Hi there. So my Fiat Stilo Abarth has been sitting around for a month and I decided to take it for a little spin this afternoon just to keep the cob webs off her.

She was absolutely fine the last time I drove her and she was running perfectly after an expensive and extensive service.

Anyway, acceleration is not right. I put the gas pedal to the floor in 1st and second and third and the acceleration was very poor and unresponsive. Revs are still high, she just isn't moving anything like she should be. I've no warning lights on my dash.

She starting perfectly every time. She's idling absolutely fine too. She's not stuttering or anything.

She's a Fiat Stilo Abarth Manual.

Any ideas what this could be?

This is going to sound completely retarded but you have remembered to take the handbrake off? :/

I would have said MAF sensor was dirty, is there a map sensor on the Abarth as well?

Back to the handbrake for a moment...maybe it sitting there for a month has caused the mechanism on the caliper to seize?

yeah, are the calipers seized? dodgy air filter?

Easy test for binding brake. Drive about 15mph on a quiet level road and put it into neutral. Car should coast along easily with no noise from brakes.

Ok folks, thanks for the replies so far. It's not the hand brake. I just drove her and stuck her in neutral whilst I was driving. There were no problems there.

Ok, so I thought I'd better plug my lead and laptop into her and see what came back. Interesting enough, I've got these two Error codes. Apparently, Fiatecu scan told me these two errors were sent as warnings to my dash board. I definitely didn't have any errors.

Anyway, here they are.

P0300 Misfires detected ( reason for fault is ECU received very high signal from sensor.

P0305 Cylinder 5 misfire. ( same as above ).

What's people thinking then? Any ideas? Many thanks

Ok folks. I've now sorted my problems out. The fuel in the tank had gone off. I just stuck £25.00 in the tank with a bottle of redex.

It's now flying again. I'm a very happy man. Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?