Hi all. I've had a quick speed read through the forum and I haven't seen this problem covered (sorry if it has been).
I have a 2000 Punto HGT with 130,000 on the clock. I have it serviced regularly and it's never given me a days trouble since I've had it............until now.
We were travelling back from Dorset a week last Saturday, so on the Friday evening I filled up with petrol for the journey, went straight back to the campsite (4-5 miles) and parked up for the night. The following morning it took a bit of convincing to start, it had been a damp night so I didn't really think too much about it. As we travelled home through heavy traffic it began to hesitate on acceleration and splutter a bit. Once we hit the M25 I was having to adjust my foot pressure carefully in order to be able to accelerate but in the end I was losing so much power I had to stop on the hard shoulder and call the RAC. He reckoned it was either the Cat or the injection system and we had to be recovered.
The following Monday I had the Cat checked, it's fine. I took it to a local garage and after they didn't find any error codes they did compression tests, emission tests and tested the fuel but everything came back OK. They drew a blank.
On the Thursday I took it to a Fiat main dealer. They ran all the usual tests, they drained the fuel tank and replaced it with new petrol, they even got in a load of donor parts to try fitting them individually to see if they could isolate the problem. Today (Wednesday, 6 days later) I got a call from them saying that they still have no idea what's causing it. They say they can start replacing major parts but it will be pure guesswork, they'll have to charge me for them but that they can't guarantee that any of them will fix the problem.
I'm really at a loss as to what to try next. If a main dealer can't sort it out what chance does anyone else stand?
If anybody has had a similar problem or has any idea what might be causing it I'd be really grateful to hear. It's a great car and this is the first and only major problem it's had so I really don't want to (and can't afford to) scrap it.
Many thanks
Clive
I have a 2000 Punto HGT with 130,000 on the clock. I have it serviced regularly and it's never given me a days trouble since I've had it............until now.
We were travelling back from Dorset a week last Saturday, so on the Friday evening I filled up with petrol for the journey, went straight back to the campsite (4-5 miles) and parked up for the night. The following morning it took a bit of convincing to start, it had been a damp night so I didn't really think too much about it. As we travelled home through heavy traffic it began to hesitate on acceleration and splutter a bit. Once we hit the M25 I was having to adjust my foot pressure carefully in order to be able to accelerate but in the end I was losing so much power I had to stop on the hard shoulder and call the RAC. He reckoned it was either the Cat or the injection system and we had to be recovered.
The following Monday I had the Cat checked, it's fine. I took it to a local garage and after they didn't find any error codes they did compression tests, emission tests and tested the fuel but everything came back OK. They drew a blank.
On the Thursday I took it to a Fiat main dealer. They ran all the usual tests, they drained the fuel tank and replaced it with new petrol, they even got in a load of donor parts to try fitting them individually to see if they could isolate the problem. Today (Wednesday, 6 days later) I got a call from them saying that they still have no idea what's causing it. They say they can start replacing major parts but it will be pure guesswork, they'll have to charge me for them but that they can't guarantee that any of them will fix the problem.
I'm really at a loss as to what to try next. If a main dealer can't sort it out what chance does anyone else stand?
If anybody has had a similar problem or has any idea what might be causing it I'd be really grateful to hear. It's a great car and this is the first and only major problem it's had so I really don't want to (and can't afford to) scrap it.
Many thanks
Clive