Good evening, first of all I would just like to say hello as I am a new member, but have always used this site before registering to help solve issues with my Punto Grande.
I have a grande 1.9 diesel 07, I have searched through all of the forums to find the issue my car has but had no success so I'm hoping I'm not wasting anybodies time with a re-post.
Whilst driving the heating in the car will suddenly cut out followed by the temperature gauge increasing/decreasing then eventually getting the message 'excessive radiator temp'. Start ups even in the cold do not trigger this issue. I have recently had a new battery fitted, and this week also had a new temperature gauge fitted so I can rule those ones out which seemed to be the problems in the other relevant posts. I have come to ask the community because even my local garage ran a diagnostics test on it and nothing gets recorded on the system when this issue pops up.
The car will fix itself for about 5 minutes at a time before the message pops up again. I hope I have explained this clearly enough and thanks for your time.

Welcome,

One question, what do you mean the heating will suddenly cut out? air flow or hot air ?

cmosfxx said:

Welcome,

One question, what do you mean the heating will suddenly cut out? air flow or hot air ?

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The hot air from inside the car, theres no delay it just goes from hot to cold instantly. causeing the windscreen to condensate in seconds can be quite dangerous if driving on the motorway. Thanks

I suspect an air lock, it prevents coolant flow so no water temporarily in the heater matrix, and spurious readings from temp sensor. There should be bleed points normally one on the thermostat housing and one behind the inlet manifold. When the car is cold, fill coolant to max level, squeeze the radiator to expansion pipe by hand repeatedly, you will eventually feel it is full of coolant and also you should see coolant circulate back into the small pipe going into the top of the expansion tank. Ensure the bleed points can be opened freely, start the car and run until the thermostat is open, both rad pipes at same temp, open bleed screws, stat first, then inlet manifold one at a time check water flows out in turn. Take for a test run, check levels only fill when cold, cool, GPs are prone to air locks. Be aware of coolant temp. Opening cap etc.

Moimo said:

I suspect an air lock, it prevents coolant flow so no water temporarily in the heater matrix, and spurious readings from temp sensor. There should be bleed points normally one on the thermostat housing and one behind the inlet manifold. When the car is cold, fill coolant to max level, squeeze the radiator to expansion pipe by hand repeatedly, you will eventually feel it is full of coolant and also you should see coolant circulate back into the small pipe going into the top of the expansion tank. Ensure the bleed points can be opened freely, start the car and run until the thermostat is open, both rad pipes at same temp, open bleed screws, stat first, then inlet manifold one at a time check water flows out in turn. Take for a test run, check levels only fill when cold, cool, GPs are prone to air locks. Be aware of coolant temp. Opening cap etc.

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Thanks for the comment! I shall give this a go over the weekend and then report back hopefully with some good news

Coastercrazy said:

Thanks for the comment! I shall give this a go over the weekend and then report back hopefully with some good news

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Hello everyone, sorry for the long delay...I took it to the garage in the end after I tried to remove the air lock and was still getting the same issue. Turns out I had the smallest leak which was causing the drop in pressure and no heating. its been bodged with Radwell for the time being until I can afford to get the part replaced (mechanic said it would need a new radiator plus pipe) but for the mean time its all fixed. So just wanted to say thanks for all of your input everybody to help

Hey Coastercrazy!

I'm currently having the exact same problem as you. Sent it to the garage yesterday and they asked me to monitor the water level and top it up where necessary. On the drive to work this morning, it acted up quite a fair bit. Sending it back on Wednesday night as instructed by garage so that they have a cooled-off engine to work on in the morning. From the off, they suspected it was a leak but they were unable to detect it due to the hot engine.

Hopefully, my GP gets fixed soon. Too many heart-attacks since getting this baby last December. An overheated engine seems to be a commonplace happening. First time around, dealer dealt with the situation and diagnosis was a clogged radiator pipe. Second time it happened, sent to my current garage and they changed my leaking water jacket in the gearbox. This time around, I hope they detect the leak and fix it for good. GP's leaving a huge hole in my pocket.

Just got my GP back from the garage. Unfortunately, on the drive home, the problem returned. This after they found a leak on the water jacket in the engine. Changed it and the problem persisted. This time though, the engine technically didn't overheat. The needle was dancing closer and closer to that region. Too short a drive to draw a conclusion. Regardless, will be sending it back to the garage for another round of investigations.

Stay tuned for more updates...

As a problem is fixed, a new one surfaces...

The symptoms of:
1) high difficulty to fire up the engine in the morning
2) coolant tank emptying up on a daily basis
3) empty coolant tank leads to engine overheating

Can be solved if you replace the blown off head gasket. Just got mine replaced to the tune of SGD$750. For Singaporean GP owners, I got it done at Alfa Sportivo.

Barely got the car for an hour when it died again on the road. This time around, the LCD reads "gear unavailable" and "check transmission". Put it on tow and off it goes back to the garage for the weekend.

Talk about short-lived happiness...

This baby is 8 years old. Had gone 142,000km. Flirting with the idea of scraping her and switching to a trusty Japanese/Korean make instead. Guess I can stay off this thread for a bit.

On to the next adventure...