This morning I had a phone call from the head of fiat customer service to tell me that as my car was now fixed there wasn't any need for me to post about the problems on the Fiat UK Facebook page anymore...

apart from being the worst customer service in the world this goes to show the attitude of fiat towards faults with their cars.

fíat punto's from 2001 - 2006 have the potential to have a fault on the airbag system which if present turns on the airbag warning light and de-activates the airbags in the car. this seems to be due to a shared earth causing noise across the passenger airbag isolation switch, which errors out the airbag system. the fix being an £8 piece of wire.

Fiat however want you to pay £8 for the wire £50 for diagnostics and £??? for an hours labour to fix the fault. remember this isn't a fault that has developed with ware and tear its something manufactured into the car from new!.

so anyway my view is because its a fault with the airbag system this should have been dealt with as a recall.

anyway forgetting my views I would strongly encourage anyone with this fault to post about it on the Fiat UK Facebook pagehere I would also encourage anyone with any fiat, with a electric power steering fault to post about it on that Facebook page!

As much as we all love our cars and enthuse about them on here I for one do not like the prospect of being left out of pocket by faults in manufacturing and design this isn't a dig at fiat on a personal level but leaving people driving around in unsafe cars is simply not acceptable.

Official statement from fiat regarding this.

Fiat UK Hi Andy, thank-you for your comment. As a responsible vehicle manufacturer, we take the safety of our customers very seriously. Please be assured there are no faults with airbag systems on our Puntos between 2001 and 2006. Should a recall be required for any component we identify, this is completed with guidance with VOSA. Our Customer Relations agent was calling to discuss your concerns and to make sure everything was resolved which you have advised it is. Unfortunately, we are unable to discuss your case in detail on this channel. Please do contact Customer Relations again if you wish to discuss the matter further. Kind regards, Sarah-Jayne, Fiat community manager.

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in a statement via phone call from the manager of fiat customer service Ravi Sardana

in saying this is a well known about fault with these cars and one often discussed on this forum his response was "fiat as a company has no control over whats posted on internet forums true or not"

so if you have this problem and you post about it on here Fiat uk's official stance is apparently you are lying !?

however if you do have this problem and you PM me about it i will give you Ravi Sardana's direct phone number at Fiat UK so you can tell him about it, because apparently as stated in the comment above

Please be assured there are no faults with airbag systems on our Puntos between 2001 and 2006.

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