Fiat punto seems to overheat.

zoe 3619

Hi guys.there's no temperature guage on it,but it's uphill going home and by the time I pull in the car smells very hot and the fans going.only bought it yesterday,so would hate to do any damage.
Oil and water are fine,fans obviously working.maybe I'm just not used to the ways of the car yet,but slightly worried.would the thermostat be the next thing to look at?if so does it need replacing,or can I just do away with it altogether?cars fairly old (2000).

martinr5232

Get the cooling system bled and say a few prayers those puntos blew gaskets for fun.

TheBody

Yea, it's prob the head gasket. VERY common fault with the pinto.

zoe 3619

Thanks lads.you have me worried now.guess I need a mechanic.

LeakingLava

How does the temperature gauge increase/decrease? The thermostat on puntos are also very common faults on puntos. Had to change mine a few times last year. A lot of them are dodgy especially if bought in motor factors or such stores. Had to buy from a Fiat dealer and not changed it since. If oil and water has no color change I would really suggest to monitor the temp gauge and how it is acting before assuming it's the HG.

Stheno

Is the temperature warning light coming on?

f140

take out the thermostat to check its working? drive it without the thermostat in for a bit to see if the smell goes away?

AMKC

zoe 3619 wrote: »

Hi guys.there's no temperature guage on it,but it's uphill going home and by the time I pull in the car smells very hot and the fans going.only bought it yesterday,so would hate to do any damage.
Oil and water are fine,fans obviously working.maybe I'm just not used to the ways of the car yet,but slightly worried.would the thermostat be the next thing to look at?if so does it need replacing,or can I just do away with it altogether?cars fairly old (2000).

Did you buy it of someone privately? Any warranty on it more than likely there is not. If you did buy it from a garage do bring it back and get them to fix it.
Untill that do you could just do this below might help.
Turn on your heater and open both windows in the car when driving it might take some of the heat from the engine untill you get it fixed. Used to have a van in work that was overheating a bit and we done that untill it was fixed. Not the the best thing on fuel do and even with the windows down the van was really warm inside. This was during a warm summer so that did not make it any easier.

zoe 3619

LeakingLava wrote: »

How does the temperature gauge increase/decrease? The thermostat on puntos are also very common faults on puntos. Had to change mine a few times last year. A lot of them are dodgy especially if bought in motor factors or such stores. Had to buy from a Fiat dealer and not changed it since. If oil and water has no color change I would really suggest to monitor the temp gauge and how it is acting before assuming it's the HG.

There's no temperature guage on it.(would feel more on top of the situation if there was).think there might be a warning light supposed to come on if the car overheats,but it hasn't lit up so far.oil and water look fine anyway.

LeakingLava

zoe 3619 wrote: »

There's no temperature guage on it.(would feel more on top of the situation if there was).think there might be a warning light supposed to come on if the car overheats,but it hasn't lit up so far.oil and water look fine anyway.

Oh. Thought you did.

I would go with f140 regarding taking out the thermostat to see if that's the problem. Taking out the thermostat will eliminate itself being stuck as a problem and it will let all the coolant/water through so engine 'should' run colder unless something else is wrong. I had to do this myself before for quite a bit as I didn't have the money to buy a new thermostat when it was stuck shut.

If it doesn't run cooler, pray.

When this happened to me, no warning lights came on. I did have the temp gauge so I knew that it was running much hotter than normal, but still, no warning lights.

Stheno

zoe 3619 wrote: »

There's no temperature guage on it.(would feel more on top of the situation if there was).think there might be a warning light supposed to come on if the car overheats,but it hasn't lit up so far.oil and water look fine anyway.

There is a warning light which is supposed to come on when the temperature rises. If you bought it from an unscrupulous seller, it may be disabled, happened to me with one once.

Can you see the warning light coming on and going off when you switch on the engine? The manual will tell you which one it is.

zoe 3619

Thanks to all of you.no warning light coming on,but yes,it could be disabled.had the heater on full blast to drive up the hill today(not a huge hill).private seller,and bought cheap enough,so not much comeback there.will maybe try taking the thermostat out for a bit and see what happens.would hate to do damage to the car.

Stheno

zoe 3619 wrote: »

Thanks to all of you.no warning light coming on,but yes,it could be disabled.had the heater on full blast to drive up the hill today(not a huge hill).private seller,and bought cheap enough,so not much comeback there.will maybe try taking the thermostat out for a bit and see what happens.would hate to do damage to the car.

If the gasket blows on the car, it may well just stop.

You'd be as well to either check it yourself, or get it checked rather than risking driving it imo

AMKC

Get the car checked over by a mechanic that you know. Should always get a 2nd opinion of a mechanic when buying a car 2nd hand car especially from a private seller.

zoe 3619

Stheno wrote: »

If the gasket blows on the car, it may well just stop.

You'd be as well to either check it yourself, or get it checked rather than risking driving it imo

Any easy way to check the gasket?other than looking at the oil,which looks fine.coolant not going down.

biko

So coolant and oil looks ok? No mayo under the oil cap? White smoke from exhaust?

It's difficult to say since you've only had the car a day but keep an eye on the above things.
It could be something else, the thermostat or the coolant not reaching everywhere. Try "burping" the car and maybe even flushing out the old coolant altogether.

Special Circumstances

No temp gauge? This definitely looks like a time to use a smartphone and a bluetooth OBD dongle.

fancy pigeon

Bargain basement Puntos have no temp gauge, only a red lamp when its too late

Listen for gurgling behind the dash on cold startup, sign of a failed hg