[jaisha8]

Originally Posted by Urban_Nomad

She' here, and she is not silver :

(he could see me dazed back at the showroom, with a long trail of saliva hanging from my mouth). I could not care less. I do not buy cars everyday. Whats a few more days ....... nothing. I will wait. It is well worth it.

They excused me from the "details of your past life" section for which I am very thankful.

Very detailed and funny review. Enjoyed reading every bit of it. The first para reminds me of myself when I first saw my Vocal white Linea in the yard, my jaws touched the floor. That was the 1st V.white linea that landed in Kerala and I was getting it.
I also got car loan from SBI, but believe it or not, they processed my paper works in 4 working days and also there was some discount scheme in the interest rate.
Even today after 1 year I still stand and admire my Linea and turn my head at any Linea that passes by the road in front of my house. Truly admiration guaranteed.

[Urban_Nomad]

Originally Posted by pradster

We're not mad. We're, lets just say, different from the rest.

Well I kinda always have been a tad abnormal(ish). The Fiat has given me an opportunity to share the madness with some like-minded folks.

Originally Posted by jaisha8

Very detailed and funny review. Enjoyed reading every bit of it. The first para reminds me of myself when I first saw my Vocal white Linea in the yard, my jaws touched the floor. That was the 1st V.white linea that landed in Kerala and I was getting it.
I also got car loan from SBI, but believe it or not, they processed my paper works in 4 working days and also there was some discount scheme in the interest rate.
Even today after 1 year I still stand and admire my Linea and turn my head at any Linea that passes by the road in front of my house. Truly admiration guaranteed.

To be honest, I was not really pushing the SBI waalas as the dealership had quoted a fairly long wait period. I got that interest rate discount thingy too. So hows your Linea doing? Is it an MJD?

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

Brilliant write up straight from the heart. Waiting for the next installment.

Thanks. I remember one of your posts whilst going through the "Linea test drive" thread. I think you said something (reffering to the rear headroom in LInea) like - "Fiats have chosen great design over function. I say BRING IT ON FIAT". Well, something like that.

Originally Posted by aniketi

Great writeup mate ... Linea is surely a eye catcher. I also wanted to buy Linea but due to budget constraints i settled for Dzire Vxi. No regret for that but

Anyways post photos my friend. Did you done any long trip with it? How was exp?

Yup, quite a few trips. Longest one being Pune Bombay though. Will post details in writeups that would follow.

Originally Posted by S5157

Excellent writeup..h

Thanks. Did not get the "beating the dead horse" smiley but thanks.

Originally Posted by toiingg

Beautifully written review. 5 stars to you sir.

Thank you. Love your handle sirji.

Originally Posted by pawan_pullarwar

Very good write up about buying experience. Specially the joke of your friend on Accent, was funny. Now waiting for ownership experience.

Originally Posted by arunkumars

Very good write up.
Looking forward to your 1 year ownership experience

Originally Posted by vb-san

Good going... Looking for the details now. And also some pictures!

Originally Posted by Zero Cool

lovely writeup. Like a true Dilliwala. Enjoy your ride and do let us know about the maintainence and if any probs you faced with the car.

Originally Posted by arishi1

This is really funny
Superb write-up. Looking forward to your one year ownership and some pics.

Originally Posted by prajyot22

nice writeup there karan...
keep it coming !!

Thanks a lot Pawan, Arun, VB, Zero, Arishi and Prajyot. I was quite dreading the pikchaar please request. Will try and get to this ASAP.

[S5157]

Hey,

Sorry about those smilies. It was my four year old sone who added it while I was away for few minutes before i could post my reply.

I really admire your style of writing. Keep Going

[jacksons]

Originally Posted by pradster

You have me in splits dude, this is amazing!

Sab linea wale pagal hotein hain. This is from one linea owner to another

You are right sab Linea wale pagal hotein hain.
This looks like my story as well.

[Soccerfan]

great writeup man . FIAT sure knows how to design good looking cars

Post more pics.

[swiftnfurious]

what a beautiful write up man ! this is the spirit of team-bhp ! I loved each and every line written -- white linea is gorgeous, no two ways abt that. COngrats on acquiring it and wishing you miles and miles of happy and safe journey!

[Urban_Nomad]

Living with the car :

The last one year with this car has been a mixed bag of great and not so great moments. Here's what I feel i should be covering as a part of the overall ownership experience :

1) Features - "loaded to the brim" and VFM is how many people describe this car. However, how user friendly are those features? In the real world, do they actually add value and comfort or are mere marketing gimmicks? Lets see.
2) City driving and FE
3) Highway driving and FE
4) A$$ and service staff
5) Issues and niggles (maybe with proposed / WIP solutions)
6) Misc updates / small but significant stuff

Incase I have missed something that anyone would like more info on, please do let me know.

Chalo, abhi I am off for a meeting with a client. Catch you all soon.

[Urban_Nomad]

Originally Posted by S5157

Hey,

Sorry about those smilies. It was my four year old sone who added it while I was away for few minutes before i could post my reply.

I really admire your style of writing. Keep Going

Arrey no problem at all. So, the kiddo has started posting on T-Bhp already huh?

Originally Posted by jacksons

You are right sab Linea wale pagal hotein hain.
This looks like my story as well.

Originally Posted by Soccerfan

great writeup man . FIAT sure knows how to design good looking cars

Post more pics.

Originally Posted by swiftnfurious

what a beautiful write up man ! this is the spirit of team-bhp ! I loved each and every line written -- white linea is gorgeous, no two ways abt that. COngrats on acquiring it and wishing you miles and miles of happy and safe journey!

Thanks for your comments guys.

[dhall_gagan]

Great writeup man, but the line that stole the show was of your conversation with your friend where he was describing the way Accent booking goes. Simply awesome

[Delta Wing]

This has gotta be one of the most entertaining car buying/ownership experiences posted. Thoroughly enjoyable. Five Stars. Keep it coming man.

[Urban_Nomad]

Blue and me : In all honesty, when I was going though the feature list of the various Linea variants, this was at the very bottom of my wishlist. It felt too gimmicky and I thought I would never use it. The primary reason why I went for the E+ and not emotion, was airbags (do not intend to test them though).

Personally, I never speak on the mobile (hand-held) whilst driving. I even gave the hands free thing a try, but I still found it to be distracting. I am of the opinion that the world still went round and round when there were no mobile phones. I HATE IT when I see people using mobiles whilst driving. I think they should be shot. They are a hazard on the road and frankly, I do not care if anyone is offended by this comment.

However, this blue and me is freakin FANTASTIC. It pairs your mobile phone almost instantly and if you keep the "do not ask me before pairing with this device" option on your mobile active, your phone gets paired the moment you start the car. Even voice commands are understood well by the "sexy lady" if you speak fluently (I recall one of my south Indian colleagues struggling with it a little ..... no offense). However, short (single syllable???) words are an issue when it comes to the system recognizing voice commands. Eg - Maa, Paa. I must say, you need to improvise your accent a little. Eg - Pune becomes Pyoon.

My blackberry does not support the "message reader" function, but I got a taste of it on my wife's nokia. SMS' received in proper english (hardly a case EVER) are read out crystal clear. However, hindi words, abbreviations are a problem. I think this is stupid. The manufacturer should have anticipated this in some form (at least the abbreviations and common SMS lingo). Overall, not really a very useful feature.

That said, it is ultra convenient and safe. It is almost like speaking with a passenger in you car. No more using one hand to stick your phone to your ear while you are negotiating traffic, no more "voices in the head" feeling of a hands free connection. No distractions, that is the best part. The voice clarity (to and fro) is good, however if you turn your face towards the window, the person on the other line has problems hearing you. So - just look staraight ahead and talk my fellow BHPians. Catch up with that old friend, scream at someone from work (or get screamed at), even attend a client call (have actually done that) and all this without any distractions. Its great, I love it. My next car HAS to have this feature.

Multi info display (MID) :

This is the info available on the MID screen :

Range (useless - will tell you why)
Trip A and B Distance
Avg consumption (A and B)
Instant consumption
Time taken (A and B)
Avg speed (A and B)

This screen also gives warning messages on low fuel (beep and warning message), low engine pressure (just before your car is about to stall), door ajar (with details of which door), boot open alarm, speed beep (if activated). This is what I can think of as of now. Will add more if I recollect anything.

Lets talk about point 1 - Range. On tank fill, the typical "available range" is displayed close to 650 - 700 kms. Ridiculous. Do not ever go by it. A petrol Linea (or in my case) realistically does close to 520 / 530 kms in about 42 - 43 ltrs of fuel (city driving). This thing is drastically inaccurate and goes off when the expected range falls below 50ish kms I think (transaltion - no info is displayed if the expected range is below 50 kms).

I think trip distance, time and fuel consumption, avg speed etc are self explanatory. Not much to discuss here. However, I would like to add something about the avg consumption display. It is not accurate, but rather consistently inaacurate, which allows it to be accurate. Confused? Let me explain. Whatever shows up on the average consumption, deduct anywhere between 1.3 to 1.5 from it and you will have a "near accurate" figure of your consumption. Eg - Your MID shows your avg consumption as 14.5 kms/ltr. Subtract 1.5, and your actual consumption would be 13. Hope this clarifies.

What I love here though is the "instant fuel consumption calculator". It has cleared so many doubts in my mind about fuel efficient driving. I always believed in "higher the gear, the better". This is incomplete and inaccurate. What RPM are you on, when do you change gears, do you feel coming to a halt after putting your car in nuetral gear for the last 300 - 400 meters helped you save more fuel ........ no it did not. In fact, it cost you more fuel. Had you used engine breaking, not only would you have stopped better (safer, improved braking), you would have actually saved on fuel as well. I think its a wonderful little gizmo that should be in every car. I do not really care how accurate this thing is real time, but yes, the very fact that I see numbers dropping or going up has really affected how I drive on a daily basis. Just FYI though, the lowest your FE can drop to as per the MIS is 4 kmpl and max achievable is 50 kmpl.

Automatic climate control :

Do not care much about this. If its a really hot summer afternoon, you would be driving with the cooling set at max anyway, won't you? I mean dont get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with it really, but its not something that I really would look fwd to in my next car. Honestly, there are times when I have to set the blower speed manually even after inputting my preffered temperature. Just hoopla really. IMO, a plain old air conditioner does the job just fine.

Safety :

Well, I guess an NCAP rating of 5 stars (???) makes it a pretty safe car. Its got dual airbags and ABS. I have not really tested the ABS bit in the car, but really, the breaks are GREAT. There are many instances that I can recollect wherein someone ahead of my braked with a loud screeching sound just ahead of me and I could break without any fuss at all. In fact, I am more worried about someone rear ending me than me landing the Fiat on some car's backside. I know, this can be owing to driving styles also, but I just thought its worth mentioning here.

Some other points, the door / boot open warnings are great. Its loud warning chimes are accompanied with a warning message on the MID. Nice. The doors auto lock when you hit twenty kmph and the car lets out a high pitched (almost screaming) warning chime if by such speed you have not put on your seat belt. It might be off topic here but I remember reading somewhere that Honda Jazz got a rating of 4 and Punto 5. There were many discussions on this very topic and the Fiat was deemed safer than the Honda. However, the difference of one was because the Fiat came with chimes for the seatbelt warning and the Honda only displayed the "put your damn belt on" sign on the console. It was not owing to any structural inefficiencies (of the Honda) and this was the differentiator.

Some grouses though :

There is a child lock but it is really cumbersome to use. There is a small round thingy in the rear doors once you open them and it (round thingy) has a slot to fit the tip of the car key. You move the position of the slot to a vertical position for the child lock to be active and using the same procedure, slot the contraption back in horizontal position to deactivate. Both doors have to be opened seperately to enable this. I would have liked a simple button which would do the job. If I can lock rear power windows using a button that is right next to my power windows switch, why not for the child lock. It is especially a pain if you have a grown up sitting in the back also and you need to get out to open / close the doors if the child lock has been activated.

What I also liked was that the doors lock automatically post you crossing the 20 kmph mark. For a comparo, my sister's U-VA has a company fitted central locking system, which locks all doors as soon as you turn on the ignition of the car, and also automatically unlocks all doors. This is silly. You have people waiting to get into the car, you turn on the ignition, the doors lock, you unlock the doors manually and then lock them again ...... manually. What I do not like about the Linea is the speed threshold definition where the doors lock automatically. Why 20 kmph? Why not something like the Figo which IIRC is 6 kmph? Does Fiat expect me to open doors for people to get in when the car is in motion at say 15 kmph? Note to Fiat - Linea is not a DTC bus. Same is the case with the boot opener. Again, a 20 kmph limit for the boot open mechanism not to be used. Why Why Why? In fact, Let me quote an example.

My wife's niece was in town. She's a couple or so years old and VERY VERY inquisitive. She was in the backseat with her mum and was "exploring" the car. I had activated the "lock rear windows" thingy and I always thought it to be the child lock thing . But sure enough, she got to the door lever, pulled it and voila, a long beep went off (I was doing about 40 kmph at that time). She kinda got scared of the sudden noise and jumped back to mommy dearest. I had my heart in my mouth too. But that was not it. In another incident, she was in the car's front seat with her father (the back seat was occupied by 4 adults, yes, FOUR). We had just begun moving after a red light when she hit the boot release button (@ 10ish kmph I think). The boot was filled to the brim with luggage and there was heavy traffic behind me. Drove a few meters, parked the car, shut the boot, got back and the poor thing got an earful in gujrati from her daddy dearest. I dont think it was her fault, it was the car's. Kids will be kids.

Whew, that was a long post. Oh and what perfect timing. A service advisor from Fiat has come over with a loaner car and he will be taking the Linea to the service center. More on that later.

Oh, and I will cover the music system details in posts that would follow (dont feel I should call it ICE. I have seen some very fine examples of what ICE really is on T-BHP). Have a good one guys.

[Urban_Nomad]

Originally Posted by Delta Wing

This has gotta be one of the most entertaining car buying/ownership experiences posted. Thoroughly enjoyable. Five Stars. Keep it coming man.

Many thanks for the 5 stars.

Originally Posted by dhall_gagan

Great writeup man, but the line that stole the show was of your conversation with your friend where he was describing the way Accent booking goes. Simply awesome

He he he. I still go bezerk laughing every time I think of this conversation. But I kid you not, this conversation did not seem very funny when I had almost shortlisted the Accent. I am thankful to him though. Nobody could have put things in perspective for me the way he did.

[Amartya]

Truly fantastic write-up. Threads like these make teambhp what it is, a delight for the enthusiast. Thanks for taking the trouble of sharing the experience with us in such detail and the delightful sprinkling of humour.

Just one question though, your friend (the great "Accent" one) said he wouldn't introduce you to girls if you bought the Accent, does your wife know this friend of yours?

[arishi1]

Urban Nomad, great writing style. This thread needs a 5 star rating. I own a Punto Emotion Pack so sharing some knowledge about the MID.

Originally Posted by Urban_Nomad

Multi info display (MID) :

This screen also gives warning messages on low fuel (beep and warning message), low engine pressure (just before your car is about to stall), door ajar (with details of which door), boot open alarm, speed beep (if activated). This is what I can think of as of now. Will add more if I recollect anything.

The MID also gives you information pertaining to various warning lights that you have on the Console. e.g. My cars number plate lights got fused. The light malfunction warning light was glowing and I was getting message on MID saying "check rear number plate lights"

Originally Posted by Urban_Nomad

Some grouses though :
There is a child lock but it is really cumbersome to use. I would have liked a simple button which would do the job. If I can lock rear power windows using a button that is right next to my power windows switch, why not for the child lock. It is especially a pain if you have a grown up sitting in the back also and you need to get out to open / close the doors if the child lock has been activated.

What I also liked was that the doors lock automatically post you crossing the 20 kmph mark. What I do not like about the Linea is the speed threshold definition where the doors lock automatically. Why 20 kmph?

I think you can change this from the MENU option. You can define the speed you want the auto-lock to function.

[Urban_Nomad]

Originally Posted by Amartya

Truly fantastic write-up. Threads like these make teambhp what it is, a delight for the enthusiast. Thanks for taking the trouble of sharing the experience with us in such detail and the delightful sprinkling of humour.

Just one question though, your friend (the great "Accent" one) said he wouldn't introduce you to girls if you bought the Accent, does your wife know this friend of yours?

Thanks a ton sir.

And yes the wife does know about this friend of mine (though she never got to meet him in person. He moved to Delhi about 8 months ago). Actually, she even knows who he introduced me to. Its just that I met my her (wifey) in Pune sometime around May 09 (wayyy after "the conversation" with my buddy), got married on 16 Feb 2010. I am a patnivrataa pati (The Missus may not agree though).

Originally Posted by arishi1

Urban Nomad, great writing style. This thread needs a 5 star rating. I own a Punto Emotion Pack so sharing some knowledge about the MID.



The MID also gives you information pertaining to various warning lights that you have on the Console. e.g. My cars number plate lights got fused. The light malfunction warning light was glowing and I was getting message on MID saying "check rear number plate lights" .

Thanks for sharing. Thus far no lights etc have gone off in the car yet. But this really is helpful.

Originally Posted by arishi1

I think you can change this from the MENU option. You can define the speed you want the auto-lock to function.

Will try this the moment I get my car back from the service station.