I have an M reg Cinquencento (899cc). When warm the car is fine and runs along brilliantly. However I have a real problem when the engine is cold. Firstly it struggles to start and then when I drive down the street and change up to 2nd (or another gear other than 1st) there is no power in the accelerator and the car begins to lurch about (like when you first learn to drive!). The only way to get round it is to hold the clutch in, press the accelerator down much further than I should then lift the clutch slowly which makes it look like I can't drive and also wastes a lot of petrol.

When it gets up to proper temp it is fine.

Any ideas would be really appreciated.

Hi there, welcome to the Fiat Forum.

The problem you describe sounds like the engine management thinks the car is permanently warmed up, and never compensates for cold starts.

This could be a problem with the engine temperature sensor, which is mounted on the top of the thermostat housing. The sensors are not expnsive and are relatively easy to change.

If you have access to a multimeter, the sensor should show around 5K to 10K ohms when cold.

Hope this is of some use to you.

Pete.
Cinq sporting 1242cc
http://mysite.freeserve.com/close_to_cracking_up/

I have an Uno and I have the same problem, it makes crossing a busy road a nightmare cause you go to pull out an nothing happens, you just crawl across the road and sometimes the engine just dies.

What I find helps is that you keep the revs constant whilst waiting and not pump the gas otherwise, my car seems to flood, don't know if this is the cause of your problem or not.

Another thing i used to do to try and stop this is start your car with your foot right down on the gas, so to flood the engine, start it and it runs on higher revs so by the time the engine warms up the car should be running fine.

When I took it to the garage he said it was something to do with the automatic choke, he fixed it for £60 and it seems to be running fine.

Hope this helps, I know its for an Uno but it sounds like the same problem I was having.



Looks Good, Drives Sh!t.

When was the last time the car was serviced. Might be worth checking things like the spark plugs, and the state of the idle control valve. Good luck.

Si.
2.0 20v Black HGT

Thanks everyone. Think I might just print this thread out and take it to my local garage as it's getting worse as the winter draws in. If it wasn't for this it would be a fantastic little car and the petrol consumption is only rivalled by a good diesel.

Thanks again.

Problem now solved! New spark plugs and a change of oil sorted not only the lurching problem but also the rather load tappet (!?!) noise as well. [^]

Just one other little thing while I'm here... where is the temperature sensor supposed to sit on a normal car? When warm mine will go to 70 and sit there while driving. However when I hit traffic it'll creep up to about the 90 mark, before going back down when I drive away. Is this normal? I've had Ford's before and their temp guage used to wander all over the place, but I've also had a couple of Toyota's and they didn't.

Last thing I want is to cook the engine (and the head gasket!) at this time of year.

Glad you got the problems sorted.

My Cinq runs the same as yours, 75'c steady running, 90'c in traffic and from what I can gather this is the same for all of them.

Have seen 100'c twice, first time holding 95mph uphill on the M1 on a hot day, second time in queue trafic on the hottest day this summer.
Had no problems with gaskets so far (oops, tempting fate now!)

Pete.
Cinq sporting 1242cc
http://mysite.freeserve.com/close_to_cracking_up/

On the 899cc engine the Temp sensor is on the front left
corner of cylinder head, as you look at the engine.

mrf94

<font face="Comic Sans MS">Hi
Can u please tell me where i can get one of these sensors</font id="Comic Sans MS">

Er! Fiat?