superfun Punto

Well.. the story goes... driving home from school yesterday and the car dies.. pull over and try to start it, nothing. Called out Britannia motor rescue thingy today and he confirmed that the cambelt had snapped said that I'd have to get a new engine :s so yey.. now I can't go to see the lost prophets and I dont have a car.. Gotta love FIATs

what punto is it ?

noo that is horrible what punto was it ??? you sure you need a new engine some puntos have safe engines cambelt snaps just put on new one and no damage is done.

if its an 8v engine you will not need new engine, it will not need to be stripped to see if vales are bent, like it says above its a safe engine that means its imposible for the pistons to come into contact with the valves so all you have to do is set piston 1 at topdead center set cam so both valves on nunber1 cylinder and fit a new belt, its very easy with a haynes manual there are markes on out side of engine to line things up.

yep, as dave says, all you need is a cambelt! and the guys supposed to be a mechanic you say? lol

must be like the tv mechanic "it looks like a car thats been driven by a boy racer" lol!

It's a 97 P 55s.
w00t If you're all right.. damn well hope so think you've made my day.
All i've had is trouble with this car.. I was planning to sell it after xmas then this happens... here's to hopeing its not fubar'd.

Yeah the guy was an S&H Breakdown recovery guy. I turned over the engine and he says "that doesnt sound right does it?" - duh?
Then he just pulled cam cover to one side, pulled out the broken belt and explained that some plates or something could of bent and it'd mean a new engine

The 55 engine is indeed an 8-valve unit so you should be OK, get a decent independent garage to check it out though if you don't know much about fixing cars. But like Dave says it should be fine with a new belt fitted and timing marks set up properly. God knows what "plates" the guy's on about though.

Bet you're gutted...the Lost Prophets are quality! Oh and what is "w00t"?!?!

Well me and my step dad are going to have a go I think, not spoken to him about it yet. The guy must've been talking ****, not to bothered tho.. he was nice enough to pick me up from school when the car was half way between school and my house :P
Lost Prophets do rock, I don't mind too much.. I saw them at leeds fest
w00t is a geek/gaming term, like yey to normal people.

"A shout of exciment from a geek, nerd, and/or dork within the internet.
Woot! I owned that dude!" - UrbanDictionary.com

new belt and tensioner is around £15, and its a 10min job to time it up. easy peasy

10 min job? Says in the haynes manual that you have to take off the front wheel aswell as other bits.. might take us a bit longer
Anyone know how much a garage might charge for doing this ?
or if anyone lives in the doncaster area who knows what their doing

hmm ok maybe more than 10mins, but it really is easy. u dont need a garage to do it

max time it will take is 1.5 hours if you havent done 1 before its very easy though.
you are not alone in getting bull from a garage, my mates work has a 1.1 punto and cambelt went i offered to do it but they wanted a "proppa" garage with vat recipts to do it, he took it in and they said it will be £650 minimum. he called me straight away i rang the garage quoted fiat forum told them its a safe engine, guy said oh thanks for telling us we never new it was safe we would have stripped the engine down for nothing it will be less than £100 then, sharks of course they knew fiat have used that engine for years, they was gonna pretend to strip it and rip him off.

My step dad is working away atm and I have very little spare time so it may have to wait until next thursday.. no doubt ill be back with more problems in the meantime
It's annoying that theres so many cowboys out there and so many people actually pay the retardedly high prices they charge for next to nothing in terms of actual work.

thats why its good to have this forum hopefully we can save people from the scammers