Punto MKII rough when cold

If it struggles or takes longer than usual to fire from cold, and its cold idle is abit slow til it warms slightly, then go straight to the coolant temp sensor.

That said, its a Fiat, so expect no end of electrical gremlins,

Tim..

It does struggle, but it feels like it's missing a beat or something. It's very similar to when my HG went, I guess in that case I was getting water into one of the cylinders. The issue takes about 10-30 seconds to clear and then it's back to normal again. The drive home today was the first time the issue persisted beyond 10mph or so and performance was very poor. My guess is it's getting worse, so RAC expect a call!

Like you're saying, it's a Fiat so it could be anything electrical. I'm hoping somebody can say "ah yes, it could be this mechanical component that costs only a couple of quid" ;)

It might be less cruel to just take her to the vets and have her put to sleep.

Regards,

Tim

Is it going to confuse things if another Tim contributes to this thread? My 1994 Mk1 Punto 75SX broke down yesterday, with symptoms that seemed to indicate a HG failure (and on restarting it, was obviously not firing on a cylinder or two). However AA man checked compression was okay, and found two of the plugs weren't sparking, so I've just bought a pair of coilpacks (£23 each from Partco, 1/3rd the price from a FIAT dealer!) as well as new plugs and leads, and am hoping that fixes my problem when i fit them tomorrow.

I suppose it's possible that you could have a problem with a coil pack that goes away once the engine has warmed up? or indeed, a problem with plugs or leads?

Coil packs are funny things.

I had essentially the same engine in my Cinq. Sporting - coils fine driving to work, but one failed when I went to drive home.

It's a relatively common failure of a mass-produced (ie. not Fiat specific) part.

Hmmmm, the temp. sensor has already been mentioned, but also consider the air-flow meter and the idle control valve.

ICVs cause no end of problems on TSpark Alfas, as does the air-flow meter.

And before anyone pipes up with 'it's a Fiat', these are off the shelf parts and the issues have affected all manner of other brands.

A few months back I swapped the throttle body (contains the idle motor I believe) with my other Punto. Didn't fix the erratic idle problem, so I swapped them back again.

The air temp sensor looks easy enough to swap, an air-flow meter isn't in the index do it come by another name? Sorry I'm just a spanner monkey who follows what Mr Haynes says step by step.

With regards to 'it's a Fiat', I've had a couple of Puntos and they've between them they've managed to tick off most common Punto issues between them. Unlucky I guess (if that's what you would call buying a Punto in the first place, a bit like saying 'unlucky' if you put your hand in a fire and get burnt). Actually to be honest, I think they're much nicer drives than the wife's 2006 Fiesta Zetec. Better fuel efficiency (assuming it's not blaggin'), much quieter (well except the massive array of rattles and squeaks that I just can't get too), comfortable (although I do have to take the seats out every 6 months to repair), better storage space (erm, I found the unused under seat storage had managed to fall/snap off, a few larger washers were required to reattach where the plastic had snapped) and loads of space under the bonnet for those inevitable DIY repairs ;) If I didn't have to fix this car every 6,000 miles I'd love it.

Regards,

Tim

Sorry - bit of brain fade. I was thinking of the Bosch MAF that's fitted to MPI engines. Yours is SPI, as I recall, so has a single injector that's effectively just a stripped down carburettor under ECU control.

Erratic idle is quite often caused by a Lambda probe.

Might be worth finding a local Fiat / Alfa indie and getting it hooked up to the code reader - it'll be cheaper than chasing dodgy sensors.

the later puntos suffer from ecu problems, funnily enough i did one on Friday, same symptom as yours, the diagnostic pc came up with misfire coil

1, ive not yet done one where it hasnt been the ecu, it bolts onto the back of the throttle body, you could be lucky though with just a coil. If it does go down the ecu route it needs to be re-programmed to the vehicle, which can be done by yourself. they are expensive though, Fiat do a recon one for the pricely sum of £350.