that shape, which narrows the question rather than closing it. What closes it is a VIN opened in the catalog the number most likely came from, and if the shape comes back as shared across several groups, that is the moment to ask for the VIN rather than the moment to order and find out.

The contrast that matters on a Sevel van is with the PSA convention. Peugeot, Citroën and DS references are ten digits and usually end in 80, and that ending is distinctive enough to be a real signal. When a number ending 80 lands in a Fiat conversation, somebody is quoting the same van from the Peugeot or Citroën side, and the sensible move is to establish which catalog the number came out of before anybody orders anything.

The van question: one Ducato, several badges

This is where the money is in this family, and it is also where a wrong catalog costs a day. The large van is built by Sevel at Val di Sangro, Atessa, in Italy. The joint venture dates to 1978 and production started in 1981, and a Stellantis press release sets out that history. The Ducato, the Boxer and the Jumper come off that line as one vehicle wearing three badges, and the same design is built elsewhere under further badges, each of them with its own parts catalog on its own numbering.

Read the table by the badge on the vehicle, then open the catalog in that row. Every one of these is in our set, so the lookup is a change of tab rather than a change of supplier.

The Movano row is the one that catches people, because a workshop can be right about the badge and wrong about the year. Our Renault van guide works that boundary in detail, including the Nissan and Vauxhall names on the same vehicle. What matters on this side of it is that a Movano from 2021 opens in the Fiat catalog and not the Renault one.

Where the badge stops mattering and the VIN takes over

The badge does one job and then it is finished. It decides which catalog you open. After that the VIN decides everything, and treating the badge as though it still carries information past that point is what produces the near miss part.

One example from this family makes the point better than any rule. The Fiat 500X was built at Melfi alongside the Jeep Renegade, and the two are close relatives under the panels. Nothing on the outside of either car announces that, and the badge gives you no way of telling where the shared engineering stops. The Lancia Ypsilon on sale now went into series production in 2024, and Stellantis sells it in hybrid and fully electric form, so the same question is already live on a car barely two years old.

Neither observation licenses ordering across the badge. A close relationship tells you where to look when a number is on backorder. It does not tell you that two parts carry the same reference, and only the catalog can confirm that. Our guide on part number interchange sets out the different relationships people call interchange and which of them is the manufacturer actually speaking.

The reverse case is just as common and less discussed. Same badge, same model name, different part, because the build changed mid life or the market specification differed. That is exactly what the production date and the active filters in ePER exist to settle.

Lancia is effectively one nameplate, and it changes how you search

The Lancia range has been narrow for a long time and the Ypsilon is the car that keeps turning up. The current one arrived in 2024, and Lancia has been reopening European markets around it. The practical result at a parts counter is that most Lancia work is Ypsilon work, with older cars appearing occasionally and without warning.

That is why the Lancia data sits inside the Alfa Romeo catalog on our side rather than standing on its own. It is the same ePER data on the same screens with the same eight digit references, reached through the Alfa Romeo entry. Anyone hunting for a standalone Lancia EPC ends up back at ePER either way, because Lancia is one of the marques the group catalog serves.

For the current car, the note to carry is about supply rather than lookup. A part on a current Ypsilon may be a Stellantis small car component that also appears elsewhere in the group, which affects availability far more than it affects the lookup. Look it up as a Lancia, order the reference the catalog gives you, and let the availability question follow afterwards.

Fiat model names that are not versions of each other

The 500 family is the one that generates wrong orders inside a single brand. The 500, the 500L and the 500X are separate vehicles rather than trim levels of one car, and they do not share a parts list. Someone who books in a 500 and is handed a 500X is looking at a different vehicle with a different assembly under the same three characters, which is why the VIN goes in the box rather than the model name.

The Ducato is the other name that hides a lot of variation. Lengths, roof heights, gross weights, panel van against chassis cab, and the converted bodies built on top of it. A motorhome or a Luton on a Ducato base is a chassis or platform cab in the catalog, and the Ducato is the base under a large share of European motorhomes, so this comes up far more often here than on any other van. Everything above the chassis rails came from the converter. Our Renault van guide sets out how that conversation with a converter runs, and the approach transfers to this side without changes.

Panda, Tipo and Doblò have their own generation boundaries in the same way, and none of them announce it from the outside. The general rule holds across all of them. A model name gets you into the right catalog and no further.

The order of operations at the counter

The sequence that survives a busy Friday is short enough to memorise. Badge first, because that picks the catalog. VIN second, because that picks the vehicle. Active filters checked, because that proves the vehicle took. Then work down to the assembly table, read the reference off it, and follow the replacement chain before you order.

Two extra habits pay for themselves. Take the production date off the vehicle data window rather than the registration document, because the build is what the catalog is keyed to. And when the van in the yard is a Sevel van, write the badge down next to the number, so the eight digit reference and the ten digit number ending 80 never end up in the same email without an explanation.

For a mixed workshop the argument for one login is the same as it has always been. A week that contains a Ducato, a Boxer, a Movano and a Giulia needs four catalogs, and running four accounts to answer four phone calls is not a workable way to spend a morning. VINsearch opens 53 official manufacturer catalogs from one login, on a $5 day pass, $50/month or $500/year.