Hello, good people.
Excuse the lengthy post, but I want to jam all the details I have for your perusal, while keeping it as compact as possible. Also, some of my technical terminology is lacking, I'll try to explain as precisely and simply as possible.
I think I'm posting in the correct section, excuse me if I'm not, Fiat hasn't made it overly simple to detect these car models. I believe I have a Punto "Classic" (mk2b is it?) as shown in the following picture, the only difference being I don't have that side protection on the door and the side there and the front grille is a bit different on mine, probably not an original part.
https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Punto#/media/File:Fiat_Punto_front_20080714.jpg
Model: Punto 1.2, 8V, petrol engine
Year of production: 2008
Number of doors: 3
Some history: I had this vehicle for 3 years now, it has some 71k km. This car is used for daily commute, I do maybe 30km per day, total in 3+ years I have done some 12k km.
Previous owner stated it had one crash, left (driver's) side was quite damaged. From a later more detailed inspection from a third party it was obvious the car wasn't repaired with a great attention to detail. Some of the replacement parts that were used (front lights, the hood, probably the door too and who knows what else) are low quality, there was also some damage to the back door as well, so maybe two separate crashes happened. They cut corners on all sides. I bought it from two guys (ex colleagues) who bought it damaged and repaired it for profit. All in all, we aren't friends anymore.
The main issue: I have starting problems. When I turn the ignition on (but before starting the engine) sometimes I can hear the pump operating, at other times I can't. The front panel comes on normally. If I repeat this operation several times, after a few attempts I will hear the pump, sometimes not even after several tries. Sometimes after turning the ignition off, the front panel will stay on for a solid several seconds.
When I try to start, it most commonly fails to start from the first try. I can hear it revving, the front panel turns off (all the dials go down, the trip counter and the clock reset, background light turns off and the dials keep twitching for a few seconds, if that makes sense) and the car is "dead." When I stop revving and leave the ignition on, after a few seconds the panel comes back on. I have to turn the ignition off, and back on and typically on the second try the engine will start, but the panel will turn off and back on again. Sometimes it will start after I hear the pump, sometimes it won't.
The battery has been replaced about a year ago. This issue has been developing for a while now, basically from the start. Sometimes I can hear (while trying to start, immediately after trying and during the drive) clicking sounds coming from under the hood, presumably some relays are having a party in there.
Sometimes, the car won't start after several attempts, the same procedure all over again. After three or four attempts, I'll lift the hood and unplug the battery for 30 seconds or so. After that, the engine will start, after an attempt or two. In total, I couldn't get it to start some two times, but after coming back to the car later it will start as if nothing had happened. I haven't managed to find any correlation between this issue and the weather. Cold, hot, dark, light, 90% or 60% moisture, all the same.
Another possibly major problem: sometime after starting, the engine starts to produce quite a lot of vibration, I assume one of the cylinders fails to come on (I have some experience with larger engines and how they operate when a cylinder fails or is shut off for diagnostics.) This issue is followed by a yellow "check engine" light and I can "fix" it by pressing the gas pedal for a second or two. After it "evens out" the engine operates normally, the "check engine" light stays on. This issue started only recently and it makes me conclude this is going to get worse sooner rather than later.
Other, possibly related issues I'd consider minor: I've seen the stickies for the turning wheel red light and the faq for the airbag red light. Sometimes, after a difficult start, my servo won't work for 10-15 seconds. I don't know about the "city" i.e. softer servo since I don't use it. But, when the servo goes back to normal, it stays there. This happened maybe a dozen times.
The "key coding" yellow light comes on sometimes, as well. Sometimes, during driving, the front panel will shut down for a split second and the dials will come back again. The engine never turned off on its own, though. Sometimes, the engine temperature dial will "die" during operation and come back on, seemingly completely randomly. Sometimes it won't be on for a few days and then it comes back again.
There were some other issues in the early development of the problem, but I don't want to swamp you. Note that I use the word "sometimes" way too often, but it sadly reflects the state of operation perfectly.
Things I have tried doing: I visited two mechanics (people I somewhat trust, both have some electrical experience) and an electrician (well renowned in my area.) What they jointly did:
- connected to the ECU, changed some settings (turning wheel position needed to be calibrated, it showed odd angles,) no meaningful error messages were found, something about odd canbus errors. This was a few years back, so my memory of it isn't that fresh
- the lock was checked, no apparent issues
- there was some corrosion on the ground connection, it was cleaned
- the battery was replaced a year ago (as mentioned above, by myself) even if it maybe wasn't dead, I wasn't too sure about that, but after failing to start that morning I didn't want to risk it
- circuit breakers were checked and (part of) the wiring as well
All in all, these guys charged me a pittance for all of these operations and therefore I have to conclude nobody was trying to scam me. The electrician figured it was probably down to the cockpit ECU, which was a costly replacement, but he wasn't very optimistic about having this problem ironed out completely at any point. However, I visited this guy about 2 years ago while the issues were less frequently occurring. This week I visited the mechanic because I wanted to be reasonably certain this is not a mechanical issue before proceeding.
The last bit of info which I find worthy of note: after I replaced the battery, some of the lights were still coming on randomly, but the car started OK, for some 6 months. Then I had some problems on the technical examination (I'm not certain how do you guys call that, done yearly when extending the "permit") with front left wheel break being inadequate and my mechanic had to replace the "jaw" (again, unsure of the correct term) and after that the starting problem came back with a vengeance. It may well have been a freak occurrence, of course. He claims these two issue were not related.
Well, I think that's about it. I plan to visit the electrician during the following week. My semi educated opinion on this is that this is some sort of a grounding issue, I think there are some floating currents going on, making the ground higher than 0V and that makes the electronics go crazy. I'll try doing some voltage measurements to see how much does the voltage drop when starting, but with only a year on this battery I doubt it's the culprit.
Thanks for your time, any advice is welcome.
Excuse the lengthy post, but I want to jam all the details I have for your perusal, while keeping it as compact as possible. Also, some of my technical terminology is lacking, I'll try to explain as precisely and simply as possible.
I think I'm posting in the correct section, excuse me if I'm not, Fiat hasn't made it overly simple to detect these car models. I believe I have a Punto "Classic" (mk2b is it?) as shown in the following picture, the only difference being I don't have that side protection on the door and the side there and the front grille is a bit different on mine, probably not an original part.
https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Punto#/media/File:Fiat_Punto_front_20080714.jpg
Model: Punto 1.2, 8V, petrol engine
Year of production: 2008
Number of doors: 3
Some history: I had this vehicle for 3 years now, it has some 71k km. This car is used for daily commute, I do maybe 30km per day, total in 3+ years I have done some 12k km.
Previous owner stated it had one crash, left (driver's) side was quite damaged. From a later more detailed inspection from a third party it was obvious the car wasn't repaired with a great attention to detail. Some of the replacement parts that were used (front lights, the hood, probably the door too and who knows what else) are low quality, there was also some damage to the back door as well, so maybe two separate crashes happened. They cut corners on all sides. I bought it from two guys (ex colleagues) who bought it damaged and repaired it for profit. All in all, we aren't friends anymore.
The main issue: I have starting problems. When I turn the ignition on (but before starting the engine) sometimes I can hear the pump operating, at other times I can't. The front panel comes on normally. If I repeat this operation several times, after a few attempts I will hear the pump, sometimes not even after several tries. Sometimes after turning the ignition off, the front panel will stay on for a solid several seconds.
When I try to start, it most commonly fails to start from the first try. I can hear it revving, the front panel turns off (all the dials go down, the trip counter and the clock reset, background light turns off and the dials keep twitching for a few seconds, if that makes sense) and the car is "dead." When I stop revving and leave the ignition on, after a few seconds the panel comes back on. I have to turn the ignition off, and back on and typically on the second try the engine will start, but the panel will turn off and back on again. Sometimes it will start after I hear the pump, sometimes it won't.
The battery has been replaced about a year ago. This issue has been developing for a while now, basically from the start. Sometimes I can hear (while trying to start, immediately after trying and during the drive) clicking sounds coming from under the hood, presumably some relays are having a party in there.
Sometimes, the car won't start after several attempts, the same procedure all over again. After three or four attempts, I'll lift the hood and unplug the battery for 30 seconds or so. After that, the engine will start, after an attempt or two. In total, I couldn't get it to start some two times, but after coming back to the car later it will start as if nothing had happened. I haven't managed to find any correlation between this issue and the weather. Cold, hot, dark, light, 90% or 60% moisture, all the same.
Another possibly major problem: sometime after starting, the engine starts to produce quite a lot of vibration, I assume one of the cylinders fails to come on (I have some experience with larger engines and how they operate when a cylinder fails or is shut off for diagnostics.) This issue is followed by a yellow "check engine" light and I can "fix" it by pressing the gas pedal for a second or two. After it "evens out" the engine operates normally, the "check engine" light stays on. This issue started only recently and it makes me conclude this is going to get worse sooner rather than later.
Other, possibly related issues I'd consider minor: I've seen the stickies for the turning wheel red light and the faq for the airbag red light. Sometimes, after a difficult start, my servo won't work for 10-15 seconds. I don't know about the "city" i.e. softer servo since I don't use it. But, when the servo goes back to normal, it stays there. This happened maybe a dozen times.
The "key coding" yellow light comes on sometimes, as well. Sometimes, during driving, the front panel will shut down for a split second and the dials will come back again. The engine never turned off on its own, though. Sometimes, the engine temperature dial will "die" during operation and come back on, seemingly completely randomly. Sometimes it won't be on for a few days and then it comes back again.
There were some other issues in the early development of the problem, but I don't want to swamp you. Note that I use the word "sometimes" way too often, but it sadly reflects the state of operation perfectly.
Things I have tried doing: I visited two mechanics (people I somewhat trust, both have some electrical experience) and an electrician (well renowned in my area.) What they jointly did:
- connected to the ECU, changed some settings (turning wheel position needed to be calibrated, it showed odd angles,) no meaningful error messages were found, something about odd canbus errors. This was a few years back, so my memory of it isn't that fresh
- the lock was checked, no apparent issues
- there was some corrosion on the ground connection, it was cleaned
- the battery was replaced a year ago (as mentioned above, by myself) even if it maybe wasn't dead, I wasn't too sure about that, but after failing to start that morning I didn't want to risk it
- circuit breakers were checked and (part of) the wiring as well
All in all, these guys charged me a pittance for all of these operations and therefore I have to conclude nobody was trying to scam me. The electrician figured it was probably down to the cockpit ECU, which was a costly replacement, but he wasn't very optimistic about having this problem ironed out completely at any point. However, I visited this guy about 2 years ago while the issues were less frequently occurring. This week I visited the mechanic because I wanted to be reasonably certain this is not a mechanical issue before proceeding.
The last bit of info which I find worthy of note: after I replaced the battery, some of the lights were still coming on randomly, but the car started OK, for some 6 months. Then I had some problems on the technical examination (I'm not certain how do you guys call that, done yearly when extending the "permit") with front left wheel break being inadequate and my mechanic had to replace the "jaw" (again, unsure of the correct term) and after that the starting problem came back with a vengeance. It may well have been a freak occurrence, of course. He claims these two issue were not related.
Well, I think that's about it. I plan to visit the electrician during the following week. My semi educated opinion on this is that this is some sort of a grounding issue, I think there are some floating currents going on, making the ground higher than 0V and that makes the electronics go crazy. I'll try doing some voltage measurements to see how much does the voltage drop when starting, but with only a year on this battery I doubt it's the culprit.
Thanks for your time, any advice is welcome.