General whats your `97 Punto 60sx 1.2 automatic performance?

[luminous]

Just wondering if anyone else has this car and what kind of performance you get from it.
Since i got it 3 months ago:
It has no `oomph` (not like i expect it anyway,but when i want to pull away i can`t rely on it,espesh cold mornings)
Have to go on roundabouts the day before to get around it,so slow.
Doesn`t have any tension at all (ie doesn`t want to go or move forward with brake on it just sits there)
Rolls back on hills which means i have to be quick style on the pedal.
Takin it to kwik fit tmrow possible exhaust is away(noisy,lack of power) but this only showed up few days ago.
Last wk had timing belt/tensioner replaced.
Think its worth doing a service on it too? (it was done last yr by prev owner),think it would make that much of difference? or am i expecting too much of an old small auto like this? I had a 1.2 clio b4 2 yrs ago,but that could shift compared to this.

 

[JamesMK2]

the fact that you havent done a service for a year says something. Service and see what happens. If you dont service your car regularly then you will get problems.

 

[faster4_tec]

Serving regulary will not do your car any harm. And the way you drive it will affect how it drives too.

1) old biddy drives it as a shopper for 6years and only covers 15000 miles then it will not want to rev and will feel slow and lifeless.
2) chav racer thinks its a f1 car and will mean car will rev freely, but all that over revving over time will kill any sort of compression the little pint sized engine had
3) previous owner has done 90000 miles in it, but serviced it fully every 9000, and revved it everynow and then, and rest of time has pootled along.

No prizes for guessing which car will be the quickest.








*3)

 

[darkcircuitUK]

lol, true but your comparison is not very balanced is it

A car that has done 20k miles will beat a car that has done 90k miles. You don't watch topgear do you

 

[luminous]

I was a bit reluctant to spend on service until i found out what the other costs were going to be.Today it was the middle bit of exhaust (120)and also got kwik fit to change oil and filter (half price sale on 15 for it should anyone want it done) and its ticking over nicely,and responsive what a difference.Got air filter and sparks too,money well spent it looks like,cheers guys.
First owner was old biddy taking cat to shops,second for a yr was a young bloke but he hardly used it,he had a van as well hmm.Now if it could only take a v6

 

[JTD Monkey]

I seem to remember the 'Selecta' has some god-awful 0-60 time of 17 seconds. On the basis CVT, in theory, gives immediate access to the power (I use the word 'power' with a hint of humour), I can only assume the fact it takes 3 seconds longer to get to 60 than the manual is down to slow 'step-off' (i.e. acceleration from rest).

The lack of 'hill hold' and 'pull' on the transmission are typical of a CVT system as they don't work like a conventional auto (i.e. where if you take your feet off all the pedals and it will move forward). Nissan actually built 'creep' into the Micra CVT system (on later cars). This also makes CVT more efficient than a traditional auto.

I would have thought a service would help with the lack of smooth running on a cold morning

I agree with faster4_tec, I would much rather have the 90,000 mile car

 

[luminous]

Thanks for info jtd,didn`t know that.I had hell of a trouble with sparks,i got em done by a local garage and to cut a long story short i had to get green flag out he had put spark leads on wrong way so it was misfiring and running on 2 cylinders!.After 20 attempts at swapping leads finally got it working.
Its still rubbish in morning from cold tho,anything that might help with that?