just recently my 1.2 8v mia with 28,000 miles isnt running properly

when i start it up in the morning it nearly cuts out, like its not getting enough fuel, i have t rev it up a few times to get it going

it also doesnt seem as responsive as it did

if i leave the car on idle the fan seems to come on quite a lot

also, when i accelerate i can hear a lot of water gushing...weird, seems to come from passenger side...

exhaust is fairly new
new plugs about 3,000 miles ago
new air filter same time
also oil change

can understand what it is, damp weather? whats the water gushing noise?

try looking on the fourm a thread saying punto dieing on me check that out and try doing the sam thing

cant seem to find it mate...looked for a good 10 minutes and not a thing

If you can I recommend you don't drive the car. The gushing noise is an airlock in the coolant system at the heater matrix (the matrix is on the passenger side where you can hear it). Check your water level, most likely this will be low. You need to bleed the coolant system and top up to the correct level with water/coolant. Then you can drive again, and carefully check the level.

However you say it's missing some power and a bit lumpy on start. I'm afraid it sounds very much like head gasket gone . Water ingress into a cylinder will make it hard to start, and the loss of power could be to loss of compression over a few cylinders due to the gasket leak. Fan cutting in alot on idle means cooling system almost defo has an airlock somewhere and isn't circulating enough. Has it gone into the red before on the temp gauge? If you don't have a temp gauge has the overheat warning light come on?

DIY HG job? Around £100 - gasket set, head bolts, oil, coolant, filters, head skim.

Garage? Look at anywhere between £200-£350 Vitally important they skim the head before putting it back on.

To get conclusive evidence, if you can, run a compression test and see if there are any anomolies. Is there cream/white gunky stuff under the oil cap? Can you smell oil in the water? Does the exhaust expel white smoke?

water level is spot on and i havnt topped it up in ages
how do i bleed it?

no white smoke comming from exhaust
no smell of oil
no wanring light has come on, i dont have a temp guage
no milky/white gumky stuff under oil cap, nice clear oil
gasket is spot on, no oil leaking

cars only done 28,000 miles

https://www.fiatforum.com/punto-guides/43906-how-bleed-mk1-punto-cooling-system.html

That's how to bleed a Mk1 system, so I'm not sure how helpful that will be. Don't know how different the systems are.

HG problems on the Punto are common, doesn't matter if the cars done 10k or 100k TBH

Once the systems bled, just keep a good eye on the water levels and see what happens from there

If you haven't lost any water, then the head gasket is ok, however do all the bleeding etc to make sure level is where it should be. Its really common for 8v Puntos to jump a notch on cam-belt though, and is easy to check, and cheap to fix.
Tony.

how do i go about checking the cambelt