Well it has done so well for 12 months now, after the head gasket but we are off again now, it has started doing a jerky thing seems to happen when it is under presure, as in pulling away from a junction and you need some gas, same going up a hill, foot down and it jerks occasionally when overtaking as well but not often as you have wound it up by the time you pass anyway.
it does it hot or cold doesn't matter (I seem to think it is slightly worse in the cold) once the revs have picked up it setals again and is ok, expressway driving fine. Starts fine, ticks over fine. had new plugs and leads 4 months back no injector light, doesn't feel or sound like a missfire, if you where to go back to the old days I would guess at a carb problem something like a semi blocked air way or jet, it is not a flat spot it is actual jerks, feels like it wants to get away but can't you have to bring your foot back off the throtal then is will setal.
I wondered if it was lambda probe giving up after all the water that went through the exhaust last year, but to be truthful I would have thought it would have shown up a lot earlier than this, the car does over 300 miles a week 90% of it expressway so it is above 70mph, any ideas?
Chris
Oh yes it is a 1999; 1.2cc; 16valve; 1,115000miles standard engine

which car is it?

has it really done more than a million miles?!

i would check for another head gasket leak using a compression tester. it is not unusual for it to happen again a year after a repair.

also check the plugs are securely fitted, one or more may have worked loose over the last 4 months.

Oopps to many numbers 115038.
And it's a Bravo 1200cc
Plugs tight, leads tight.
chap accross the road said last night poteniometer that sounds like same thing happend to his daughters Brava, changed the meter and bingo runs well, I know it is jerky first thing in the morning going down hill no throtal always has been and still is nothing changed there, but seems to play up on full throtal pulling up hill or out of a junction, when the head gasket went last time it became flat and slightly jerky at full throtal but that was on the express way on the flat the warmer the engine got the worse it got till you where on half throtal and no more, and it was pushing water out of the exhaust.
this time works well on expressway on the flat passes ok no flat spots, no water loss nothing from exhaust, seems to be at it's worst when moving slowly and a coldish engine the one thing I have noticed the temp gauge does not go all the way to half any more it sits about half a block under the half and the heater is not as warm as it use to be, I wouldn't have thought that would affect the running as of yet, fuel economy does not seem to have changed, need to sort out the jerky thing though as it does my head in you always wonder when it start it "god is it going to breakdown"

what rpm does it idle at when warm, and what rpm when cold? is the idle stable in both cases?

Not sure about cold it is about 1500 but it hunts a bit until you rev it a couple of times, then it seltles around the 1500 mark but it is not there for long at all it drops quite quickly to 1000 then to I would say it is 800rpm, once warm the tickover is steady at 800rpm
However occasionally it does again on expressway and you are shooting along at 70 then you come accross the usual A55 roadworks so you come to a stop in the que the tickover will stay over 1000, usually around the 1200 mark, this is a pain the in the arse then as you have to fight with it to keep a slower speed then all of a sudden we are 800rpm again, doesn't happen very offten just a pain when it does, yet it starts in any weather be is cracking sunshine to a good coat of white frost on it I can open it up reach in put the key in and turn spins for a couple of seconds and up she comes with no touch of throtal, that is when it hunts a bit a couple of blips on the throtal fine, warm tickover 99% time 800rpm.:yum:

excellent, we're getting somewhere. clean inside the throttlebody and replace the throttle position sensor / idle speed actuator (they are both the same part) with a scrapyard part (£5-10)

Wouldn't that put an engine warning light on though? just a thought as there are no warning lights on even when it is messing around.
Thanks anyway I am being to feel the same now as well "getting somewhere"
Chris

Thrisey said:

Wouldn't that put an engine warning light on though?

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in my experience this fault never brings the light on or results in any codes getting stored in the ecu unless there is a total failure. the vast majority of faults are due to a worn track on the TPS and that is not a failure that the ecu can detect, it is simply wear and tear.

Thanks for your help Jug, will look into it and let you know outcome.

Hi jug
TPS on it's way to me £58 from a scrap yard in warrington I think it is, none locally should get it in the next few days.
It was worse this morning as it is cold, windy and raining, most times passing this morning you could feel it mildly jerking, real pain today, temp gauge was a full block off the half this morning (on the cold side) tick over 800rom, but every now and then now that I am watching on tickover it seems to have a bit of a shudder, doesn't show on tacko but you feel the engine shudder, last about a second.
Don't know if this is realated to the problem in question or just a case of the engine being high in miles and a bit grouchy.
I know it is very difficult to diagnose from an email so IO am trying to remember and watch for all the silly little things that may give a clue, the last it went to local Fiat dealer they said it was fine no faults on ECU it has a high mileage engine it will be flighty, 2 days later it lost all water on the expressway through the exhaust on the way to work, so they didn't even check what I had asked them to do, the lads here put a water tester on the expansion tank, it it turns blue there are exhaust gasses in the water which it did, BRIGHT blue as well, which is when we noticed water running out of the exhaust tail pipe.
One of the Seat lads thought it might be the MAF sensor playing up or the fact that the water temp is not reaching maximum temperature so in effect it is running cooler than it should do as in this morning a whole bar cooler today so the ECU can't get the mixture right, but these are just guesses as the lads here have no idea how intellegent or un-intellegent this Fiat system is. Some of the Sport Seats are well on the way to being as intellegent as Audi who are almost driving themselves now with all the onboard software.

Surely exhaust gasses in the cooling system and water coming out of the exhaust pipe say :-

"My Head Gasket's gone"?

I did 2 years ago, last year we had the realease bearing eating its way through the presure plate, nice!!!!
To be fair I didn't know it was blowing water it just ran like a bag of cack going into work, I had already done the Fiat thing and asked them to look at it as it was flat as hell and running quite hot and seems to be losing some water!! no its fine they told me ECU shows no faults we tightend up your plastic plug on the rad, it is bound to be crabby look at the mileage on it and it's a Bravo they are crap......
2 days later, bag of cack, got into work, not boiling well the car wasn't I was spoke to the VW tecs and the rest they say is history!
Having said that when we where also Renault, the tecs use to say the same about Renault, crap cars, never have one, yet my wifes Renault Coupe has run for 5 years now never missed a beat!!! so you half expect it but not to spot the busted gasket, as the VW boys said there is no compresion in 2 cylinders this would have shown up if they did a compresion test as low presure over two, especially if it was losing water and running hot, it is a standard test for that complaint when there is no water leak to be seen!
Seems it has a sensor problem now, which at first glance I thought no problem but I am begining to think this could be equally as expensive by the time we find it.
Can you buy a fault code reader for a 99 Fiat, most of the ones I have looked at read 02 and above, there was one on BBA reman website which said it would read pre 02 Fiat, but at over two and half grand I thought it was a bit expensive to say the least!

Thrisey said:

TPS on it's way to me £58 from a scrap yard in warrington I think it is, none locally should get it in the next few days.

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wow, i usually pay £5, maybe £10 at a posh yard. is it too late to cancel?

Thrisey said:

2 days later it lost all water on the expressway through the exhaust on the way to work, so they didn't even check what I had asked them to do, the lads here put a water tester on the expansion tank, it it turns blue there are exhaust gasses in the water which it did, BRIGHT blue as well, which is when we noticed water running out of the exhaust tail pipe.

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head gasket leak, definately.
its very common on the 1.2.
i had it repaired for £170 last year so expect to pay roughly that much.
make sure the timing belt is changed too.

I have confused the situation, the head gasket was done nealy 2 years back at aproximatly £450, including head skim and presure test and cam belt.
Clutch was done last Christmas at £300.
as far as we can ascertain no exhaust gasses in the coolant as the bulb stayes yellow, doesn't appear to be losing water, cylinder presure test show ok this time,
to late for the TPS, why does it sound like another problem now, when I first bought it 5 years ago it use to rev its trollies off quite often and the little black box which I now know to be the TPS use to click like mad, a good bash with a screwdriver handle stopped the over reving imediatly, and the clicking stopped, a few weeks into owner ship I pulled this unit off, opened it up, and washed all the hard greese out of it, and reaplied silcone grease to it, the Fiat garage told me it need a potensiometer at around £175 to stop the over reving, did it myself by cleaning out this unit, however once a year I wash out the throttle housing with carb cleaner as there seems to be a buildup of black crap, you can always tell when it needs doing as the revs start sticking again. this time it started the jerky thing, then the revs started bouncing, so washed it out, to no avail, so changed the plugs and leads, still the same, driving it rain this year quite a lot, but it has not been cold as well since this jerky thing started, today it was cold and wet and you could feel it all the way along the expressway the minute you put your foot down to pass, there is was just very slightly, I think it was the headwind and amount of water on the road which made the car work harder, when ever you start to put presure on the engine it starts jerking, try pulling away on a hill in the wrong gear and it is quite violent this jerking, usually when you foot is flat to the floor.
I noticed last night going on to the expressway up a slight incline on the slip road , take it up on 3/4 throttle it is fine once onto the expressway still slighly inclined press pedal to floor slowly it picks up ok then as the pedal get to the floor it starts jerking and feels like it is losing power, lift the pedal slighlty and it stops and picks up again and away it goes.as if it has a massive flat spot.
On the throttle over run, it only jerks in the morning when it is cold going down a hill, once the engine has warmend it is fine on throttle over run, it is that fine a time line, that if you leave it tickover on the drive whilst putting out the bin, then take it down the hill it is ok, that 10 minutes tickover on the drive is enough to change it.
Engine Temp has dropped over the summer, well I first noticed it towards the end of last winter, the temp gauge use to go to half then rise just above then drop to half again in the morning, asuming that is the thermostat opening, now it just creeps up to just under the half, it was quite cold this morning and I noticed it only managed to make the bar before the half today, after a 30 mile zap down the expressway at 60 to 70mph.
The Seat tEcs openly admit they know nothing about this car, they wondered possibly MAF sensor possibly reading air temp wrong so it is weaking the mixture as it thinks it is warmer outside than it is or the engine temp could be affecting the ECU and telling the engine to over fuel because the thermostat is not closing to warm the engine enough to coinside with the rest of the sensor readings, or perhaps it is the TPS playing up coupled with engine temp ???? The TPS in the past has proved to be a problem rectifed with a tap so it still could be playing up more discreatly now I has never ran smooth since I have had it but never like this either always a bit jerky/harsh around town so I wonder then if that is still TPS in the background.
So ignor the headgasket bit, I threw that in for some background history on the car and it has all got confused, my fault sorry.

Thrisey said:

why does it sound like another problem now

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because you said the bulb went blue, but that was only a misunderstanding.

Thrisey said:

they wondered possibly MAF sensor

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there isnt a MAF on the 1.2, instead it has a MAP. that could be an issue based on the symptoms, but it would almost always illuminate the injection system fault light.

lets wait to see if the TPS replacement sorts it out. if it does not then we need to look at other possibilities.

plugs and leads (especially leads) are a big issue on the 1.2 so check them carefully. all leads should show the same resistance, and not have any green fur on the copper contact at either end.

TPS turned up and is going back today, it has a 4 bolt mounting, so it is wrong, mine is 3, tried all local scrap yards only one has a 1.2 and he has sold the complete engine, so there is virtually nothing in the engine bay, so it is starting to look like £152 + Vat from Fiat for a new one and hope it solves problem.
Unless you know someone who has a Bosch TPS 6 wire with a part number on the unit of 0132 008 650.

ebay should get you one for £10 plus delivery. you can take one from a 1.2 16v bravo brava mk2 punto mk2b punto stilo and i'm sure there are others. giving the person the part number is the safest option.

try asking this guy:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FIAT-BRAVO-1-...=39:1|66:2|65:7|240:1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

Another TPS turned up, right one this time at only £20 unfortunatly car is still the same. as soon as it gets to half throttle it starts jerking, doesn't seem a violent when it is warm.
Re-set ECU, cleaned MAP sensor still the same.
Going to look at fuel pump this weekend to see if the filter is blocked, bit of an outside shot but you never know.
On the plus side new TPS has stopped it jerking on the throttle overun in the morning but not sorted out the main problem.

when were the plugs and leads last replaced? its amazing how many problems on the 1.2 are caused by HT leads shorting to the head.

Approximatly 4 months ago, could this be a coil problem? can I check coil output with a multi meter. Leads are not rubbing and are all in the clips to hold them off the head plus they still look brand new if you know what I mean, I supose there could be a duff one, they where if I remember right unipart leads about £30 I think.
The only other thing I can think of is the fuel pump filter, maybe engine is being starved of fuel when I acelerate past the half throttle mark, what do you think?