Hi All,

I recently purchased a Fiat Punto Evo 1.4 Active, about 2/3 weeks ago.

I am finding it very noisy when driving at speeds higher than 50 mph. I do about 60 miles a day on A roads and dual carriageways, and I have had to resort to wearing earplugs, as I get earache.

I have driven Fiats before and never had such a problem, mind you this was in Italy and I noticed the road surfaces are different.

I thought the problem might be the front tyres, since they were cheap Mohawk ones, I've replaced those with some premium Michelin ones but the noise is still there. The rear tyres are old too, but the thread is still ok.

Does anyone have the same problem? Do I just have to accept this or is there anything that can be done to improve the situation? Other than that, I have no complaints about the car.

Thanks a lot for any help.

snowflake

The noice all comes from the road surface, whci is so poor almsot everywhere in the UK, with the exception of short stretches. On good tarmac the GP/EVO is a very quiet car, expecially littlw wind noise. I always instantly noticed how quiet when I arrived in France on the Calis motorway, but in the last few years the surface has also deteriorated and is in bad need of re-surfacing.
My GP also is 'loud' on poor roads, all from suspension and tyres. Just MOT'd and it has no faults. Just make sure you do not have an obvious fault like a broken spring, worn drop link bushes or even worn shock absorber. But even if all well, the suspension is noisy on our roads. Tyres can make a significant difference, incl inflation. The cheap makes and some good ones have DB levels of 70-75, whereas you can now get some with 666-67, a very significant difference. I found some Goodyear and Dunlop ones, I think they are called Blueresponse or something.

Thanks BrigiteBardot. I will see if swapping the rear tyres with the new Michelin front tyres will make a difference. The rear ones seem to be the original ones that came with the car and might just be old now. The car is 4 years old, just MOTd, serviced etc, so I assume all is in working order.

But yes, it might be that I am used to driving Fiats on good road surfaces back on the continent and that's why I never noticed any issues. My previous car was a Vauxhall Astra, reg 2010, and never had this problem, even though I used cheap tyres. Perhaps the frame of the Punto is not built for such speeds, so I guess I will have to accept that I might have bought the wrong car for the type of journeys I do ...

OK, looks like you too do not have any fault to explain it then. The suspension is noisy on our poor surfaces because it is a very firm set-up ( 'german'). So we do not get any rolling and a very good road-holding etc, but we pay with more noise. I have driven hire cars in Southern Europe, and the fiats had a very soft suspension set-up, creating very little noise on some of the poor back-roads and country lanes etc.
I am looking forward to the next tyre change, and I will definitely chose one of the low Decibel ones on offer, the lowest 66. Compared with some /many tyres out there which produce 77, it should about halve the tyre noise. Chexk-out Blackcircles or MyTyres online orders.
Then I wish we would have more good and special low-noise tarmac which definitely exists. It makes a huge difference, I remembering entering a stretch of M25 near Croydon which was super-quiet. But then there used to be a stretch of concrete sections of M11 to Cambridge....unbelievably noisy in any car.