Hi there. My MK1 Punto 60 drives and runs flawlessly however at a cost. It guzzeles fuel as much as my mini cooper S! That is about 40 miles per €10. I've recently lent the car to my sister who has also noticed it's high consumption. We were thinking of selling it off and buying something better however I would like to fix it if possible as it is a sweet little car and still in very good condition for its age with relatively low mileage. The car is a 1.2 SPI 60 bhp. Since it does not support OBD2 I am unable to have the luxury of hooking it up to my phone to narrow down the fault - if any! My suspicions are maybe temp sensor or possibly faulty lambda however before I start replacing parts I want to see if anyone had the same issue. P.s the car does not misfire and runs and idles flawlessly.

Hi

What year?

Oil or water consumption? Could indicate a fault
Does it show temperaure ok on the gauge..?

A binding brake will also ruin economy

Hi, its a 1998 model. It does not lose oil, water or burn oil. Water temperature is fine and i don't think the breaks are getting stuck as the car feels like it moves 'freely'.

hi jiji

sorry to ask but is a bit difficult to compare to uk.

bit more info please,

Is your car in miles or kilometres as its not a UK area you are in,
what is the fuel cost in your euro zone per litre.
I also notice you are parked in a very hilly area from the photo.

when was the car last serviced(Air filter blockage dusty zone?)
Does your local cordwainer fit lead in the soles as standard.

what engine does the mini have, ie If you run a 60hp car flat out it will be less economical that a 110hp car driven carefully as you can get in a higher gear earlier. Common difference is 1.2 pandas are more economical in the real world than the 1.1 pandas.

hope this helps

Tim

timmycm850 said:

hi jiji

sorry to ask but is a bit difficult to compare to uk.

Common difference is 1.2 pandas are more economical in the real world than the 1.1 pandas.

hope this helps

Tim

Click to expand...

Its a 1242 in a relatively light vehicle..

We need to establish if ...
this is a recent drop in fuel economy..
or just a realisation that its not great on fuel

One easy thing to check is the SPI unit. Take off the air filter box and run the car. Look VERY closely at the orange spi unit. There are 2 tiny holes (one at each side) and they can dribble fuel.

The car would usually be a bit more difficult to start when warm.

I had this problem once and the dealer couldn't solve it.

Sorry, what is teh SPI unit?

Ltpossolo said:

Sorry, what is teh SPI unit?

Click to expand...

SPI unit is formed by injector and throttle body, and it is located right under the air filter box, just remove the two nuts and lift up the plastic box: you are now looking at the SPI unit

(SPI stands for Single Point Injection as there is only one injector for 4 cylinders, punto 75’s have 4 injectors - MPI, Multi Point Injection)

Daughter has a 1.2 8v mark 2B, this does just over 45mpg around town, and 50+ on a longer run, (E10 currently £1.43 litre here which is around £6.30 per gallon) not sure how this translates into prices where you are. (Euro currently 0.86gbp, so 10 euro is £8.50 worth of fuel in UK, around 6 litres, or 1.3 gallons, so daughter getting roughly 60 miles for that price) If fuel is cheaper than UK, should get more mpg??

EDIT: sorry, I didn't realize this was a resurrected 4 year old topic, but i'll leave the answer. Maybe it helps someone else

some potential causes:
- dead or faulty O2 sensor,
- cracked vacuum hose (there are several, the one that influences engine running the most if cracked is the one leading to MAP sensor, located under the upper black plastic cover - or the MAP sensor itself, but they are pretty reliable)
- faulty air temperature sensor, located near fuel injector (unlikely, they rarely fail)
- faulty coolant temp sensor (blue one, located on the water channel on the intake manifold. Not the black or red one next to the dipstick, that is just for the temperature gauge/overheat light)
- ignition problems - coils, cables or spark plugs (everything is cheap, you might as well replace it as a precaution and keep the old parts as spares. The car would run rough if the problems are big enough but sometimes it's subtle so it goes below radar)
- leaking injector
- fuel leak somewhere else (e.g. fuel lines below the car. You'd probably notice the smell of petrol, though)
- draggy brakes or horrible wheel alignment - you must be able to push the car one-handed at walking pace without much effort, on flat surface of course

You can get everything you need for ECU diagnostic ("obd 1") for under £10 on ebay/aliexpress and using a free software such as iawscan2. With all that finding the problem is much easier.