Hi All.

I'm brand new to this forum, so if I'm in the wrong place feel free to re-direct me.

I bought a Punto last year after always having a soft spot for them. It's an 05 1.2 16v Active Sport. 55'000 miles on the clock which was good for its age. I saw it's MOT history on the DVLA including all previous advisaries, at the time of purchase it had just passed it's MOT with no advisaries.

I seem to be having a recurring problem. The Engine Management light will come on and this coincides with the car losing power, juddering and generally running badly.

When I first took it to the garage, they gave it a full service including changing the spark plugs. The light went off and the car ran fine for about 6 months. Then the same problem re-occurred. Back to the garage. They couldn't identify a problem although they did say that oil had accumulated on one of the spark plugs (I think it was 3) They cleaned it and again it started to run fine. They did warn me that if it re-occurs it could be due to the piston rings or something else sinister. Another couple of months passed and it is happening again same symptoms.

What could it be? What would be the consequence if I just cleaned/changed the spark plugs every couple of months? Could it be worn piston rings? My Dad has a feeling the previous owner may have ran it without sufficient oil. Could there be a less worrying cause??

Thanks

does the car use a lot of oil ? I had similar problem on a Mk2 A 1.2 8V and replacing the plugs cured it each time, the giveaway was that the car used to burn a lot of oil, very smoky on start up or if coasting down a hill under engine braking. Ultimately though the rings went which killed the engine.

Scudmonkey said:

does the car use a lot of oil ? I had similar problem on a Mk2 A 1.2 8V and replacing the plugs cured it each time, the giveaway was that the car used to burn a lot of oil, very smoky on start up or if coasting down a hill under engine braking. Ultimately though the rings went which killed the engine.

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what led to that? bad maintenance of the car or?

Maltreatment by a previous owner, if i'd spotted it when i bought the car....i wouldn't have bought it

fingers wrote on some topic that you can check for bad piston rings by removing oil filler cap on warmed up car , if its fuming out, rings are bad

There is no obvious smoke that I'm aware of and I don't think it uses more oil than I'd expect???