Last night our '02 1.2 ELX Speedgear suffered COMPLETE steering failure. My wife asked me to take a run in the car as the steering "felt funny". As I reversed out of the drive, the steering went - not just power steering, the whole thing, the wheel turns 360 degrees, but nothing happens. This is the car my wife uses and drives around our 2 children in...

Anything I should know about recalls or similar, as I prepare to call our local dealer and get completely shafted...?

Thanks in advance for any insights/advice

Its a very common problem with the Mark 2 punto, could run into hundreds of pounds...

Here is some info you should read:

https://www.fiatforum.com/punto-guides/70703-punto-steering-column.html

Thanks for that - no mention of full loss of steering, though...?

We had zero warning that this was going to happen, no 'steering wheel' warning light, nothing. Still shaking at the thought of it happening to my wife and kikds while they were out and about, rather than it occurring right outside our door...

It's going to the dealer today, I'll post what they come back with for future reference of anyone experiencing something similar.

its pretty shocking that this sort of thing can effect vehicles, im suprised no-one has died as a result of it.

this is what I anticipated would happen sooner or later. DAFT DAFT DAFT idea having ELECTRIC steering.

its not just fiat, vauxhal use it, so do ford now, you also see it on merc S class, audi a8's (and spanky new allroads), bmw 5 and 7series, etc etc.
just madness. someone will die, if they haven't already

this dont sound like an electrical problem. the steering will still work with complete elec /elec cpu failuer as lots of punto drivers have found out. it just become very hard to turn wheeel. his thing is he can turn the entire wheel 360degrees and nothing happens. this has got to be something mechanical breaking. or sheering off surely ?. not heard of this happening before but is about as serious as you can get. i would guess at a problem with steering rack were it meets the steering coloumn. hope you can get it sorted cheap

faster4_tec said:

this is what I anticipated would happen sooner or later. DAFT DAFT DAFT idea having ELECTRIC steering.

its not just fiat, vauxhal use it, so do ford now, you also see it on merc S class, audi a8's (and spanky new allroads), bmw 5 and 7series, etc etc.
just madness. someone will die, if they haven't already

Click to expand...

I can say same for non-electric steering,I came up to a bend (unknown my mondeo had decided to dump the power steering fluid a few seconds earlier) and went straight on ....had to fight somewhat to turn the steering wheel to limp very carefully off the main road

thefishdude said:

this dont sound like an electrical problem. the steering will still work with complete elec /elec cpu failuer as lots of punto drivers have found out. it just become very hard to turn wheeel. his thing is he can turn the entire wheel 360degrees and nothing happens. this has got to be something mechanical breaking. or sheering off surely ?. not heard of this happening before but is about as serious as you can get. i would guess at a problem with steering rack were it meets the steering coloumn. hope you can get it sorted cheap

Click to expand...

:yeahthat:

mines manual, only the universal joint would likely to break. which is probably what has broken in this instance.


yeah I know the steering wheel is still mechanically connected to the rack, just wanted to make sure any noobs searching this thread pull their finger out and get their steering fixed if the light comes on.