Okay so last week I noticed that when slowing down coming off a main road onto a slip road my car started to stall, it'd cut out without juddering or anything and the battery light would come on along with a couple of other lights, so as I was moving I just popped it into second and pulled my clutch up to bump start it, it happened a couple of other times after this until this weekend just gone I had my clutch and gearbox replaced, when I got the car back Monday night it did this almost every time I braked, after a quick search on these forums I found that it may be the oil breather pipe, upon inspection I found that this wasn't actually connected, I connected it yesterday and it seemed to solve the problem (it did happen 1 or 2 times last night but nowhere near as many times as it did when that pipe was off)

Anyway, also every time I leave my car for a couple hours or so the battery will completely drain and my car won't start I either have to get jump started or bump start it but if I remove my positive battery terminal when I leave my car and then reconnect it when I come back to my car it'll start every time, I have no idea if this is related to the problem above but it's getting really annoying and after having the clutch/gearbox done on the weekend I'm reluctant to spend a fortune having a garage look at it.

P.S. I don't know if this will make a difference but a few months ago I found that the negative battery lead had broke where it joins to the chassis so my mate soldered it to a bit of copper pipe and put some gaffer tape round it which solved that issue (car wouldn't start before he did that)

Any help would be greatly appreciated this car is really getting me stressed I've only had it for 5 months!

OK a number of possibilities which you'll have to work through as a process of elimination. I'd start looking at:
- Battery - could be bad (you can get that load tested at most local battery places). Has this issue been worse since the weather got cold? That won't help
- You have a battery drain - which is flattening the battery while the car is parked. You need a heavy load ammeter to check that
- Your battery is not being charged properly - Check the wiring from the battery to the car as you've had an issue there before and make sure your alternator is charging properly (you should see 14v or so when the engine is running). Both are common problems on GPs


You don't say which model/age your car is. Some older GPs have an issue with water getting onto the alternator which definitely doesn't help with things like this.


In all cases you need access to some testing equipment and be careful given the power stored in a battery.

Hello,

After replacing the battery I've found that it will now start every time which is great! however it still seems to be cutting out, last night I was driving my girlfriend home and as I was braking towards the bottom of the hill I had the oil light, engine management light and battery light come on and the revs dropped and engine cut out, I have no idea what's causing this at all.

The car is 1.4 Fiat Grande Punto 2006

Well that's a giant step forwards - at least it starts now!


A few more questions:
1. When was the engine last serviced? These engines do seem sensitive to decent plugs etc
2. Do you have a copy of Multiecuscan and an ODB reader?
3. Have you checked the hoses under the airbox? They can perish/wear through causing bad running

Sounds like a major battery drain to me.
Here's my chain of thought: something consumes a lot of electricity, that is covered when under revs because the alternator produces it. When you take it out of gear and you coast at idle not enough power is produced so the engine gets starved. Cuts off.
You could check any major wires, I doubt a small one would consume this much power to make the engine cut off.

Checking back after solving the problem,

Turns out I had a broken earth that goes from the battery > chasis > gearbox, it had broken where it joins to the gearbox,I took an earth cable from a scrap car, attached it to the terminal and bolted it elsewhere on my gearbox and starts every time and never cuts out!