Hi all , ok last fri i travelled from Cornwall to Ashford about a six hour journy in total. When i arrived at Ashford my Punto started to missfire when pulling away at traffic lights from stationary, it took loads of revs to get going ; initialy i thought it was the clutch. As i enterd the car park ar Ashford it did the same thing but this time the overheating lamp came onand the interior fan blew cold. So i thought head gasket. I decided to go on holiday and deal with it when i got back a week later. So last night i got it out the car park, it started straight away drove it to a lay by close by and called the RAC. The technician came out did his stuff, he said the water level was somewhat low. so he topped it up ran it for about twenty minutes cleared an air lock and said it was unlikely to be a head gasket as it runs so smoothly at idle without boiling over. When i was asked to follow the RAC guy for a road test straight away it seemed to miss fire in first and second gear almost like half of the power had gone , when it did this the engine managment light came on momentarily. Once at a speed over twenty miles per hour it was perfectly normal. But as i was about to leave the RAC guy the temp light flickerd on and off again as if it was overheating, so the end result was i was relayed home. So now i have the dilema, head gasket or electrical. The rac guy seems to think its electrical. There is no oily ****e in the expansion tank, and only a small amount of build up on the filler cap, which i thought could be condensation. I have had head gaskets go before and the build up is usaully quite large unlike this, plus it isnt using water. So what do you guys think? My intial thoughts are to change the HT leads, water temp sensor and thermostat. Oh its a eight valve "y" reg punto . cheers
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good luck
