I have a Fiat Punto 8v 1.4 2012. Had 87k on the clock when I bought her, now done 100k since I bought her in July 2017. Had a great MOT history but unfortunately, it failed it's MOT this week due to Offside Rear Shock Absorber had a serious leak and the Nearside Front Track rod end ball joint had excessive play.

Since buying the car I've had to fork out a lot of money for repairs and replacements. Here's the list:

1. Had to replace 2 tyres straight after buying the car
2. Replaced the top radiator coolant hosepipe due to excessive leaking
3. Replaced the battery
4. Replaced offside rear shock absorber & front track rod end ball joint
5. Had a coolant flush due to the wrong coolant being in the system
6. Had to replace the passenger front and rear headlight
7. Had to get the driver door treated and resprayed due to rust showing

It's literally cost me a fortune. Most of the problems existed when it was sold to me, just didn't notice them when I bought the car. I'm looking to keep the car until she gives up considering how much I've spent on the car. Am I doing the right thing by repairing the car or am I wasting my time and money? Also, any advice for the future would be great

Very much a case of buyer beware.

You can’t get too annoyed about tyres, you could pick up a puncture at any time and need a new tyre, if you’d not noticed they were worn, that’s not the car’s fault.

100k on a 6 year old car is quite a lot so again you’d expect things like shock absorbers and such to wear out, the same goes for pipes leaking or battery needing replacement, it’s all inkeeping with the mileage.

However if all is well not, it’s definately worth hanging on to it.

It was annoying due to the vast amount of money put into the car, but as you said it all falls within wear and tear of the vehicle and eventually they’d of had to have got done eventually. Apart from those niggling issues, the car has been a pleasant ride, hopefully with these jobs completed I can now enjoy it.

One question, my clutch seems to bite quite high and it often feels like it over revs. Is this normal or do you know what this could be?

Depending on usage, at 100k the clutch could well be on its way out too.

You say "vast amount of money" spent. Who is doing the work? The cooant flush sounds odd to me. Even if non-OAT coolant wa in the system it could have waited unit the next time the cooling system was drained. If the wrong coolant was put in when the hose was changed the garage should have replaed it FOC. I take it it was a private purchase rather than from a dealer? Nothing sounds out of place for age of car or very expensive apart from the door respray. Maybe previous accident damage.


Robert G8RPI.

95% of the work completed has been done by a local garage, don't really trust myself fixing things. I do suspect the car has been in some sort of accident, but no history so guessing it was very minor. The reason for the coolant flush was due to the wrong coolant but mostly because there was a lot of brown residue sitting in the tank, made me uneasy, so was a precautionary measure and mostly to clean the system out. Well, she's running better than ever now so can't complain and since the track rod ball joint and shocks replaced it feels a lot smoother to drive and no knocking sounds anymore .

Hopefully, a new clutch isn't needed but we'll see in the future. Thank you for responding, I do appreciate the comments.