We bought the new Punto Evo Eleganza 1.4 in May 2010 and it was delivered in July. We are very pleased with it and it feels like a bigger, more expensive car. But there has been a problem since we got it which seems to be baffling our local Fiat dealer. Every now and then (about once or twice a week) when the engine is started the red battery warning light comes on and the power steering doesn't work. At first we got a shock, driving off to suddenly find you could hardly turn the steering wheel and then spotting the red light. Now we watch out for the red light before setting off. The odd thing is that if we then switch off and start the car again it's ok. The dealer thought it was a faulty starter motor putting too much load on the battery so they fitted a new starter motor. It seemed better for a while but now it is happening again. I have been back to the dealer who says he can't find anything wrong and he has asked us to keep a log of when it happens and the circumstances.
Has anyone else come across this problem with the Evo or other Fiat models.

I know its not a great help but i used to have this happen to me on my grande punto but cant remember how they fixed it. Nice to see they still haven't fixed this problem on the new evos

It has happened on every Fiat I have driven. If you start the car while applying some force to the steering wheel, the electronic motors will not assist you immediately. It takes a couple of seconds for them to calibrate I think, just make sure when you start the car you aren't turning the wheel at the same time.

Could be as simple as a dodgy battery. The electric power steering system is very sensitive to battery voltage and this is known to cause problems on the mk2 punto at least.