Hey everyone, I recently purchased a pre-owned 2004 Fiat Palio Adventure sport 1.6(petrol) ( estate version of Palio ) and I have certain issues with it. I live in New Delhi, India.

Firstly, sometimes when I start the car, black smoke comes out of the exhaust for about 2-3 seconds then completely vanishes. This issue does not occur everytime I start her, but sometimes.

While in bumper to bumper traffic, with the Aircon ON, I stopped the car along the road side as I had to buy some stuff. Getting back again, I started her and she would not idle. I had to press the gas pedal to maintain RPM above 1000 and limp her home.
This issue occured two more times, during both times AC ON and lots of traffic.
The engine would start, the rpm needle would fly up, and just as it would come below 1000, it would shut down.
waiting around for 5 minutes and then starting her up again and the problem does not occur.

Can any of the members please throw some light on the issue?
Thanks
Cheers

First: have the ECU read for stored faults.
Again, I suspect the Idle Air Control valve to be stuck or broken.
It is integrated in the throttle body, so you have to take it of to clean it.

Oh, and welcome here btw....!!

Thank you so much Peter for your diagnosis.. Will get the ECU checked first and then the IAC valve as you have suggested. Being a complete newbie when it comes to cars and mechanical stuff, I read on the internet that something like this could also be related to a fault in the Lambda/o2 sensor.. Is that true?

Yes, that's very well possible, but again, only after reading the ECU you'll be sure about that.

You bought this car recently. When was it last serviced? Do not forget the basics, fuel filter, air filter, plugs etc. That black smoke could be over fueling caused by a dodgy injector. Peter's checks should identify this.