First off , hello to all.



Picked up the wifes new car today, a red 1.9 sporting. We are Fiat fans and are returning to the fold after trying out a few other brands.
Our previous cars include a Tempra station wagon, 2 puntos, a seceinto and a marea weekend.

Okay on to the new member of the family, picked her up from Motorpoint,who I have to say were really quite good. Think I got a good deal paying 8995 for a 2007 with 5 miles on the clock.(I know it is an import, so were my previous two purchases and never had a problem).

My question is that on driving the car home felt the car was really sluggish in 1st and second gear, not really what i was expecting from a 130 bhp car, my other car is a mondeo ST 150bhp tdci and at the moment she is not even close to the performance. Is this "slowness" normal and will it improve as the car gets run in or should I get a dealer to check it out.

Will post pictures as soon as we get some good ones taken.

Thanks

Mark

Give it some time to loosen up

And welcome :wave:

will improve as most cars do i believe but what you have said seems to crop up all the time with people feeling that it is not powerful enough, some people on the forum have still opted to go for the re-map though, they will be on in the morning or tomorrow to shed some light on that, if your willing to go down that route.

as with all new engines, don't over rev as they are tight and need loosen up. u run a high risk of breaking a piston ring or even the piston itself. my 1.4 16v was crap until running it in, with all the power being at the top end of the rev range. dont know how a deseil would be though as ive never owned 1. been thinking about going to a oil burner because the 16v is poorly powered. keep us posted pal

howdy :wave:

welcome to the GP massive

Can i ask where u got a GP for that cheap? or have prices just dramatically dropped!!

Welcome angryeyes
My 1.9 had 1500 miles on when I got it, was loose enough then to feel like 1st gear was way too short, really kicked around to max revs, so give it time. A1.9 in good fettle feels as quick as my mk1 Golf GTI did way back.

Hi, and welcome.

I too drive a 1.9 Sporting and i have to say i agree with what you have said. When i initially test drove one it had only 103 miles on the clock and it felt really tight and seemed to lack power. Now however, it is so much different, it drives like a dream with 3k miles and im sure it will only get better. Its going to be a bit difficult to tell though as i have had it re-mapped but we will see.

Just take it easy and really let it loosen up, as much as it may be difficult try not not to race the engine.

Rich

Thanks for all the replies, it has reassured me. I will just give it time...

Conor_Herts_UK said:

Can i ask where u got a GP for that cheap? or have prices just dramatically dropped!!

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I thought it was a good price. when I first checked Motorpoint had two diesel sportings available both in red for 8999. This is the same price they are currently selling 1.4 petrol sportings for. (they still have 15 avaialable of these).

the price was a lot lower than i could get from any fiat dealer, believe me I tried, and i got a great px price too.

As far as it being an import the only differences as far as I can tell do far is that there is no Blaupunkt logo on the stereo..?? and you only get a two year warranty instead of 3. But for the price I can live with both these.

wow thats amazin, lowest around my area iv seen is 10 995! u got a link for this dealer, kinda puttin me off bringing out finance for 12 000! cheers, u sure dun well!

The 'Blaupunkt' logo is on most uk cars but not all.......seems to come and go.
The 'Sporting' spec includes Mp3 playback....don't know whether you've got that or not.
Regarding whether you wonder how Fiat can call the car a "Sporting" considering the way it performs.....I read your post and kind of agreed with the point you were making and then I thought, well it's only 9 grand and there's nothing around that looks that good for the money so if you want a proper GTI then you just gotta pay more.......that was until today!
My 1.4 Sporting went in for the brake recall kit to be fitted and Desira, Southgate gave me a G. Punto 1.4 8 valve Dualogic.
And my opinion?...... a piece of c**p.
A gutless and lifeless engine when pulling from standstill.....mediocre handling from the balloon like tyres and none of the super fun moment when the revs hit 4000 and the car takes off.......
A truly, TRULY unbelievably bad automatic gearbox where not only do you feel every change from the automatic box but that there is also a noticable pause whilst you wait for the 'robot' clutch to engage.....
Oh yeah.....plus a c**p interior.
Let me tell you if anyone complains about a 'Sporting' again I'd force them to drive a 1.4 8 valve for the day that would cure them.
For the bargain price of about £1200 over a regular 1.4 8 valve our 'Sportings' are a DIFFERENT CAR ........No wonder they account for 50 percent on this site.
It makes me appreciate how good ours are..almost a mini Ferrari....that's what I say!

Motorpoint can be found herehttp://www.motorpoint.co.uk .

Dont get me wrong, i wasnt calling the performance useless, i was just a bit concerned something may have been wrong...

I totally agree with you that the sporting is without question the best looking hatch on the market today. The interior ticks all the right boxes as far as i am concerned as well. For the price I dont think it can be beaten.

Top gear like it as well , in their Test Drive Directory it is their choice car quoting the 1.9 as "going like stink" .

To be honest cant really remember reading a bad review for the sporting model.

Angryeyes said:

To be honest cant really remember reading a bad review for the sporting model.

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Welcome, Angry Eyes!

I'm sure once your engine has been given a chance to run in a bit you will find it loosens up considerably; at least, my 1.3 90 did so I can't believe the Sporting will be any different.

I'd be interested in how you intend to "run in" then engine; I treated mine pretty carefully for the first 2000 miles, never giving it any welly at all, and not going over 2,500 revs either but on the other hand, not driving like a granny. From 2000 to 3000 miles I started going to 3000 revs and pushing it a bit. After that I just drove it "normally". It seems to have done the trick, because since 4000 miles it drives nicely and the mpg has gone up considerably.

My understanding (which no one on this forum has commented on) is that if you treat a diesel engine too gently in the first few thousand miles then it will never get properly run in, and will continue to burn engine oil. An engine that has been given a good workout will run-in properly, give you the power you expect later in its life, and won't burn much oil.

If they did the Sporting in 5 doors I would have gone for it...

Angryeyes said:

First off , hello to all.



Picked up the wifes new car today, a red 1.9 sporting. We are Fiat fans and are returning to the fold after trying out a few other brands.
Our previous cars include a Tempra station wagon, 2 puntos, a seceinto and a marea weekend.

Okay on to the new member of the family, picked her up from Motorpoint,who I have to say were really quite good. Think I got a good deal paying 8995 for a 2007 with 5 miles on the clock.(I know it is an import, so were my previous two purchases and never had a problem).

My question is that on driving the car home felt the car was really sluggish in 1st and second gear, not really what i was expecting from a 130 bhp car, my other car is a mondeo ST 150bhp tdci and at the moment she is not even close to the performance. Is this "slowness" normal and will it improve as the car gets run in or should I get a dealer to check it out.

Will post pictures as soon as we get some good ones taken.

Thanks

Mark

Click to expand...

My car took a good few miles to loosen up, mpg improved by 10 mpg, even the turbo lag improved.

What do you think about Motorpoint? do they take part ex?

maharg null said:

What do you think about Motorpoint? do they take part ex?

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Was very impressed with them to be honest , bought the car over the telephone , got a px price over the phone (this was £1000 better than Fiat had offered me) and my local deater has seen the car...go figure.

There was a wait of 2-3 weeks for delivery. they rang me when it was on site , i went to pick it up..cant get any easier.

It was nice to bypass all the usual hassle you normally get from a dealer:bang: . Would use them again for my next car, no question.

I am going to read the handbook tonight to see if gives any advice about "running in". Want to be sure I do the right thing....

Angryeyes said:

I am going to read the handbook tonight to see if gives any advice about "running in". Want to be sure I do the right thing....

Click to expand...

It doesn't. I looked for exactly the same information!

My information (about not being too gentle) is from Dr. Diesel (problems page) in Diesel Car. He certainly advocates making the engine do some work (ie better to rev a bit than struggle along at 1250rpm!).

I thought of writing in to his column but it takes months sometimes before he answers (if you get lucky getting picked in the first place) by which time you've run the engine in already (one way or the other).

Of course, if you were my wife, she would still be at the starting blocks: 1st year mileage=3080, 2nd year mileage=1800. I've done 5,400 miles in 4 months!

I think the best way to do it is keep it below 3000 rpm for at least 1k miles. The thing with diesels is its no big deal because all the torque is at the bottom end anyway so there isnt any real need to go past that. This is how i drove mine and it has loosened up nicely.

The dealers generally just tell you that the new engines dont need running in anymore but i still dont believe it.

Rich

RichC said:

The dealers generally just tell you that the new engines dont need running in anymore but i still dont believe it.

Rich

Click to expand...

:yeahthat: Dealers - what do they know? Now the mechanics do now their stuff, but salesmen? Lol.

Took about 6k miles for mine to be noticeably better in terms of performance. Mine too felt pretty flat during the first 1k miles or so.

hello everone
hope someone can help me out with this one
just picked up my new punto sporting 1.9

on the way home the miles on the display pannel started flashing next to it was a h then my blue and me went off.
After reading some post on this site i went to my local fiat dealer to get him to do a proxy-aligned after about 20 mins he came back to me and said that he needs to book the car in as it will not allow him to do a proxy aligned.
where do i stand if my local dealer can't get the computer back up and running
any help would be great
many thanks
terry