I have a 1.6 P reg Punto Cabriolet which has an intermittent fault whereby the fuel injection warning light comes on and then when i slow the car down it it will shudder and then stall.
If i restart the engine it comes back straight away and the light will be off. This used to happen weekly and now happens almost daily.

There also seems to be a strong smell of fuel occasionally when i drive it.

I am due to take it to my local Fiat dealer in a couple of days so that they can put it on their diagnostic machine, but i am worried that they won't be able to identify the fault because it is intermittent.

Has anybody else come across this sort of problem ?

yeah mate, ive just had that problem, i took it to Fiat and they stung me for £100, just to tell me its a loose wire, i had a look and its a fuse that keeps jumping out.

its under the black cover at the top of your engine bay - take that off and its the set on the left (there are 2 fuses), ive had to tape mine in until i sort something out permemantly.

ive had loads of problems with mine and cost me shed loads, but slowly sorting them all out!!

hope this helps

Hi, I have a 1.6 N Reg Sporting Punto.
My Light came on also, and made me stall. It was intermitent. Took it to a "man in the know" and he said that it was the fuel pump. He asked me did i ever notice the smell of petrol, and i said know, and the fuel inlet and outlet pipes were cracked, and was damp on top of the tank where petrol had been. What was happening that when you go over a bump and caused the cracked pipe to open slightly, air would get in and cause the injection system to fail, and as such stall the car. I had the fuel pump replaced with a nearly-new one and everything is fine!

Also, when we contacted Fiat, they said it was a fairly common problem with Punto's!!

ok....a couple of spelling/grammar mistakes in my previous reply, sorry!

Thanks for the help.
In reply to djfatlad, i did locate the fuse ok and so I pushed it in and taped it down. It has definately been better but it nearly stalled again this morning.

In reply to Nightwolf_uk , it seems that you may right because i notice that when i go over speed bumps it does tend to stall alot more often. I don't know whether to take it to Fiat or to a local garage that i usually go to.

How much did it cost for you to get your fuel pump replaced ?

I had the same problem on my 1.6 sporting (N), The syptoms were...
Engine would splutter every now and them and then the injector light would come on.
Sometimes when I was coasting the engine would cut out totally.
It would start OK if I left it for about 10 seconds.

I found the problem wasn't so bad when I used Optimax. This made me look closer at the fuel input and Exhaust outputs. Eventually I found out what it was.
Open the bonnet, in between the airbox and the engine block is a cylinder with a few wires coming out the top. This is the EGR valve (exhaust gas recirculator).
Take the plug out of the top and undo the 2 bolts either side. Remove the EGR valve.
On the underside is 2 holes, 1 is constantly open, the other has a plunger that moves. Push it in with a pen. If it gets stuck in or feels like it is getting stuck during the travel try to clean it in parafin or replace it (about £90).

Bolt it back in place and reconnect the plug.
You are done.

Thanks for the reply evil-punto.

You are spot on as i took my car to Fiat yesterday for a diganostic check and indeed it was the egr valve that showed a fault.
They must have cleaned it or something because it seems to be running much better now. The cost for them to replace it would be £87 plus £10 labour.

I've got a '96 Punto Sporting which is displaying the same symtoms as Evil_Punto's. I took the EGR valve off and had a look at it but I could not tell if it was faulty or not! I pushed the plunger in with a pen (it was reasonably stiff) and it travelled approximately 3/4 of a centimetre. Is this normal?

My dilema is: do I change the EGR valve (£109 brand new from Fiat - best quote so far - will fit it myself) and hope that this solves the problem or do I take it to a diagnostics centre (http://www.middlesextuningcentre.co.uk) and get them to find the problem? (I am similarly cynical when it comes to Fiat dealers!)

I would appreciate any sort of advice!

If you are in London you could take it to Dartford tuning, they are the ones that helped me out. www.dartfordtuning.co.uk
I would say get a diagnostic done.

I have a Fiat Brava SX 80. Yesterday as I was driving home it started shuddering and not responding to the accelerator. I managed to get it home but now when I start it, I need to keep the accel pushed down for it to stay alive and when I take my foot off it just cuts out. Anyone have any ideas or do you just think that it's the fuel pump.

Evil-Punto said:

I had the same problem on my 1.6 sporting (N), The syptoms were...
Engine would splutter every now and them and then the injector light would come on.
Sometimes when I was coasting the engine would cut out totally.
It would start OK if I left it for about 10 seconds.

I found the problem wasn't so bad when I used Optimax. This made me look closer at the fuel input and Exhaust outputs. Eventually I found out what it was.
Open the bonnet, in between the airbox and the engine block is a cylinder with a few wires coming out the top. This is the EGR valve (exhaust gas recirculator).
Take the plug out of the top and undo the 2 bolts either side. Remove the EGR valve.
On the underside is 2 holes, 1 is constantly open, the other has a plunger that moves. Push it in with a pen. If it gets stuck in or feels like it is getting stuck during the travel try to clean it in parafin or replace it (about £90).

Bolt it back in place and reconnect the plug.
You are done.

Click to expand...

i have a fiat brava with the same prob carnt find the EGR valve is it in same place as a punto

Hello, Just after some advice.
My wife has a 2000 x reg 1.2 ELX. We recently had a new exhaust fitted for the MOT three weeks ago by a local garage that we have used for years.
The following week the fuel injection light came on and the engine started mis-firing and cutting out. Doing a quick check on net I came across this forum.
Having read the posts and armed with the knowledge this could be a Lamda sensor, ECU, coils or heater matrix fault I realised I would have to pay for a computer hook up test. The local garage did this and said the HT leads had a fault and changed them and the spark plugs for £152.
Suprise, Suprise, less than 1/2 a day later back to the garage as the fault re-occured. Today I telephoned the garage to find out they have hooked up the computer again and this time it's the ECU and the fault was a new fault as the car was ok the second it left the Garage. Obvioulsy extremely happy I have paid £152 for nothing I asked that this be taken into account towards the ECU replacement.
The garage refused to let me have my still faulty car back without paying for the second computer test. Sorry for the essay but does anybody have any definitive answer to the fuel injection light problems or do I have to replace the car part by part before a solution is found.
Any advice welcome as I will have to find a new garage to carry this repair out.

HI, I have a 2003 Punto 1.9 Diesel ... and have had fuel inj. light on for a while now and have been looking around for a replacement pump, but they are really expensive. Does anyone know where to look and generally what you should be paying??? Thanks.