Hi all,
The other day my cousin called me to say that she had a problem with her 2002 1.2 active Fiat Punto over heating. So I went and looked and first of all found that the oil was, well there's no other way to put it than empty. So I flushed it (and got a LOT of sludge out and replaced the oil and filter) this was a long shot but it didn't sort the problem but needed doing anyway (which in the end ended up me doing a whole service as the car had never had one in the 5 years she's owned it!). So moving onto the problem I checked to see how bad it was overheating and sure enough after about 15 min it was boiling yet the blowers were coming out cold. Because of this I did the obvious thing and bled the system. This appeared to fix it. I checked it, ran it for an hour no overheating, blowers coming out hot. So I called it a day, job done!
The next day I got a call, "the blowers were coming out hot for a few minutes but now they've gone cold and it is over heating again!" So tomorrow I'm going back to try and sort the problem.
Other than bleeding it again I can only assume its one if two things: an intermittent thermostat or the head gasket is going. Now hopefully it's the thermostat but was wandering what you all think.
When I changed the oil there was no sign of a leaky head gasket nor in the oil breather pipe. Also she has said the head gasket was done about a year ago.
Any help is much appreciated and just so I can check as I'm not used to working on a punto, removing the thermostat if it is that.
Ideally if anyone knows what the problem is a couple of pictures to help explain would be a massive help!
Thanks!
The other day my cousin called me to say that she had a problem with her 2002 1.2 active Fiat Punto over heating. So I went and looked and first of all found that the oil was, well there's no other way to put it than empty. So I flushed it (and got a LOT of sludge out and replaced the oil and filter) this was a long shot but it didn't sort the problem but needed doing anyway (which in the end ended up me doing a whole service as the car had never had one in the 5 years she's owned it!). So moving onto the problem I checked to see how bad it was overheating and sure enough after about 15 min it was boiling yet the blowers were coming out cold. Because of this I did the obvious thing and bled the system. This appeared to fix it. I checked it, ran it for an hour no overheating, blowers coming out hot. So I called it a day, job done!
The next day I got a call, "the blowers were coming out hot for a few minutes but now they've gone cold and it is over heating again!" So tomorrow I'm going back to try and sort the problem.
Other than bleeding it again I can only assume its one if two things: an intermittent thermostat or the head gasket is going. Now hopefully it's the thermostat but was wandering what you all think.
When I changed the oil there was no sign of a leaky head gasket nor in the oil breather pipe. Also she has said the head gasket was done about a year ago.
Any help is much appreciated and just so I can check as I'm not used to working on a punto, removing the thermostat if it is that.
Ideally if anyone knows what the problem is a couple of pictures to help explain would be a massive help!
Thanks!
