My cousin has a fiat punto 1.2 2001.

When he starts his engine(engine maintenance light on)the car starts to shiver and when he tries taking off he must push the gas pedal very hard so the car can move. The exhaust also seems to be making strange noises.

when he is driving the engine maintenance light starts to flash and then it goes back to stable again. He told me that this problem started after he has a engine wash on the car??

Is this a possible miss fire?

Any clues anyone or advice? I told him about Fiat forum and told him how great it was.
Thank you in advance.

Water in the electrics... ECU?

Do you think so my cousin will not be happy with that im sure. Where is the ECU anyway? I washed me engine before and its perfectly fine.

any other possibilities?

engine ecu is waterproof

but he definitely got water somewhere

check the 3 pin plug dangling near the back right of the bumper it's a connector for models with air con

it shares the same 5v feed as the map sensor and it has an earth

if the 2 become partially shorted it causes this fault

other things may be lots of water around the plugs and leads but surely this would have evaporated buy now


thing you can do are with the ignition off unplug every plug you can see in the engine bay inspect them all and fill with wd40

then try

pay close a tension to the lambda probe wires

Ah so that is what that bloody connecter is for! It's the only stray one in my engine bay and i couldn't figure out what it was for. Cheers pip!

H2DaE said:

Ah so that is what that bloody connecter is for! It's the only stray one in my engine bay and i couldn't figure out what it was for. Cheers pip!

Click to expand...

it's worth filling it with silicone if you know about it just to prevent this fault after all it's in all the much and **** on the road

FeRRaRi_oNuR said:

My cousin has a fiat punto 1.2 2001.

When he starts his engine(engine maintenance light on)the car starts to shiver and when he tries taking off he must push the gas pedal very hard so the car can move. The exhaust also seems to be making strange noises.

when he is driving the engine maintenance light starts to flash and then it goes back to stable again. He told me that this problem started after he has a engine wash on the car??

Click to expand...

I'm guessing it's a 1.2 8v, not a 16v?

If one cylinder was misfiring it would generally rev ok (the average person may not even notice it), and even drive, though obviously a little flat.

If it's at the point where you need to rev it hard before slipping the clutch to pull away (and top speed is around 40mph) then it suggests that two cylinders are down (especially if it sounds like a motorcycle v-twin ).

Common causes are-

1. HT leads (though unlikely that two fail together)
2. Ignition coil (two coils fitted to the 1.2, each feeding two cylinders)
3. Fuel inj. ECU (Fiat had issues with mk2 Punto ECUs where over time the coil driver components would fail causing one coil to stop working through having no switching signal)

What happens next depends on how mechanically minded your friend is!

Ideally you'd get the error codes read (Fiat Dealer or otherwise) to narrow down the fault establish what the cause is, otherwise it involves trial and error to work out which two cylinders are playing-up.

This can be done by removing each HT lead in turn with the engine running and looking for no change in engine note with a lead off, or even easier, if it is a coil/ECU fault you can disconnect one of the coils and see what happens- no change... that's the fault! (though the cause may be a bad connection/ failed coil or faulty ECU).
Please Note: Whatever is disconnected will cause an error code to be logged in the ECU which can hamper a Tech's diagnosis if you later decide to opt for a garage to look into it.

The diagnostic procedure to determine if it is a faulty coil or ECU is listed at the top of the Punto section.

Be wary of someone who condemns the coil- get them to confirm it first by swapping the coils around (the fault should switch cylinders- if not, they're wrong and it's probably the ECU).

The management lamp flashing while driving is a warning to signal that a serious ignition failure is occuring which is flooding the Cat with unburnt fuel which will kill it! Do not continue to drive it about!

Engine maintainence light on & 16mpg

I've had this mk2 Punto(52) since new and had no problems with it. That is since I took it for a full service and cambeltchange at 20k to a local fiat specialist. After this the engine light has been on and 14 mpg. Ok said the garage needs a new lambeda, ok so £80 later new lambeda but problem still there. Went back in and after a days fiddling about with the car it was ok for 3 weeks. Went to the petrol station and filled up and then mpg drops rapidly to 16 and shortly after engine light comes on. Garage has tried to blame me and the petrol. Can anyone help or suggest anything.

well were not here to be judge & jury but more info would be helpful.Was it a fiat garage,cambelt at 20K?...bit early,everything connected ? Does it start/run ok?

Re: Engine Maintenance Light on..16 mpg

Hi
I was due a full service so I opted for a cambelt change as the car was 5 years old even though I've only done 20k at the same time. This is a fiat specialist and not a main dealer. All parts are fiat, i'm told? Price was competative.

When the service was done it was taken for an MOT, which it failed on emmisions. A quick change of a lambda an it passed.

Next day the ecu light comes on. I go back to the garage and they tell me to let things settle down.

2 visits back and the car is running rough, hunting and smelling of petrol, 14mpg.

3rd visit , car is fixed ok and shows 30-40 mpg, 50mpg on the motorway.

3 weeks later fill up car at petrol station (3rd time) and the mpg drops to 16 very quikly and next day light comes back on, smells of petrol.

So its gone back to the garage.

Any clues or help.

So what your saying is that its worse after you fill it up wth petrol? Is smell of petrol from inside or outside (or coming in through vents) have a quick look (takes a minute) at breather pipe on left side of engine it fits in underneath the airfilter.They often come lose or split.

T14086 said:

So what your saying is that its worse after you fill it up wth petrol? Is smell of petrol from inside or outside (or coming in through vents) have a quick look (takes a minute) at breather pipe on left side of engine it fits in underneath the airfilter.They often come lose or split.

Click to expand...

Question: But would this breather pipe issue cause the engine MIL lamp to illuminate? The reason I ask is that my girlfriends car is displaying the same initial error mentioned at the start of this post (Vehicle is a 04MY Punto 1.2 Active). I would love to hear what the fix was for the engine light ON, as her Mil light only flashes at high speeds.

I currently have the vehicle at the Fiat garage at the moment on its second visit. Last week they had it in for the engine light flashing at 70mph and the fix was new spark plugs. Well that didn't fix it so its back again today:bang:, and they are now trying HT leads. The PCM has a general ignition code logged (They didn't tell me the powertrain code) but to me I feel the HT leads aren't going to do anything.

Any help would be gratefully received


Regards Mark.

P.S. The vehicle drives fine at all times even at 70mph.

T14086 said:

Probably P0300 generic misfire...plugs/leads logical way to go to cure fault.

Click to expand...

Well we picked-up our Punto yesterday for the second time after having new HT leads fitted. I then drove it home on the motorway, but as soon as we hit 70mph the engine Mil lamp came on "flashing" again (And I thought Christmas was gone).

I'm having to call Fiat again this morning to see when we can get it back in again for the third time. It's getting to the point where I feel I may as well trade it in as its costing me time and money alone with just picking the vehicle back up again.

Question: Does anybody know the next step to fix this lamp issue. On the Fords its usually the Hego or EGR sensors (Plus others, but not as common).

Regards

Mark.

Since hunting for more info on the P0300 code within Google I found this link back to my favourite Fiat forum website (see below link)

https://www.fiatforum.com/punto/72577-ecu-fault-p0300.html

NumanR returned this interesting post (below) as we underwent a Cam belt change last September (When we purchased it), but never took the car on the motorway until recently.
Ok the error is detected because the engine ecu sees a misfire due to the fact that the phonic wheel pattern has changed when the cam belt was changed. The phonic wheel is on the crankshaft pulley and is removed during the cam belt change, because it never goes back in EXACTLY the same place the pattern obtained by the rpm sensor does not match the one stored in the ecu, and at higher revs a misfire is incorrectly detected.

The car needs to go on examiner and have a reset of the engine ecu carried out and then a phonic wheel learn procedure carried out, this will cure the problem.

Regards NumanR


[SIZE=+0]If this is true then surly the reset of the engine PCM and the phonic wheel learn procedure should of been carried out as part of the investigation procedure last week (1st visit as they did the Cam belt job). We have just had confirmation that the Fiat dealer is now unable to see our vehicle again until next Monday. (What a joke, its a good job we don't treat our customers like this ).[/SIZE]
Mark.