Hi all,

I am new here but I own an 07 Grande Punto and I love the car to bits, its my first car and I've had no problems with it so far. But, recently I have been having an issue when cold starting, the car starts, but then seems to struggle to keep itself going for a split few second and then it suddenly begins to idle normally. On a few rare occasion it has actually stopped completely and then I need to start the engine again. This mainly happens on colds starts but sometimes happens on a warm start.

Looking around online, some people suggested it might be spark plugs or a bad fuel pump/filter. But I am not really sure.

Also, it doesn't seem to be consistent and can happen when it wants which makes me even more confused...

Has anyone else suffered with this problem or something similar that might be able to help? Because if it is something serious I don't want to leave it till it is too late!

It would be much appreciated!!!

Thanks!

Hi Spencer (I guess), sounds like missfiring, have you at least cheked the sparkplugs ?? The electrodes should have a 0.7mm gap and be grey(ish)/brown(ish), the colour will indicate the fuel/air ratio; white: too lean, black (carbonated): too rich. The risk of running too lean mixture is elevated internal temp (not seen on the dashboard indicator) possibly leading to destroy valves or even pistons ! Running rich will "only" hurt your wallet and eventually clogg-up parts of the engine.
If your car is equipped with individual sparkplug coils, I would check for lose connection/humidity. If you could source coils from a running ok GP (borrow from a friend/neighbour) just swap them with yours so you can narrow the problem down.
Would be interesting to run MES (MultiEcuScan) at startup to check if it sees something wrong...

Cheers, Bernie

Hi Bernie,

Thanks for the reply! I have checked the plugs and they seem perfectly fine, but it is still doing it. I have the car under warrenty with the garage I purchased it from, so I am taking it back on saturday to try and solve the problem before it gets out of hand! I don't want destroyed valves or pistons!!!!

Kind regards,

Spencer

Hi Spencer,

good to hear it's still under warranty, so don't touch it !
I'm curious to see what's the diagnostic...

Regards, Bernie