Fiat Punto 1.2 ELX Review

Overall Rating

Fun to drive
2 door model looks great
Interior trim seems fairly high quality

Reliability problems
Although fun, driving can be difficult
No ABS or power steering on some models

My Fiat Punto 1.2 ELX City Car lacks power steering, which at the time wasn't standard. It also lacks ABS. This can make life tough. My mother once drove this car and had aching arms for a day afterwards. You have to have some degree of strength -- if you don't, then make sure the used model you're buying has at least power steering or you could be in for some problems.

Overall it's an OK car to drive. This lack of power steering combined with only adequate road holding can make for difficult driving around tight bends, but it's still fun. Perhaps because of this. You can really feel what you're doing without power steering.

For a 1.2 litre, it's surprisingly nippy. I learned to drive in this car and a 1.2 Clio. I seriously thought the 1.2 Clio was a 1.0 compared to this. Because it's a fairly light car, it can accelerate pretty fast and leave some larger cars in your dust, however they'll catch up with you on motorways. Which is where the 1.2, obviously, suffers. On motorways and A-roads, or any roads where you can go faster than 50mph really, the engine roars. It's not a wholly unpleasant roar, but it's a loud roar. Road noise seeps into the cockpit and the car's body struggles to streamline itself enough to stop a whistling noise as it cuts through the wind. At 70mph, its revs hover at 4,000rpm, which is enough to drink your fuel like a drunkard at happy hour.

The interior of the ELX is fine. There aren't many features on an older car like this, so there aren't many buttons. The few it does have are in fairly logical places. There are radio controls on the steering wheel, and just to the right of the wheel is a small notch wheel to control the height of the headlights. There aren't electric wing mirrors, which can make life difficult the first time you get in. The front windscreen isn't electric either, and my Punto at least has a habbit of steaming up in even the slightest of cold weather. The trim is fairly good, it's nothing particularly pretty but it does the job and doesn't fall to pieces in the process.
The steering wheel can be adjusted for height, but that's about it. I'm not a big person, so I find it fairly comfortable. My dad is just over six foot, and while he finds the back a little cramped he doesn't have too many problems with the front. You can fit the entire family in a Punto without too much difficulty. It also has a fairly big boot.

Also of note is the fact that although it's 8 years old and has its fair share of scratches, there isn't even a speck of rust anywhere on the entire body.

I've also had some problems with Fiats in the past, not just this one but the other Punto I've had before. Both had a serious problem which caused the engine to rev uncontrollably. It became dangerous, especially if it caught you unawares on a carpark or in slow-moving traffic. I took it to numerous garages, only one of which was able to correct the problem. Not even the Fiat dealership knew what was wrong -- they took my £50 and said 'nope, sorry, no idea'. The first car was either scrapped or auctioned off, I'm not sure. The second car is now OK, although it has some other minor niggles.

All-in-all, if you don't suffer from the same problems I have done, you should have a decent car to get around in.

Members' Comments onMr Matt's Review

• flanker99 on 20th Aug 2005

  Hi
  I am a punto user and have the same uncontrollable engine problem . Do you remember what the problem turned out to be? and where did u get it fixed?
  
  thanks

• Mr Matt on 30th Aug 2005

  Hi,
  
  I don't recall exactly as it was quite some time ago. However, I believe it was something to do with a temperature sensor in the engine malfunctioning -- as I understand it, the sensor was reading the engine as too cold and so it revved up faster to try to heat it up. As to how they fixed it I assume they replaced the sensor. If that makes sense to anybody with technical know-how, please confirm it. As I say, it was a while ago, though I could the guy who did it for me and see if he remembers if you're really struggling.
  
  The place that fixed it was Church Street Garage in Shifnal, Shropshire. The owner of the garage is a friend of the family and has helped us all many times previously. A friend of his owns all sorts of fancy electrical gadgetry, and this friend visits the garage once a week to help the owner and his mechanics out with electrical problems. Whether they still have that arrangement I don't know, as I have a new car now and haven't needed to have any work done to it since. But I'm sure they're still in contact.
  
  I tried various other garages aside from the Fiat dealer, including an electrical specialist, yet only this small back-street garage managed to figure out what was wrong and put it right. I'm just going to go straight there if anything ever goes wrong with my new car, touch wood.
  
  Hope that helps, anyway. Good luck with it -- I know how frustrating it is.