Faults:

8 months after purchase, the MOT test showed a failure with the rear suspension bushes. Replaced at cost of 163GBP.

Hand brake stretched beyond servicable repair at 82000M.

New rear suspension arms on both side required at 84000 miles. I feel like the garage that I bought it from stitched me up with the repair above. Seems like they tried to avoid the repair under warranty. Sheesh. Livid. 170GBP.

Too much body roll, compared to my old XR3i, cannot take corners. Looks like i'll be uprating the repaired suspension.

Seat don't hold the body, prefer the missuses Saxo.

Internals of cam belt cover disintegrated at 83000M. Scary noise, lumps of plastic flying about inside.

Petrol filler lid : Spring has broken through the Fiat "cheese@ plastic. (Recyclable=made of cheese)

General Comments:

Bloody quick, drinks fuel like an elephant.

An absolute pig.

BUY ONE!

Faults:

Occasional cutting out of engine on warming up, I found this to be the injector relay loose in its housing.

Sunroof stopped working, replacement parts are on it's way.

Turbo boost pressure too low, this was rectified by by-passing the 'electronic' pier-burg bleed valve and replacing it with a manual bleed valve.

Knocking from rear suspension, needs a replacement rear trailing arm. (A common Punto problem).

Exhaust pipe front silencer blowing at 33,000 miles. Due to be replaced by performance system.

General Comments:

Having owned the Punto GT's predecessor, the Uno Turbo ie I have to say that I was a little dissapointed with the standard performance of the Punto GT. However, plenty of refinements to the engine, and car have made the small dissapointment hardly noticeable. The standard car suffers a little in it's handling, (and performance), but this can be easily rectified by purchasing uprated suspension and performance tuning the engine. I find the car on long distance, comfortable, quiet yet still fast. It's also incredibly stealth-like, looking over the car from the outside gives no real indication of it's enormous power to weight performance, which is essentially a good thing - deterring any opportunist thief.

Faults:

1 Brake shoe was worn to the metal at 78,000 and was replaced at a cost of £50.

Handbrake cable needed replacing at 78,000 as it would not work at all because it was badly stretched. Replaced for £70.

Front and rear shock absorbers needed replacing at 78,000 mile - cost £160.

Clutch bearings look like they are going to need replacing at 80,000 miles.

General Comments:

This car drives very nicely - it is a real pleasure to ride.

However, the car does have a tendency to roll when taking corners at times. However, this may be due to my fast corner taking!

This car is very very nippy for the 1.1 engine size and can really compete with similar size cars with larger engines.

The interior is relatively spacious for a small car.

Faults:

Ignition coil failed at 40,000 miles, cost £100. Rear suspension needed work at 100,000 miles, cost £300. Oil sump starting to leak (dealer estimate £100), head might to starting to leak (dealer estimate £240), near side front suspension arm bush failed (dealer estimate £120).

General Comments:

Other than failed items mentioned above, nothing has else failed as opposed to wearing out. Front tyres last about 40,000 miles, rear 60,000 miles. Brakes pads have just lasted me 50,000 miles with the disks continuing beyond that. The clutch is coming up for replacement, but that's OK at 112,000 miles. Very cheap to run and has never let me down. Performance is low, but not a problem. The car is great on a motorway, but less able in stop-start town traffic where it does feel a bit heavy. The bodywork is still really good and rust has not spread at all from a chip that has been left untreated for three years.