Fiat Punto - head gaskets

Delancey

It's been said many times here that Punto's are prone to head gasket failure - happened to my own Punto last year.
My question is - does this problem still afflict all Puntos or is it something they sorted out for later models ?
Would a car from say 2005/20006 be any less likely to suffer gasket failure in the future as one 3 or 4 years older ?

shamwari

The FIRE variant in the Grande (2006 on) seems to be solid enough. I've heard of no HG failures in those. Have heard rumours of high oil consumption on some cars, particularly 1.4's, but that's about it.

CiniO

As far as I remember, only engine which was prone to head gasket failures was 1.2 8v.
Unfortunately this was the most popular version of Punto in Ireland, that's where such opinion about Punto went around.

Mister Jingles

Like CiniO said it was the 1.2 8v which experience the head gasket issues. Shame really as the Punto 8v was (and still is I'd imagine) the most common Fiat on the road and is what continued on Fiat's bad reputation.

Have heard that Fiat got there act together in the last 4 years or so and did improve on a lot of things.

Sorry I couldn't of being of any more help.

JoeySully

Do Puntos really have poor head gaskets that fail or is it due to the nature of the car and its owners not keeping the cooling systems well serviced, which in turn causes HG failure. Basically are all these Punto HG's failing for no reason, maybe just bad head gasket sealing at the factory or are they failing due to poor maintenance of the cooling system or lack of torquing HG bolts ?

Ardennes1944

i would say its half and half. my brother had a mk2 8v and drove it hard from cold alot and never maintained it at all, had 2 hg failures in a year. i inherited as i started out and looked after it like a baby, never had any hg failure, nor did i have any other problems. a fine car.

VolvoMan

CiniO wrote: »

As far as I remember, only engine which was prone to head gasket failures was 1.2 8v.
Unfortunately this was the most popular version of Punto in Ireland, that's where such opinion about Punto went around.

Why is it that the ****tiest versions of cars are always popular in this country? The 1.2 16 valve was an infinitely better engine that cost the same to tax, yet the 8 valve outsold it ten to one.

The same thing is happening with the likes of 3 Series BMW's, where people are choosing the 316d over the 318d/320d when there isn't even any tax saving to be had.

pajo1981

VolvoMan wrote: »

The same thing is happening with the likes of 3 Series BMW's, where people are choosing the 316d over the 318d/320d when there isn't even any tax saving to be had.

I'd imagine it's because the 316d is about all they can stretch their budget to.

shamwari

JoeySully wrote: »

Do Puntos really have poor head gaskets that fail or is it due to the nature of the car and its owners not keeping the cooling systems well serviced, which in turn causes HG failure. Basically are all these Punto HG's failing for no reason, maybe just bad head gasket sealing at the factory or are they failing due to poor maintenance of the cooling system or lack of torquing HG bolts ?

The head gaskets that I replaced were nearly all blown across the waterjacket @ no1 cylinder. The spark plugs always came out looking like brand new Once replaced and skimmed, i've never had one blow again. Poor maintenance and abusive driving from cold do them no favours at all either. It is imperative though that they are bled properly, otherwise air bubbles will lodge at high points in the system preventing it from doing its job properly.

VolvoMan wrote: »

Why is it that the ****tiest versions of cars are always popular in this country? The 1.2 16 valve was an infinitely better engine that cost the same to tax, yet the 8 valve outsold it ten to one.

You're dead right about the 16V. Great pokey, reliable little engine that revs freely to the moon. However there are two reasons why it didn't sell as well. Firstly Fiat's open book finance pushed the 8v (presumably because it had a greater margin and were aimedat customers on a tighter budget), and the 16v was dearer. The 8v was probably the cheapest supermini out there at that time. I also reckon the 8v outsold the 16v by about 20 to 1!

Mr Benevolent

Those 16v Punto 2s are very cheap too. Could be a good temporary replacement for my car actually...

delly

I currently drive a 16v HLX which has been very reliable. The only issue I had was with the wiper linkage and a cheap upgrade kit on eBay sorted that.

shamwari

delly wrote: »

I currently drive a 16v HLX which has been very reliable. The only issue I had was with the wiper linkage and a cheap upgrade kit on eBay sorted that.

Smashing car!

shamwari

Confab wrote: »

Those 16v Punto 2s are very cheap too. Could be a good temporary replacement for my car actually...

..if you can get a decent unmolested one that hasn't been boy-racered...;)

Mr Benevolent

shamwari wrote: »

..if you can get a decent unmolested one that hasn't been boy-racered...;)

Good point. Should've gotten one in the first place.

dgt

The hg fails due to poor maintenance of the cooling system. Which I mean stuck thermostats leading to overheating, never changing the coolant or using the wrong coolant. When changing the coolant, use blue paraflu only, 50/50 with water.

On the 16v engines the hg can go too (has happened to me on 2 engines out of 7) but these tend to go between cylinders, usually between 2 and 3. The last time it happened to me it was because of.... Yep overheating, caused by a hose that had come loose on the radiator thus losing the coolant as I drove along :mad:

Once looked after the 16v engines will rack up the miles. I'm currently using one with 141k miles from new on its original hg

dgt

shamwari wrote: »

..if you can get a decent unmolested one that hasn't been boy-racered...;)

Good point, I have a mk2 Sporting that was ragged to death by the previous owner (piston rings broke, manifold melted, mounts destroyed) it may have taken a while but I nearly have it de-chavved, repaired and ready for the road once more

shamwari

Interesting the consensus forming about poor cooling system maintenance. I've never managed to get a full explanation of what the premature cause of HG failure may be. But, I have replaced quite a few of them, and as I said earlier, most of them seem to fail on cylinder one between the bore and the water jacket. This would arouse suspicion that the original gaskets were defective, however the replacement ones fitted never appeared to modified or reworked, and didn't blow either once properly fit.

As regards cooling system maintenance, other than fixing leaks, a cooling system needs no maintenance per sé other than replacing the coolant when due.

A final theory I have is that the Punto's have a small cooling system capacity-wise. They heat very quickly from cold to improve warm-up time and fuel consumption generally. They are always marginal on cooling when in traffic, and that is evidenced by how quickly the cooling fans kick in when stopped for any length of time. In such circumstances, any kind of low coolant / leak / defective fans will manifest themselves into an overheat situation very quickly indeed.....

Ghost Train

Had the 16v for few years never any problems, nice lively car