[Pferdestarke]

Originally Posted by naveenvenkatesh

Hey, can you post some pictures of the interiors, including the new touch screen? How does it perform?

Firstly, my sincere apologies for the delayed response mate! Here are a few pictures of head unit in action.







Welcome screen.

[greenoval]

Originally Posted by Swap_Abarth

Thanks a lot. I did manage to get 2 lac discount from the dealer. Initial offer was 1.8 lacs discount though. On top of that, I negotiated further on accessaries (7.5 k saved there).

Congratulations! Abarth Punto is one awesome car. Did u get the car from Pune or from Landmark Mumbai? How was the dealer experience?

[Swap_Abarth]

Thanks I bought it from Worli Landmark. Overall experinece was good. Delievery happened on committed date. Sales person was courteous and knowledgable. I took 2 test rides before the finalization. He drove the test ride vehicle all the way to my office in Navi Mumbai, both the times.

[arun_josie]

Spotted 4 Abarth Puntos today @ PPS Motors(Electronic City), they were getting ready for delivery. 2 were delivered on Saturday it seems.

[greenoval]

Originally Posted by Swap_Abarth

Thanks I bought it from Worli Landmark. Overall experinece was good. Delievery happened on committed date. Sales person was courteous and knowledgable. I took 2 test rides before the finalization. He drove the test ride vehicle all the way to my office in Navi Mumbai, both the times.

Took a test drive of the car at Worli Landmark. I was toying with the idea of exchanging my Laura TSi for the Abarth, if the final offer from the dealer was enticing enough. But ultimately decided to retain the TSi after the test drive, mainly due to 3 reasons -
1) Though the Abarth offers oodles of performance and fun, 1.8 TSi is more punchy, smooth and creamy
2) The gearshifts on Abarth is a dampener. Not sure if the rubbery shifting issue was with the test drive car
3) Interior feel compared to Laura

Areas where the Abarth outshines Laura -
1) Brakes. Very reassuring though my Laura is equipped with EBC pads
2) Steering
3) Ride quality - I am sure Abarth ride quality is superior to a Laura running on stock suspension (My car has a stiffer KW suspension set up)

I know the cars are from 2 different segments but I intended to get a replacement turbo petrol with almost similar engine specs on a budget. Currently, the discount on a 2019 manufactured Abarth is close to Rs. 2 lakhs which puts the OTR price close to Rs. 9.50 lakhs (not sure if the dealer was open to any further discounting). At that price, decided it makes more sense to retain the Laura.

[Neur0t0xin]

Originally Posted by arun_josie

Spotted 4 Abarth Puntos today @ PPS Motors(Electronic City), they were getting ready for delivery. 2 were delivered on Saturday it seems.

I did a casual enquiry over phone with PPS motors.

They say limited number of 2019 cars all black colour available at 1.88 Lakhs manufacturer discount and 2k corporate discount.
The on road price will come to around 9.7lakh.

I'm tempted to replace my existing 90hp Punto!

[naveenvenkatesh]

Originally Posted by Neur0t0xin

I did a casual enquiry over phone with PPS motors.

They say limited number of 2019 cars all black colour available at 1.88 Lakhs manufacturer discount and 2k corporate discount.
The on road price will come to around 9.7lakh.

I'm tempted to replace my existing 90hp Punto!

Hey can you share the contact details of the dealership? I can't find PPS motors details online. I am looking to buy the Abarth

[Swap_Abarth]

For you, it is fair to retain the laura. It is a good car. And I believe, it would have aged well. It's hard to compare punto vs laura. As you said, they belong to different categories all together.
For me gear shift was not an issue. As my previous car was MJD Punto. I find gearbox in abarth marginally better than my diesel Punto. Steering is also little better than earlier car. The major difference for me is power, hell lot more power.
Unfortunatly not many manual powerful turbo petrols are available in our market. Have you checked JTP or Baleno RS?

[Neur0t0xin]

Originally Posted by naveenvenkatesh

Hey can you share the contact details of the dealership? I can't find PPS motors details online. I am looking to buy the Abarth

I've sent you a PM.

I got a call from PPS motors service advisor as my Punto is due for service. So, that's when I also asked them about offers on the Abarth Punto.

[greenoval]

Originally Posted by Swap_Abarth

Have you checked JTP or Baleno RS?

JTP and Baleno RS were not considered. I was clear that if Laura goes, the replacement will be Abarth Punto. The primary criteria for me was the engine specs and within 10 lakhs no other car comes close!

[akhil_rpmlover]

Heard that the Abarth Punto is totally sold out and no production during April. Any information as to whether the production will be resumed ?

[Astonite]

Lucky are those who own it. Spoke to chennai dealer, and no stock :(

[Turboaddict]

In the month of October myself and my friend had booked 2 Abarth punto in white and after 2 months of following up with the dealer and directly with the FCA India sales head, I was told that they are not going to manufacture any cars in white. I even told them I am ready to wait for 2019 batch to be manufactured. I got response from them asking me to cancel the booking since they are unsure about manufacturing Abarth in 2019. Got booking amount refunded immediately.
I was going on thinking what to do, since abarth punto is the only hot hatch in the Indian Market.
Test drove the following cars :

Polo gt tsi - immediately loved the dsg gearbox and the ease of driving. On road price was 11.4lks and at that price I felt its not worth it because the car is too small and my parents said they can't sit at the back. Built quality seemed very good though. I was also concerned about the dsg failure rate since my cousin's ameo dsg went for a toss in just 10 months. Finally ruled out polo thinking that it's at the end of its life cycle and knowing the fact that there a new polo already launched in the European Market, I was not going to spend my hard earned money on an old car.

Skoda rapid tdi: Dealer offered a juicy discount of 2lks and the on road price was 11lks for mid variant. Loved the punch of turbo diesel Post 2k rpm and the car was extremely fuel efficient and returned a constant 14kmpl during my long test drive in the city. Built quality is very good and the car felt solid even though the test drive car was abused a lot. Shortlisted the Rapid tdi

Figo S diesel: Got a dealer discount of 1.2lks as they wanted to clear 2018 stocks and only red was available. Test drove the car and was immediately happy with the performance and handling. Ride quality was a bit firm considering the roads in Blore. The motor has enough firepower to keep you enterained in the city. Highway performance was a question mark. Hated almost everything about the Figo except its performance. The test drive car was relatively new and it felt flimsy. The metal quality is below par and felt like I could bend it by hand. All the plastics in the cabin felt cheap. The door pads felt like the same material used in scooter dashboards. Interior space was fine, but the built quality was a disappointment. Maybe it's because i checked out the vw and skoda cars before going to Figo. Dealer quoted 8.4 on road after discount but I was turned off with the built quality.

Baleno Rs : Checked out the car in the showroom and immediately decided to not buy it. The sales rep however offered test drive and I thought I'll just check out the engine performance. The car is just undrivable outside the turbo range and the new car itself had a lot of squeeks and metal flex sounds while taking u-turns and going over speed humps. The car feels nervous while braking because of the narrow tyres and the steering felt too light. I got a feeling that the car will get moved around during windy highway drives at high speeds. Every single panel and part felt like it's built to the cheapest price possible, so just stepped out.

At this point I was running out of options and was worried. I finally made up my mind to let go the idea of getting a hot hatch altogether and went to skoda again to just get the Octavia rs ��.They didn't even accept bookings that time. I was also told by a lot of people that it returned around 6kmpl in city. Even then I had thought of buying it thinking its a collector's car. Roughly 35lks on road but no cars currently available. No test drive car as well. They suggested me to test drive the octavia 2.0tdi to get a feel of the car and I took it for a spin. The car has gobs of torque and immense poke whenever you want. Turbo lag is almost non existent and the entire car was extremely silent like as though it was a petrol engine. I was mighty impressed with the performance, looks, the feel of interior, steering, brakes, seats, space and the sense of premium quality materials used in every single part. To top it off, it even constantly returned a fuel efficiency of 12kmpl in the city even with me flooring the pedal to point and shoot the car in gaps. The 2.0tdi is a gem of an engine and is used in a lot of vag cars like passat, superb, kodiaq, a4, Q3, tiguan etc. No discounts on the octavia though and the price was around the same as jeep compass awd which again put me into a confusion. Shortlisted the octavia tdi but ruled out the rapid.

Jeeo compass: the car feels like a rock. Every single door takes efforts to open and shut. Quality of materials is top notch. Gear shift lever is lovely. The shift action is so damn good that every gear shift is bit off an event. Even though the 2ltr engine has good numbers, the on road performance is bogged down by its weight and size. It's a great mile muncher at moderate speeds and a capable off-Roader. Felt like the car could cruise at 100 even on broken roads. Ride quality was very supple. Its a great car but I felt it doesn't match my personality.

Took some time off and started doing quite a lot of research on vag 2.0tdi engine and its potential. After a few weeks I decided to stick to turbo diesel 2.0 considering the balance between performance and efficiency.

You would've noticed by now that I have not talked about any of the features like infotainment system, camera, android auto, apple car play, WiFi, Bluetooth etc etc. Simply because I buy a car for its engine, transmission, braking, built quality and safety. I just can't be bothered about all the infotainment nonsense. I have a smartphone which can do much more than any car infotainment system can do, so I'm definitely not going to consider such gadgets in car. I just want an aux port and good speakers from the manufacturer.

With days passing I was constantly being reminded about the amount of loan I would have to take to get the octavia. Around 60% had to be loan and was wondering if it was a wise decision. Thinking about those things I started my research in pre-owned market and only looked for cars with 2.0tdi engines.
Shortlisted octavia, Laura, passat, superb, yeti and jetta. I told myself that i need to look for cars which have done less than 35k odo and strictly manual transmission since dsg in new cars itself was unreliable after hearing about it a lot. So automatically a few cars were ruled out from the list because they only came in 2.0tdi + dsg. Narrowed down to Laura 2.0tdi manual. Got to know that Laura 2.0 in India came in the most detuned form - 110hp 250nm, but knew that a simple remap is enough to unlock its potential. The new octavia with same engine comes stock with 140hp 320nm. Luckily after a few days of searching I found a Laura 2.0 cr tdi Mt 2013 mid variant. Had 16" alloys, full nappa leather upholstery, soft touch interior panels, heated seats, dual zone climate control, abs, Airbags and tcs. Car felt like a tank and had superb ride, handling and braking package. Steering felt very precise and the car never felt nervous even at 150kmph. Was running as if it was running on rails. It had just 30k on odo and immediately asked the owner to bring the car to sokda svc to get the car inspected. The guys at svc were very helpful and took almost 3hrs to inspect every single thing in the car. I paid them 1k as inspection charges and they gave me a report saying pollen filter needs replacement, wheel alignment needs to be done, one bulb needs to be replaced and due to global recall on ac compressor, they'd replace the compressor for free which would enhance ac performance. Finally bought the car and left it at the svc for them to carry out all the tasks.

Now comes the most exciting bit. The remap
Took the car to Code6 and got a remap done which now belts out slightly more than 160whp and 340nm torque. The car has become a road going rocket now and it just flies. The power is just immense. The turbo opens up at just about 1500rpm and after that the outside vision is just a blur. There's no point flooring it in 1st gear since it'll just shred my tyres. 2nd gear I need to carefully step on the throttle else I'll be getting massive torque steer and wheel spin. 3rd gear again the same story as second but takes the speedo needle to dangerous speeds very quickly. 4th gear floor the pedal and the needle would be nudging 180 in no time. Never had the courage or the road to push it on 5th. It feels like the hands of God shoving you through the air from behind. The acceleration is so severe that the passengers start shouting when I step on the pedal. Overtaking on highways is not just a normal overtake anymore, the moment I floor the pedal to overtake and settle down on my lane, I wouldve lost sight of the car I just overtook. I am sure that my car now is not going to be quick in 0-100 times. That was not what I wanted in the first place. In-gear acceleration and roll-on acceleration is where my car shines bright. There is so much power and torque that 2 wheels simply cannot put it on the road if I had to test the 0-100. However, I will be going again to code6 to smoothen out the power delivery slightly. Meaning we will be injecting a bit more fuel before turbo zone. This would increase power before turbo and help reduce wheelspin since the car would gather some more momentum before turbo kicks in. This would also indirectly result in turbo spooling up a bit sooner than 1500rpm since the exhaust gas will be more. Under sane driving conditions I have been constantly getting a respectable 12-14kmpl in Blore City and 20+kmpl on highways. This allows me to happily use the car on a daily basis and since I bought the car for lower price than what I would've paid for the abarth, I don't have to worry about emi as well.
My car purchase story started off with Abarth and ended in the most unexpected way with a lot of confusion, twists and turns in between. End of the day, I feel everything happens for our own good.

Few pics of my nuke:

[hondatoyotafan]

Originally Posted by Astonite

Lucky are those who own it. Spoke to chennai dealer, and no stock :(

Turbo fiat in Vijayawada AP has black in stock still left over

[akhil_rpmlover]

Originally Posted by hondatoyotafan

Turbo fiat in Vijayawada AP has black in stock still left over

Tried calling them, but they said no stock left. Maybe they said so since I am from another state.