The GTX arriveth. Palio 1.6 GTX

kavesh55 · 18th August 2010, 12:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by thedragula

The metal popped back in place!! but the slight deformation at the point of contact still remains and thus the GTX has got itself a fresh battle scar within a month.

Dear Dragula- Sorry for the dent caused. You are similar to a friend who has a red 1.6 palio stile.
Will check out your car someday. PM me your no. wil save and buzz before coming, i stay in town so thats not a problem.

Dine · 19th August 2010, 09:34

Congrats Dracula on your new acquisition.
The looks are fantastic and kudos to the painter for the good job.

I envy your 1.6 GTX, sorry about the dent on the car.

thedragula · 30th August 2010, 15:25

Update:

I recently did a Mumbai Bangalore trip on the GTX and it was was excellent with the GTX performing admirably. The NH4 was in great shape (except for some stretches between Harihar and Devanagere which were riddled with diversions, speed breakers (more like axle breakers). The stretch between Pune - Belgaum and the Chitradurga stretch makes you want to pay taxes!

On the return leg, we detected strong petrol fumes within 10 km of starting out from Bangalore and realised that we were leaking petrol. Turned back with the hope of taking the car to some service station and by this time, the fuel was gushing out. On reaching our bangalore home, we detected the leak at the lock between the fuel pipe and the pipe that is routed to the engine. A quick call to Venkatesh at Gowri Automobiles confirmed that the lock had to be snapped back into place as it could have come undone due to high pressure and there was nothing to worry. Did that and secured the end pipes with M-Seal to be sure and wound some teflon tape over the connector.

We then started out towards Mumbai once again at 930 am and about 100 km later, the injector light started to flash for a few seconds intermittently accompanied with loss of power. Called up Venkatesh again, and he suggested driving slowly and replacing the ignition coil as soon as possible at the nearest service center. However, on starting the car, the problem did not crop up again and we drove extra carefully for then next hour looking out for symptoms. Thankfully, it didnt come back again. Reached Kolhapur by 830pm and crashed at a hotel for the night. The next day, we visited the Mahalaxmi temple at Kolhapur and started out at 9am and reached Mumbai by 230pm. The last stretch of the Mumbai Pune Expressway saw us doing a continuous 150kmph till Panvel.

Another small issue that came up while in Bangalore was that the temperature used to hover below the 1/2 level mark without the A/c but touched 3/4th level with the A/c on. Visual inspection confirmed the proper working of the fan at both speeds. Since Venkatesh's garage happened to be close by, my cousin introduced me to him and he immediately diagnosed the problem to cobweb like dust that had settled on the radiator fins. He scraped those off and cleaned it with pressurized air and water and the temperature issue has not cropped up since even with a fully loaded car with A/c on full blast in peak Mysore Road traffic.

My experience with Venkatesh at the workshop and his advice over phone when the issues cropped up have been excellent and I would strongly recommend him to anyone in Bangalore or otherwise. He is down to earth, listens to the problem and then gets down to fixing the problem.

And lastly, the GTX has been an absolute blast to drive and has returned excellent mileage during the trip which saw us do 90 - 120 kmph consistently. The best figures were 16.12 km/litre between the Kolhapur - Chitradurga stretch (without A/c) running on BPCL Speed filled at Konduskar Pump at Kolhapur on the NH4. The lowest I got was about 13.2 km/litre (with A/c). This is after providing for the 10% odo error that the GTX or the pre-NV Palios come with.

Will put up some pics from the trip soon.

lucifer919 · 20th September 2010, 13:48

Amazing experience there for you with a pre-owned car. I own a Palio 1.6 Stile myself and am looking at buying another used S10 from a friend.

hope that experience will work out as well as yours.

i too just drove back from Bangalore and the roads are to die for except around Harihar for about a 100 KMs or so.

Overall, i would say money well spent and car well deserved.

Wish you miles of happy motoring.

Kiran.

thedragula · 19th October 2010, 13:19

About a month back, when I was returning from Pune, my GTX started acting funny. Initially, the "battery not charging" light was on for about 10 min, and then it went off all by itself. By the time I reached Chembur, the wiper being very slow, the ICE shut down, the A/c blower gave up and the speedo stopped working and occasionally the rpm would shoot up all by itself .

I drove the car to a friend's place and called the EXIDE Batmobile Service. They arrived within 30 min and jump started the car. The Voltage across terminals with the car running was about 10.xx and descending. He gave a clean chit to the battery and said that the alternator is the culprit. So left the car there and a couple of days later, my workshop sent a person to Chembur with a spare battery, managed to start the car and took it to the garage in Powai. He confirmed that the alternator is shorting and might need replacement.

Kava Auto @ Opera House confirmed that they have an alternator that was taken off a new-ish 1.6 (maybe the car was totalled in an accident). He quoted 7k for the unit.

After scanning through some threads in this site, I got the contact details of Mr. Shekhar from Best Auto Electric Works in Opera House and he confirmed that he would be able to repair the alternator.

My mechanic had the alternator dismantled (a painful process which involved dismantling a lot of stuff and which took about 3 hours) and had it sent to Opera House for repair. Mr. Shekhar confirmed that the rotor, voltage regulator and a couple of bearings need replacement. The cost of repairs was Rs. 4850/- (Rs. 2500/- for the rotor, Rs. 1700/- for regulator, Rs. 300/- for the bearing and overhauling charges of Rs. 350/-).

After the alternator was fitted, I took the car back to Mr. Shekhar for a clean chit. The voltage across terminals at idle speed with no load was about 13.8-13.9. He confirmed that it is normal though I remember having read that it should be 14.1 or thereabouts. Can someone confirm?

Besides the alternator, since the car had racked up more than 5000km in a couple of months, the car was serviced as well. The total cost of the service came up to approx Rs. 6000/-. The break up is as follows.

Complete overall Service - 750
Alternator O/H - 550
Engine Oil (4 Litres) - 811
Oil Filter - 140
Coolant (1 Litre) - 235
Gear Oil (1 Litre) - 220
Fan Belt (2 Nos) - 900
Tensioner Bearing - 2150
Axle Boot - 375
Grease - 70

The car is a lot more smoother after the service and begs to be revved. Went for a early morning drive to lonavala thereafter and chucked the expressway for the NH4 which is a smoother drive due to the tar roads and more involving as compared to the Mumbai-Pune Expressway where the driver feels like a zombie clutching the steering. On the return leg of the journey, the infamous injector light came on again for a few seconds and the engine gasped for breath. The light appeared intermittently for a few seconds and went off. The car then was back to behaving as if nothing has happened.

Some call it character and other call it niggling issues with FIAT. I don't want to call it anything and just wanted to know why it comes on.

So took it to the new entrant FIAT Dealer in Mumbai i.e. Galaxy Motors and hooked the scanner on to the ECU. It showed up 2 errors which were promptly deleted from memory. The engineer deleted the errors before I could click a picture.

1) Battery voltage and some code. (probably caused due to the alternator giving up the ghost)

2) Ignition Coil 2.

As usual, the spares department threw up their hands and said parts were not available. So now am trying to source the ignition coil for the vehicle. Since it has not been a problem which has occurred with alarming frequency, have decided to wait a bit before going in for replacement.

Galaxy Motors were kind enough to allow me to be present in the servicing area (though had to argue with the workshop manager). All customary courtesies were provided including a detailed printout of the earlier service history of the car (more on that later). The only niggle was that I spent a staggering 4 hours at the workshop for a simple ECU examiner job card. But being Dussehra/Saraswati pooja day, the staff were a bit hard-pressed handling the workload. So I guess that can be overlooked.

A couple of pics from the Galaxy Motors Workshop

@ Mods: Kindly amend the title of the thread to reflect the update. Thanks!

KwokFist · 20th October 2010, 01:56

Excellent thread!

The car looks fabulous in it's Red avatar!

Beautiful!

I hope the issues with your car are being sorted. I really look forward to the updates. I hope you will continue keeping this thread updated over the course of your ownership of your GTX. I've been a huge fan of the car and still am to this day! These threads keep alive my hope of getting one for myself.

HydroFuel · 12th June 2011, 12:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by thedragula

@ Kavesh55 - Wasan Motors has a service center off Moses Road in Worli. I used to stay in Powai and that's how I am familiar with the Workshop there. I work at Marine Lines, and stay at Dockyard Road. You are welcome if you'd like to check the car out.

Just couple of days back seen this thread. Great bright colour. By the way, do you park your car opposite Kala Niketan between Marine Lines and Churchgate stations? Because I see this red car from the door of train approaching Churchgate station. I used to wonder whether this is original colour and if original how come it look so bright /new. I confirmed many times whether it is indeed GTX or 1.6 sports. If it is your car then my doubt is cleared now.
OT but there was another red palio (do not know whether 1.6 or 1.2) seen parked couple of times in a building parking area opposite Patkar hall near SNDT college at New Marine Lines. Do you have any idea?
Very good work indeed.
Looking forward for some interior pictures.

19th August 2010, 09:34	#32
Dine BHPian Join Date: May 2008 Location: Chennai Posts: 121 Thanked: 14 Times View My Garage	Congrats Dracula on your new acquisition. The looks are fantastic and kudos to the painter for the good job. I envy your 1.6 GTX, sorry about the dent on the car.
	() Thanks

30th August 2010, 15:25	#33
thedragula BHPian Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Mumbai Posts: 80 Thanked: 267 Times	Update: I recently did a Mumbai Bangalore trip on the GTX and it was was excellent with the GTX performing admirably. The NH4 was in great shape (except for some stretches between Harihar and Devanagere which were riddled with diversions, speed breakers (more like axle breakers). The stretch between Pune - Belgaum and the Chitradurga stretch makes you want to pay taxes! On the return leg, we detected strong petrol fumes within 10 km of starting out from Bangalore and realised that we were leaking petrol. Turned back with the hope of taking the car to some service station and by this time, the fuel was gushing out. On reaching our bangalore home, we detected the leak at the lock between the fuel pipe and the pipe that is routed to the engine. A quick call to Venkatesh at Gowri Automobiles confirmed that the lock had to be snapped back into place as it could have come undone due to high pressure and there was nothing to worry. Did that and secured the end pipes with M-Seal to be sure and wound some teflon tape over the connector. We then started out towards Mumbai once again at 930 am and about 100 km later, the injector light started to flash for a few seconds intermittently accompanied with loss of power. Called up Venkatesh again, and he suggested driving slowly and replacing the ignition coil as soon as possible at the nearest service center. However, on starting the car, the problem did not crop up again and we drove extra carefully for then next hour looking out for symptoms. Thankfully, it didnt come back again. Reached Kolhapur by 830pm and crashed at a hotel for the night. The next day, we visited the Mahalaxmi temple at Kolhapur and started out at 9am and reached Mumbai by 230pm. The last stretch of the Mumbai Pune Expressway saw us doing a continuous 150kmph till Panvel. Another small issue that came up while in Bangalore was that the temperature used to hover below the 1/2 level mark without the A/c but touched 3/4th level with the A/c on. Visual inspection confirmed the proper working of the fan at both speeds. Since Venkatesh's garage happened to be close by, my cousin introduced me to him and he immediately diagnosed the problem to cobweb like dust that had settled on the radiator fins. He scraped those off and cleaned it with pressurized air and water and the temperature issue has not cropped up since even with a fully loaded car with A/c on full blast in peak Mysore Road traffic. My experience with Venkatesh at the workshop and his advice over phone when the issues cropped up have been excellent and I would strongly recommend him to anyone in Bangalore or otherwise. He is down to earth, listens to the problem and then gets down to fixing the problem. And lastly, the GTX has been an absolute blast to drive and has returned excellent mileage during the trip which saw us do 90 - 120 kmph consistently. The best figures were 16.12 km/litre between the Kolhapur - Chitradurga stretch (without A/c) running on BPCL Speed filled at Konduskar Pump at Kolhapur on the NH4. The lowest I got was about 13.2 km/litre (with A/c). This is after providing for the 10% odo error that the GTX or the pre-NV Palios come with. Will put up some pics from the trip soon.
	() Thanks

20th September 2010, 13:48	#34
lucifer919 BHPian Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Bangalore Posts: 240 Thanked: 307 Times View My Garage	Awesome Amazing experience there for you with a pre-owned car. I own a Palio 1.6 Stile myself and am looking at buying another used S10 from a friend. hope that experience will work out as well as yours. i too just drove back from Bangalore and the roads are to die for except around Harihar for about a 100 KMs or so. Overall, i would say money well spent and car well deserved. Wish you miles of happy motoring. Kiran.
	() Thanks

19th October 2010, 13:19	#35
thedragula BHPian Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Mumbai Posts: 80 Thanked: 267 Times	Update at 34500KM About a month back, when I was returning from Pune, my GTX started acting funny. Initially, the "battery not charging" light was on for about 10 min, and then it went off all by itself. By the time I reached Chembur, the wiper being very slow, the ICE shut down, the A/c blower gave up and the speedo stopped working and occasionally the rpm would shoot up all by itself . I drove the car to a friend's place and called the EXIDE Batmobile Service. They arrived within 30 min and jump started the car. The Voltage across terminals with the car running was about 10.xx and descending. He gave a clean chit to the battery and said that the alternator is the culprit. So left the car there and a couple of days later, my workshop sent a person to Chembur with a spare battery, managed to start the car and took it to the garage in Powai. He confirmed that the alternator is shorting and might need replacement. Kava Auto @ Opera House confirmed that they have an alternator that was taken off a new-ish 1.6 (maybe the car was totalled in an accident). He quoted 7k for the unit. After scanning through some threads in this site, I got the contact details of Mr. Shekhar from Best Auto Electric Works in Opera House and he confirmed that he would be able to repair the alternator. My mechanic had the alternator dismantled (a painful process which involved dismantling a lot of stuff and which took about 3 hours) and had it sent to Opera House for repair. Mr. Shekhar confirmed that the rotor, voltage regulator and a couple of bearings need replacement. The cost of repairs was Rs. 4850/- (Rs. 2500/- for the rotor, Rs. 1700/- for regulator, Rs. 300/- for the bearing and overhauling charges of Rs. 350/-). After the alternator was fitted, I took the car back to Mr. Shekhar for a clean chit. The voltage across terminals at idle speed with no load was about 13.8-13.9. He confirmed that it is normal though I remember having read that it should be 14.1 or thereabouts. Can someone confirm? Besides the alternator, since the car had racked up more than 5000km in a couple of months, the car was serviced as well. The total cost of the service came up to approx Rs. 6000/-. The break up is as follows. Complete overall Service - 750 Alternator O/H - 550 Engine Oil (4 Litres) - 811 Oil Filter - 140 Coolant (1 Litre) - 235 Gear Oil (1 Litre) - 220 Fan Belt (2 Nos) - 900 Tensioner Bearing - 2150 Axle Boot - 375 Grease - 70 The car is a lot more smoother after the service and begs to be revved. Went for a early morning drive to lonavala thereafter and chucked the expressway for the NH4 which is a smoother drive due to the tar roads and more involving as compared to the Mumbai-Pune Expressway where the driver feels like a zombie clutching the steering. On the return leg of the journey, the infamous injector light came on again for a few seconds and the engine gasped for breath. The light appeared intermittently for a few seconds and went off. The car then was back to behaving as if nothing has happened. Some call it character and other call it niggling issues with FIAT. I don't want to call it anything and just wanted to know why it comes on. So took it to the new entrant FIAT Dealer in Mumbai i.e. Galaxy Motors and hooked the scanner on to the ECU. It showed up 2 errors which were promptly deleted from memory. The engineer deleted the errors before I could click a picture. 1) Battery voltage and some code. (probably caused due to the alternator giving up the ghost) 2) Ignition Coil 2. As usual, the spares department threw up their hands and said parts were not available. So now am trying to source the ignition coil for the vehicle. Since it has not been a problem which has occurred with alarming frequency, have decided to wait a bit before going in for replacement. Galaxy Motors were kind enough to allow me to be present in the servicing area (though had to argue with the workshop manager). All customary courtesies were provided including a detailed printout of the earlier service history of the car (more on that later). The only niggle was that I spent a staggering 4 hours at the workshop for a simple ECU examiner job card. But being Dussehra/Saraswati pooja day, the staff were a bit hard-pressed handling the workload. So I guess that can be overlooked. A couple of pics from the Galaxy Motors Workshop @ Mods: Kindly amend the title of the thread to reflect the update. Thanks! Attached Thumbnails
	() Thanks

20th October 2010, 01:56	#36
KwokFist BHPian Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: KA19 Posts: 29 Thanked: 4 Times	Excellent thread! The car looks fabulous in it's Red avatar! Beautiful! I hope the issues with your car are being sorted. I really look forward to the updates. I hope you will continue keeping this thread updated over the course of your ownership of your GTX. I've been a huge fan of the car and still am to this day! These threads keep alive my hope of getting one for myself.
	() Thanks