Hi. If you've read some of my posts you'll know my boy has a 2012 1.4 Punto easy too! It's a white one but he didn't buy it new, bought 2016 with, I think, high 30,000nds on it. First service I did later in 2016 I recorded the mileage at 42,323 miles. The car was bought from Evans Halshaw Renault and I wasn't expecting too much but actually it was in really good nick. I recon the front discs and pads must have been new when he bought it and everything else was in very serviceable condition. By June 2018 I'd done another big service and timing belt including water pump not because of the mileage covered (44.616) but due to it being 6 now 6 years old. This car is his work car and spends it's life traveling from the outskirts of the city into the centre so covers very small mileages but does a lot of slow running so I also really went to town on this service doing "everything" Air filter, oil filter, engine oil, cabin filter (that's not an easy one to do) spark plugs, renewed coolant when the belt was done, renewed a couple of "dim" bulbs and one blown flasher and generally stripped the brakes and freed everything off and more. Noted at that time that the clutch pedal felt "poor" and the exhaust flange bolts were very rusted. In jan 2019 in the cold and wet, N/S/R LED light unit failed - went dim. Tried drying it out with a hair dryer and it worked again for a couple of weeks then went dim again. I rang Mick/Mike at Shop4parts to order a new one and learned a) this is a common problem and b) that shortly after our cars were produced a modified led unit was introduced to production which now replaces the original and is claimed to address this problem. It's been fine ever since with the new unit fitted.
Next I saw of the car was Sept/Oct 2019 when he brought it over complaining that the clutch was only releasing when the pedal was almost on the floor. It was indeed, in fact it almost wasn't releasing at all. I bled the clutch and it got quite a bit better so I then serviced it again - oil and filter but not all other filters needed done. and gave it a general check over. Mileage now 48,547 and front brakes looking pretty rough with discs quite rusted, still about a third of the pads left though. Both front tyres renewed due to age cracking. After he'd run around in it for a couple of weeks the clutch went back to acting up so I had another look at it. no signs of any leaks from the slave so decided it had to be the master. Haynes shows this to be a "doable" job so I set about renewing it. No matter how much I swore at it I couldn't see how it comes out - it comes out past the pedal cluster into the footwell. In the end, with fingers dripping blood, literally, and the air blue with profanities, I did up the securing bolts and drove it round to Kenny Harrison where his head mechanic cut his fingers to shreds doing the change over. It appears that the Grande Punto, and maybe the EVO? are not too bad to do, but on the 2012 on Punto, the pedal cluster itself has to come out for the cylinder to be extracted. He said he never wants to do another one! The bummer is that it made very little difference and we ended up doing a complete clutch and throwing in a slave cylinder for good luck! The clutch is lovely now! It also had what I thought was a N/S driveshaft seal leaking so we put a seal in it at the same time.
Strangely I haven't documented that sometime around then the sump started weeping. I do remember it was in the depths of the cold winter weather and for that reason I chickened out (well i am in my 70s) so back it went to Kenny and his merry men and got a new sump fitted - not as expensive as you might think. Also around that time I thought the N/S gearbox seal was still leaking but further examination showed it was the gear selector shaft seal - I think this was probably the problem all along so I did that on my driveway - not a bad job to do.
Jan '21 it got a new battery and shortly after that a new exhaust system (from cat to rear) the fixing nuts on the cat flange looked just like yours and had to be torched off.
August '22 did another major service, this time with all filters etc and noted front discs now very poor, although still enough pad to not be dangerous rear shoes now three quarters worn but drums in good nick.
Jan '23 thought better of putting off the front brakes so, in the freezing cold, new front discs and pads and a general check over in preparation for it's MOT, which it passed!
I think that's everything except a couple of years ago it failed MOT because the rear hatch latch had failed so the hatch couldn't be opened. His garage, not Harrisons, couldn't get a new catch, I was sceptical about it being the catch, I thought it more likely to be the wiring where it flexes from the body to the hatch but the garage were adamant that it was the catch. I quickly got one from S4p and passed it to the garage and a day later he had his car back. It had been the catch after all!
This winter it's developed a water leak and the carpets are very wet - the car lives outside - so that's the next job for Grandad. I think the mileage is now sitting at around 57,000 and apart from needing to do rear shoes soon and fix the leak the wee car is going very well. The sump is a well known problem so didn't surprise us but the clutch problems were unexpected but that's the chance you take with buying a used vehicle, maybe it's previous owner was a pedal rider - Fiat clutch hydraulics are known for not being very robust anyway. but other than that it's been a pretty good wee runabout for him and has never failed to get him to his work. I think there's a few years in it yet.
I see you're in Edinburgh, as I am. My stomping grounds are Leith/Trinity/Warriston area, are you anywhere near? Please don't feel you have to reply of course and even then just general area will be quite enough.
which is probably a good thing given how knackered my back is now
