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Old 4th June 2009, 14:18   #76
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i have driven 4000+ kms in my brother-in-law's 77 BHP NHC CVT, and never ever did I feel it to be underpowered or less agile. it is a human nature to demand more bhp from our car, more MHz from our processors and more wattage from our amplifiers.

To those who want more performance, Linea might be 'underpowered', but the percentage of such enthusiasts is IMHO < 1%. To brand a car as 'underpowered' because it does not satisfy the need of 1% of the car buying people is not fair.
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Old 4th June 2009, 14:54   #77
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Minardi View Post
i have driven 4000+ kms in my brother-in-law's 77 BHP NHC CVT, and never ever did I feel it to be underpowered or less agile. it is a human nature to demand more bhp from our car, more MHz from our processors and more wattage from our amplifiers.

To those who want more performance, Linea might be 'underpowered', but the percentage of such enthusiasts is IMHO < 1%. To brand a car as 'underpowered' because it does not satisfy the need of 1% of the car buying people is not fair.
The "underpowered" badge is now removed from Linea as owners here have come up with their initial repors and touched 165-170. Initial pickup is slow but then how many are ready to sacrifice FE for power in India. As you said % is too low and after its failure on FE and spare issues fiat is concentrating on these 2 issue.

I would love to drive a 1.6 VGT, dont think it will come in near future for sure.
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Old 4th June 2009, 17:01   #78
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when i say underpowered, its not the top speed. How many times do we drive in a road that we can touch the top speed. So, its not very important.
Its the acceleration, the 0-100 stuff that i speak about.

As for very small amount potential buyers, I dont think its very small.
See it from a different angle.
Check out how many ANHC on the road. Certainly it is not a VFM car. There is a large number of people who buy it for the performance(btw, yes i know some people buy only for the H badge, but that is different issue). Now a 1.6 VGT will have similar power, much more torque, and a bonus is that it will be cheaper to run wrt fuel costs because it is a turbocharged diesel. Or the optra magnum buyers, who get the same performance, in a cheaper car, and again cheaper to run wrt fuel costs, because the linea has a smaller displacement engine compared to magnum(2L).
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Old 4th June 2009, 18:35   #79
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I think its a good move. Palio had many variants which included the 1.2 sport and 1.6 GTX along with the cheaper versions. and they all used to sell equally well.

Linea should offer some powerful engines very soon or they might loose on to sales from some other competitors
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Old 5th June 2009, 18:16   #80
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Minardi View Post
To those who want more performance, Linea might be 'underpowered', but the percentage of such enthusiasts is IMHO < 1%. To brand a car as 'underpowered' because it does not satisfy the need of 1% of the car buying people is not fair.
100% true. In all probabilities Fiat won't take such risk again. The few enthusists will be very happy for the car but if the car does not sell in good enough numbers it doesn't make any biz sense for Fiat. More so when Fiat is trying to change its image completely & wouldn't want any old memories to haunt them.
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Originally Posted by mxx View Post
when i say underpowered, its not the top speed. How many times do we drive in a road that we can touch the top speed. So, its not very important.
Its the acceleration, the 0-100 stuff that i speak about.

As for very small amount potential buyers, I dont think its very small.
See it from a different angle.
Check out how many ANHC on the road. Certainly it is not a VFM car. There is a large number of people who buy it for the performance(btw, yes i know some people buy only for the H badge, but that is different issue). Now a 1.6 VGT will have similar power, much more torque, and a bonus is that it will be cheaper to run wrt fuel costs because it is a turbocharged diesel. Or the optra magnum buyers, who get the same performance, in a cheaper car, and again cheaper to run wrt fuel costs, because the linea has a smaller displacement engine compared to magnum(2L).
  • For ANHC, its other way round (H badge rather than Power). NHC with 77 bhp was never a power house neither was it underpower. Still people hailed it. By the same token, if large number of people buy car on power, Verna should have been topping the chart but its not.
  • Fiat knows & understands fully well that they've a big big challange of wiping the horror memories of people about their operations in India. Thats the very reason they've priced Linea so aggressively else there is no reason giving so much in a car @ 8 Lacs & also to subsidise spares' prices. In simpler terms, it has to give more at lesser price. As simple as that. Its a compulsion & not a choice. Till the time it creates a favourable image. And that, in my mind will take no less than atleast a year. If they price any of the model incl GP at even comparable price to the market, they still face a huge risk.
  • Look at Linea positioning. They've positioned it with SX4/ Verna/ ANHC with prices equal to SX4, lower to Verna & ANHC. If they launch Linea 1.6 so soon, obviously the price will be higher (& may be lower FE also). People will then compare Linea 1.6 with SX4/ Verna/ ANHC where probably Linea 1.6 price will be higher than SX4 & may be equal to Verna. IMO, Fiat is yet not ready to be able to command that kinda premium though with a fantastic car like Linea (we all know all its cars are fantastic). Secondly, then the another question is where will this leave Linea 1.3/ 1.4 positioned?
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Old 17th June 2009, 17:46   #81
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Perhaps a twist in the tale - while everyone in this forum is contemplating a 1.6 MJD for Linea sometime later this year, there might be a (strong) possibility that Fiat may be testing the Automatic version of Linea (not sure mated with MJD or FIRE engine) to take on ANHC & Verna.

One of my friends who owns a Palio 1.3 MJD happened to inquire from a service manager in one of the TATA-FIAT service centers in NCR, who for obvious reasons asked me not to reveal his or the service station's identity. This guy played dumb when asked about FIAT's 1.6 MJD plans but was quite vocal about the Auto option.
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Old 17th June 2009, 18:14   #82
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More important for Fiat from a long term persepective would be to launch a Linea with better interiors ( Anniversary/ Limited Edition ) and focus on improving customer satisfaction more models and variants will not help their cause . They have a good thing going with Linea and Punto & they must remain focussed on that .
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Old 23rd June 2009, 12:53   #83
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Don't know if it has been posted here before, but I saw a clip on UTVi showing some FIAT India top brass saying that the 1.6L engine will be launched sometime in the first quarter of next year.

Didn't say petrol or diesel, though, but going by the contents of this thread, I think it would be safe to assume it is the same 1.6 diesel being talked about here.
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Old 23rd June 2009, 13:18   #84
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god. i was looking at the linea top end diesel for a possible buy and i land on this thread.

it has already dragged by budget to its limit.

i guess i can discard the thoughts about the 1.6L diesel as that would be totally out of my budget.

i just hope they just do not replace the current engine with the new one and price it competitively!
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Old 23rd June 2009, 17:27   #85
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sushubh View Post
i just hope they just do not replace the current engine with the new one and price it competitively!
You can be rest assured of that. Because the 1.3 VGT is by no means a bad motor. It is having reasonable performance and very good FE. And there will be atleast 50k - 1lac diff with the current 1.3 EM+ (just speculating ) So you can still go for the Linea 1.3 MJD.
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Old 23rd June 2009, 17:44   #86
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just came back from the test drive of the fully loaded diesel linea. god it has tons of features. they probably missed on automatic wipers (like on skodas )...

drove it. found it to be a bit less peppy compared to my swift. but i bet it is much more fun on the highways.

god i hate test driving these exciting cars on congested roads of gurgaon. i am pretty much settled on the microsoft powered edition of linea. just need to find a good deal for my old cars.

talking about microsoft, i should now look for articles on Blue&Me on the forum... the dude at fiat showroom tried his best to impress me with it. i liked the call feature (dunno if that is banned by the laws here in india!)... but voice recognition was kinda crappy. and he failed to connect my ipod touch with the car for media player functionality. dunno if i would have to use auxiliary for the touch... i was thinking that the car was ipod compatible!
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Old 2nd July 2009, 00:20   #87
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I was informed by the salesman of Tata motors that they have received a confidential notice from Fiat that they would be launching 1.6 petrol Fiat within the month. He was telling that this is confidential!!. He told the date would be 1 Aug.
Mods I have posted a similar message in "What car" section also. I thought more visibility should be given as the people who already bought thier cars may not see that section. Kindly see whether this is required or not
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Old 2nd July 2009, 01:14   #88
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so its a petrol 1.6 and not a diesel? that's disappointing for me...
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Old 2nd July 2009, 08:49   #89
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thats good news..!!
its a monster engine
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Old 2nd July 2009, 08:58   #90
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gksunil View Post
I was informed by the salesman of Tata motors that they have received a confidential notice from Fiat that they would be launching 1.6 petrol Fiat within the month. He was telling that this is confidential!!. He told the date would be 1 Aug.
Mods I have posted a similar message in "What car" section also. I thought more visibility should be given as the people who already bought thier cars may not see that section. Kindly see whether this is required or not

Following is the list of FIAT's FIRE series engines, as per wikipedia. I dont see a 1.6 Litre engine. Are you sure its a 1.6 petrol and not 1.6 diesel?

769 cc 8v,65x88 mm (from 1986 till 1992)
999 cc 8v, 70x64.9 mm (from 1983 till 1992)
999 cc 8v SPI (from 1993 till 2003)
999 cc 16v SMPI (Only in Brazil)
1108 cc 8v, 70x72 mm (from 1983 till 1993)
1108 cc 8v SPI (from 1993 till 2000)
1108 cc 8v MPI (since 2001 - current, in production)
1242 cc 8v, 70.8x78.9 mm SPI (from 1993 till 1999)
1242 cc 8v MPI (since 1993, - current, in production)
1242 cc 16v SMPI (since 1998, - current, in production)
1368 cc 8v, 72x84 mm SMPI StarJet (since 2005, - current, in production) 1368 cc 16v SMPI StarJet(since 2003, - current, in production)
1368 cc 16v SMPI Turbo T-Jet(since 2006, - current, in production)
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