I've not been on the forum long and have been getting some great ideas, tips and inspiration from many of you GP owners.

I figured it be best starting a thread for my car so people can drop advice straight in here.

Story
I'm repairing a damaged GP which my dad picked up from a salvage site because I wanted a car with a tow bar for aiding me with house renovations etc.
I'm looking at doing some inexpensive cosmetics modifications to improve the car such as:

Lowering springs or second hand coils
Black rims - 17" or 18"
Vinyl front bumper
Vinyl roof
Re-do vinyl door pillars
Wind deflectors
De-badge grill / Spray grill gloss black
Abarth headlights (need advice as its 05 model)
Abarth rear lights


If anyone has any parts they wish to sell please give me a shout as I'm basically looking for ways to make this look as good as possible without breaking the bank. After all, it is a damage repair job.

Previous owner has obviously vinyled door pillars but they're peeling up

I removed door bump strips this weekend

Hey there!

Sounds like a nifty little project. Do you have the car now? If so, get some pics up, even as s/he is, as before/after shots always look great! Plans sound good so will be ace to see how this goes as time rolls by.

As for the wheels, IMO i'd say 17's are best. Certainly no smaller really, unless your on coils to do them justice. 18's IMHO are too big. They do fit, and i'm sure people have used them, but 17's look more natural on the GP (as said, IMHO).

As for parts check the classifieds. I happen to have some alloys for sale myself, black too. I have some new Team Dynamics JET RS alloys for sale, still boxed unused. I also have some used (2 slightly kerbed) Team Dynamics Monza Redlines for sale if interested, open to offers on these.

JET RS can be found in classifieds (under wheels iirc), MONZA Redlines can be found in my members motor thread (link in sig)

James


EDIT: typing this as you posted images. Love the car, and colour!

Wheel fitment help?
I know that GPs are a 4x100 PCD and a 56.6 bore but what offset do I need if I'm fitting aftermarket wheels?
Does it depend on the width of the wheel I buy?
Please can anyone list wheel widths and necessary offset?

Grande Punto offsets are ET35 - 45, mine is the 1.3 90bhp Dynamic and it's offset is ET 43, it says in the manual. I think you can safely go to 7.5J width but there's an offset calculator if you copy and paste this into your web browser:

1010tires.com/Tools/Wheel-Offset-Calculator

Can anyone tell me or point me in the right direction to find out exactly what wheel offset my 1.9D Mulitjet Grande Punto will have? I sadly don't have a manual for the car.

Few mods to show soon that I've done myself, will get pictures up soon:

Fly-eye rear lights
Vinyl front bumper (may re-do this as its not perfect due to bumper being on car)

I think the 1.9 GP offset is either 43 or 46, i cant remember...

Been on a weekend adventure to the Llyn Peninsula (Wales) and took a couple of pics of my car in its current state. The only mods I have done so far are the Vinyl Front Bumper and doing my rear lights in Fly-eye. Unfortunately the fly-eye has begun to come unstuck after only 2 weeks. Thankfully fly-eye agreed to send me a replacement set for free to re-apply - much appreciated!!!

Was having problems with the EGR valve as I was getting repetitive power loss or misfire around 2000-3000 revs when driving it conservatively :bang:. It felt like a juddering or kangaroo effect. Looked up the problem on here and saw the guide of how to clean out the EGR valve. Thankfully my dad is a mechanic and he's had this problem before with the 1.9D Sporting that my brother had a year or so ago. The car now runs MUCH better, with only a very rare blip here and there. Will see how this progresses.