My wife has an April 2011 Panda 1.2 Active that has done about 30,000 miles. At the end of November it was clearly suffering from an intermittent misfire, although nothing was showing on the warning lights. We took it to our local Fiat garage & they diagnosed a faulty coil pack. To Fiat's credit, they stumped all but £20 for the repair within an hour of the garage asking them. The spark plugs were also changed.

However, we were then told that the car was lumpy when idling as there was a spllt in a breather hose. This was changed last week ( I still think that £30 + VAT for a small bore breather + £40 fitting is taking the ...) and the car still isn't running quite right.

It still has a lumpy lide although it revs cleanly when in neutral. When it is driven, there is a definite hestation pretty much throughout the rev range, although i can't say that I have explored the upper end! It really doesn't seem like a misfire as there is no real jerkiness like a misfire gives. There is still nothing on the engine warning lights.

The garage has had another look and, i am told, apart from checking what they did previously have now carried out a cylinder leakage test, another test starting with con (can't read the writing) and have also swapped the coils & leads. They have checked all parameters and all seems to be OK.

They now want at least £300 to check the timing, injectors & wiring. Therefore, it seems to me that they haven't got a clue what the problem is and will resort to checking various things until they find something that is faulty, which could take days & cost thousands.

Any ideas of potential areas of concern so I can narrow the search down?