Technical Have I Bought a Pup

[bodie37]

Need a bit of advice from some Punto Mk5 owners

I've bought a Mk5 Punto 1.2 Easy privately, for my lad as his first car to learn to drive in. Private purchase and gave the car a good going over but could not drive as not insured. It looked in good nick with no rust and only two car park dinks)

This is our first Fiat.

It has the flashing odometer and battery drain, plus the telephone button on the steering wheel does nothing. After reading various threads, this seems to be the Blue and Me Module, on the weekend I'm going to remove it and send it off for repair, thats £95. Has anybody had this done and is it worth doing? I take it the battery drain will stop if there is no BandM module installed?

I've already replaced the battery, £50

Tonight was the first time we had driven it in the dark. The main bean has a strange problem. Turn it on and the driver's side lights go out. Turn off the main beam, the headlight comes on. Hold the main mean stalk in, as you would if you were flashing someone and the light stays on but not the main beam. I would think that this was the bulb, but if the car is stationary then the main beam works as it should. The dust cover is missing from this headlight and I've had to change the sidelight bulb. Could this be crap on the connections or a loose connection?

Does the Punto Easy have an audible lights-on alarm?

All of a sudden after the battery drain, the radio has no volume, CD's work okay? Is this linked to the BandM module issue?

5th gear is difficult to find, no crunching or anything from the gearbox and reverse seems okay. Anybody else had this

Sorry about all the questions but I need to see if if we keep the car and spend up to a grand on it, (timing belt, new remote key, service items, Blue and Me module, radio problems, auto electrician etc), or a take a grand loss on the car and get rid

Cheers in advance

 

[AndyRKett]

Yep you've bought a PUP.

I'd suggest scrapping the radio take out the Blue and Me Module and fit a half decent aftermarket radio that does Bluetooth and DAB.

The OEM radio is garbage as is Blue and Me. Even if you spent all that money to get it working it would not be worth it. Just remember to come back and get advice on fitting the new radio as it is not a simple case of just pluging in the radio plug with fiat's you need to do a little rewire job to fit an aftermaket radio.

I don't understand the issue with the head lights, you might need to explain that a bit more.

Gear box on these cars is simple. The most likely cause of any issues selecting gear is likely to be either in the cables from the gearstick to the gearbox, or the clutch.

If you do change the radio you'll need what's called a "proxi alignment" to stop the dash from flashing at you, again if you look that up on the forum there are loads of threads about it.

Punto does not have an alarm to tell you the lights are on because with all fiats for a very long time now the lights should switch off with the ignition.

 

[bodie37]

Thank you for taking the time to reply

I take it I can simply remove the Blue and Me module and tuck the cable and connector out of the way? Will removing the module also stop the battery draining?

The headlight issue is strange, car parked engine running all lights work as they should. Whilst driving or straight after driving switching to main beam, main beam works as it should on the passenger side but all the lights in the drivers side headlight unit go off, if I hold the light stalk back as if flashing the lights then all work apart from the main/dipped beam. When I park on the drive it then all works, but I'm going up a kerb so I'm wondering if its loose connection. I'm going to replace the bulb and check all the connections. This headlight had a missing rubber cover so I wondering if there is some dirt causing a problem

I take it the proxi alignment can be done by anybody with the right software and cables

 

[AndyRKett]

Thank you for taking the time to reply

I take it I can simply remove the Blue and Me module and tuck the cable and connector out of the way? Will removing the module also stop the battery draining?

The headlight issue is strange, car parked engine running all lights work as they should. Whilst driving or straight after driving switching to main beam, main beam works as it should on the passenger side but all the lights in the drivers side headlight unit go off, if I hold the light stalk back as if flashing the lights then all work apart from the main/dipped beam. When I park on the drive it then all works, but I'm going up a kerb so I'm wondering if its loose connection. I'm going to replace the bulb and check all the coonections. This headlight had a missing rubber cover so I wondering if there is some dirt causing a problem

I take it the proxi alignment can be done by anybody with the right software and cables

Removing the blue and me module should stop the battery drain assuming that is the problem (and it usually is)


Head light issue is not something I have come across before.
Is the car fitted with fog lights?
Fiat did a bit of a hack job on the Punto when they changed the Grande to the EVO to make the turn lights work on the foglights (fog light on the left comes on when turning left and vice versa on the right) the later 2012 Punto is just an EVO but they did a few down grades to make it cheaper to manufacture. so there can be some gremlins in the headlights. I would see how you get on with new bulbs and cleaning up the terminals, it would be pretty odd to only have that fault when moving but not when stationary.

 

[bodie37]

Once again, thanks. I'll update this thread once I've done or had the work done

 

[AndyRKett]

Once again, thanks. I'll update this thread once I've done or had the work done

The Blue and Me module in the Punto is above the glove box, so open the glovebox and you can see the module directly above the opening. I think there are only one or two screws that hold the little cage in, that it is mounted to, very easy to remove.

 

[bodie37]

Nice one

 

[bodie37]

I've removed the Blue and Me module, found it straight away, you were spot on with the location of it. I'll monitor the battery over the next week, but hopefully, that will have cured that.

With regards to the issue with 5th, it seems that when going into 5th, the gear stick is allowed to travel ever so slightly to the right, so I guess it's missing the gate for 5th. Has anybody else experienced this?

 

[varesecrazy]

I've removed the Blue and Me module, found it straight away, you were spot on with the location of it. I'll monitor the battery over the next week, but hopefully, that will have cured that.

With regards to the issue with 5th, it seems that when going into 5th, the gear stick is allowed to travel ever so slightly to the right, so I guess it's missing the gate for 5th. Has anybody else experienced this?

Hi .
I have had 100k. Diesel Grandes and basic gear change has still been good..

 

[bodie37]

Hi .
I have had 100k. Diesel Grandes and basic gear change has still been good..

Hi

It's only 5th that has the issue, all other gears seem fine

 

[varesecrazy]

Hi

It's only 5th that has the issue, all other gears seem fine

My diesels are all 5 speed.. And no issues

So am wondering if it's a cable issue..?

My 6 speed is also pretty good at 70k.. But it's one owner.. Which probably helps.

SEARCH on here is actually pretty good.. So worth a look..

Obviously that 15 years of the 199 punto now..
So very few 'new and unseen things'

 

[bodie37]

The headlight issue fixed. Both main beam bulbs were not secured. Passenger one was fiddly and the side light went as well, typical.

The driver's issues was fixed by using contact cleaner on the connection block, changing the bulb and making sure the securing clip was correctly fitted. Oh and a headlight dust cover from a Punto Grande fits the Punto Mk5

I think its a solid car, it's just not been looked after by the previous owner/s

I've got a Haynes manual coming tomorrow so I'll take a look at how difficult replacing the cables is. There is a receipt from 2019 for gerbox cables being replaced

 

[AndyRKett]

I've got a Haynes manual coming tomorrow so I'll take a look at how difficult replacing the cables is. There is a receipt from 2019 for gerbox cables being replaced

could be a clue the. There is a little adjuster on the gear box end of the cable. It could be whoever fitted it was a single notch out on the adjuster one way or the other. it could turn out to be an easy fix.

Just to point out there is not technically any such thing as a MK5 Punto.

There was a Mk1 and Mk2 and Mk2b which are terms that the fiat community put on them.

Fiat use internal code names for their cars so the Mk1 was a 176 the Mk2 and mk2b were both 188, Then everything after that was the 199.

The 199 puntos such as the grande and evo where in a different lineage to the older Puntos, as they continued to make the 188 Punto till 2012.

It was only then that they changed the name of the EVO back to "Punto" so technically speaking the 2012 "punto" is the mk3. But really its the same car as the Evo so all Grande, Evos and 2012+ puntos can be considered the Mk3.

generally speaking people stopped using a "mk" designation after 2005 and just referred to them as either the Grande, Evo or 2012+ but essentially they are all the same car just with some facelift changes over the 15 years it was in production.

 

[bodie37]

Cheers for that, first Fiat ever, so that info is very helpful

 

[bodie37]

Regarding the radio problem, I think either the tuner is busted in the radio or there is a break in the aerial. I've removed it but as usual, I cannot see anything. I think I replace it with an Android head unit as this Blue and Me stuff seems to be riddled with problems

 

[AndyRKett]

this Blue and Me stuff seems to be riddled with problems

the idea was good, the execution of that idea was…. Italian

blue and me stems from a pre smart phone era of the early 2000s when everyone thought that smart phones would be like little windows PCs in your pocket, there were even a few of them about, pocket PC that worked as a phone. But then about 18 months after blue and me appeared ok the first grande puntos, apple released the iPhone and the era of pocket PC was instantly dead.

The blue and me system is a fiat customised version of windows auto designed by Microsoft.