[hotpursuit]

Hi all,
Need your help in solving this dilemma.

We have finalised that our next car will be Fiat Linea.
But the budget is stretched a bit for that. Presently we are thinking of Multijet Emotion (no the Emotion + mainly because of budget constraints).
Is that optional packs (Except for the airbags) a costly miss. This is for my Dad, and he is not much a techie kinda guy who would use Blue n Me much. There is almost 20 Kms drive daily and a long drive of 300-400 monthly. Mileage is a factor though not a huge one. Please advice on this. Again he'll be getting an allowance of 55ltrs of Fuel (Petrol/Diesel) every month.

Which is a better car to drive .
1.) Petrol / Diesel
2.) How much is allow wheels, airbags and blue n Me worth.

PLease advice

[coolboy007]

@ hot pursuit ,

As a linea owner myself here are my advices to you regarding choosing petrol and diesel:
As you said your monthly running will be
300 (long drive)+ 20*30 = 900 kms.

Now here are some rough calculations from my side :
900km/11 (fe of petrol)= 81 litres
monthly fuel costs = 81*41 = 3321 rs

900km/15 (fe of diesel)= 60
monthly fuel costs = 60*31 = 1860

Money saved per month = 1460 rs.
Delhi EX showroom petrol emotion pack= 714000 amd diesel E+ costs = 825000
Diff between disel and petrol Lineas price = 111000
Now monthly savings on Diesel 1460 rs
Time taken to recover extra money paid on diesel = 111000/1460 = 76 months which means 6 years + and by that time you will be ready to sell the car, have not even added INTEREST on 1 lac for 6 years and the recovery time goes even higher, enjoy the refinement of petrol Linea and get a PEtrol emotion + is my advice.
P.S ALL calcs are rough and my maths is not too good

Difference between Petrol E and E+ is just 34000 and you get airbags (good for you as your car goes on highway runs every month)+ blu n me (my dad also isnt a techie but now cant drive other cars as he is addicted to blu n me, this feauture is just awesome and doesnt deserve a miss. Also you get a USB port.
I think its too much things too lose for 34k.

I myself own a petrol Linea and just love the refinement and smoothness of the car.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...k-me-away.html

Go with Linea, i dont think that with this meagre 1000 kms per month you need a diesel

[Ramsagar]

Good write-up there cb007.
My suggestion would be if you wanna petrol look for other options too, but you wouldn't get as many features as linea gets, but resale value would be poor for a petrol linea.
You can go for a Premium hatch i20 or swift zxi, if you like, it comes with all the bells & whistles.

Diesel-you can blindly go for Linea, Verna or fiesta (underpowered).

Last but no least GP diesel Emotion+

confused!!!

[phamilyman]

Coolboy - go boy go. I FULLY agree with your perspective!

[coolboy007]

Originally Posted by Ramsagar

My suggestion would be if you wanna petrol look for other options too, but you wouldn't get as many features as linea gets, but resale value would be poor for a petrol linea.
You can go for a Premium hatch i20 or swift zxi, if you like, it comes with all the bells & whistles.
Diesel-you can blindly go for Linea, Verna or fiesta (underpowered).

confused!!!

The only other car in petrol(wanted a sedan) i would and had considered was Ford fiesta 1.6S which my friend had recommended me. Still the older looks or i just say features and looks of linea bowled me over and i had to let go some performance and 0-100 timings.
Regarding resale perspective, all those who bought Linea till now must have virtually kept it 0 seeing fiat's name in market but now i have high hopes as think GP will for sure succeed.

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Coolboy - go boy go . I FULLY agree with your perspective!

Thanks mate. This is the calculation which even i did while choosing a car. took our monthly running divided between Scorpio and Linea and it came to less than 1500 kms per month so bought a Petrol Linea, if running is not more why not enjoy smoothness of a petrol car and also keep that 1L with me.

[geeash]

That great calculations.
now coming back to the question
I would advice you to go for the petrol emotion pack models as now it might fit your budget by getting down from petrol ti diesel.

Is that optional packs (Except for the airbags) a costly miss

Airbags are mandatory. And since you say it is for your dad i say it is a must. As the age progresses the vision and reflexes diminishes. so Airbags are definite must just in case ........ (touchwood)
So go for it mate and you will enjoy.......

[Parm]

Originally Posted by coolboy007

@ hot pursuit ,

As a linea owner myself here are my advices to you regarding choosing petrol and diesel:
As you said your monthly running will be
300 (long drive)+ 20*30 = 900 kms.

Now here are some rough calculations from my side :
900km/11 (fe of petrol)= 81 litres
monthly fuel costs = 81*41 = 3321 rs

900km/15 (fe of diesel)= 60
monthly fuel costs = 60*31 = 1860

Money saved per month = 1460 rs.
Delhi EX showroom petrol emotion pack= 714000 amd diesel E+ costs = 825000
Diff between disel and petrol Lineas price = 111000
Now monthly savings on Diesel 1460 rs
Time taken to recover extra money paid on diesel = 111000/1460 = 76 months which means 6 years + and by that time you will be ready to sell the car, have not even added INTEREST on 1 lac for 6 years and the recovery time goes even higher, enjoy the refinement of petrol Linea and get a PEtrol emotion + is my advice.
P.S ALL calcs are rough and my maths is not too good

Difference between Petrol E and E+ is just 34000 and you get airbags (good for you as your car goes on highway runs every month)+ blu n me (my dad also isnt a techie but now cant drive other cars as he is addicted to blu n me, this feauture is just awesome and doesnt deserve a miss. Also you get a USB port.
I think its too much things too lose for 34k.

I myself own a petrol Linea and just love the refinement and smoothness of the car.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...k-me-away.html

Go with Linea, i dont think that with this meagre 1000 kms per month you need a diesel

hats off to you coolboy as you have made a statement for those people who simply buy diesel engine cars because its cheaper then petrol at a pump!

they dont do this kind of calculation before buying a diesel!

[Ravveendrra]

For all the reasons stated by the others - Petrol!

Make sure you get the version with all the safety equipment i.e. the max no. of airbags etc.

Cheers,

[bottle]

try driving the diesel, the torque over the petrol should make it easier to drive especially in the city

[hotpursuit]

Thanks coolboy007 and others for the suggestions. But just one query here, how does the petrol Linea do with the air con switched. Is there a noticable amount of difference in the acceleration. Its been a while since I drove a petrol car. Only one I can remember is a suzuki zen (old), which when overtaking I had to switch off the air con to get that extra zip. Diesel Linea sure is torquey, and will be good to drive in city. I've almost decided on Petrol. But just needs some clarification on this.

[VahanPujari]

hotpursuit,

I did the following calculations before buying. However, I had some other strong reason also to go for Petrol. You can find a related thread here -->> http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/sedans...a-verna-5.html

After becoming t-bhpian, I have come to know following which you should look at to decide Petrol or Diesel

1) Following calculations
2) Torque in Diesel as suggested by bottle above
3) Resale Value - Its evident that Resale value of MJD is always higher than Petrol & in all probabilities, it would stay like that.

The decision depends on individual requirements/ preferences. e.g. I don't have any poreference to point 1 & 2 above & had another strong reason for going for petrol.

On your query on power during AC ON or OFF - it applies to all vehicles & all variants Diesel or petrol. I gues what you're asking relates to power difference in Linea petrol vs Diesel. Linea petrol gives 90 BHP & Diesel gives 85 BHP. Though Petrol power is more sometimes people prefer Torque by Diesel.

Quote:
Originally Posted by VahanPujari

Loving_aalap
I would still suggest your friend to calculate again. As I understand, his monthly running is around 1700 km & he has a budget for C seg Diesel car (not the higher variant) i.e. around 7.75 to 8 Lacs

Petrol: 1700 km/11 FE = 154 litres * Rs. 44.55 = Rs. 6885/month
Diesel: 1700 km/14 FE = 121 litres * Rs. 34.45 = Rs. 4168/month

i.e. difference of Rs. 2716/month savings

Against this saving, diesel car price is say higher by 1.20 Lacs than petrol car. After 4 yrs this addl "investment" of 1.20 Lacs will become 1.75 Lacs @ 10% compunded interest. To cover this cost of 1.75 Lacs, it would have taken 64 months (Rs. 1.75 Lacs/ Rs. 2716 per month saving) to breakeven i.e. he will cover addl cost of diesel engine in 5 years & 4 months. After 5 yrs in all probability, he would change the car anyways so why not to enjoy Petrol ride?

Within his budget of "not-top line diesel" variant, he can get a top of the line variant of Petrol sedan (not sure about verna top variant which is costlier).

Reg Airbags also, see we won't need it, probably will never need it (pray). But its like just in case___ . Like an Insurance, but better than Insurance as Insurance is not a preventive/precaution (still we all have insurance, right?) but Airbag is a precaution & a preventive measure, you know just in case__. & unlike insurance, the payout is not every year but one-off.

Brilliant calculation.

But may be atypical mind set, that even if you pay high at once, you are pay less thereafter, so my friend will never buy a petrol

[MileCruncher]

hotpursuit, I don't think you'll have to switch off A/C to accelerate.

The palio's have a feature where-in the A/C gets switched off automatically on hard acceleration or on engine over heating. I think it should be there on the Linea as well.

P.S.: Linea has 90 BHP double of your 45 BHP Zen

[VahanPujari]

Originally Posted by MileCruncher

hotpursuit, I don't think you'll have to switch off A/C to accelerate.

The palio's have a feature where-in the A/C gets switched off automatically on hard acceleration or on engine over heating. I think it should be there on the Linea as well.

P.S.: Linea has 90 BHP double of your 45 BHP Zen

Yes, Its there in Linea also. I've experienced it & thought of an issue with AC. So raised it to Fiat & they mentioned that in high load conditions engine tries to cut-off power-user activities - the 1st in that priority is the AC.

When I went to Shirdi, on very steep Kasara Ghats, when I had to really stretch Linea some times in 1st or 2nd gear at high rpm's, the AC cooling was almost non-existent. So that proves.

But still - Switching off AC during overtake still gives a release of extra npower though not needed much in Linea. I had to do it 2-3 times in extreme overtaking situations & it had the desired effect

[aks_karthik]

I too travel almost 1000- 1500kms monthly.
I did calculation and as per my monthy usage Petrol is sufficient.
But after driving MJD i never looked back petrol Linea and booked and enjoying the torque now.

Suggestion is test Drive both Petrol and Diesel and finalize.

[CarsPG]

I drive around 2,000 kms/month. My break even was approximately 100,000 kms or 50 months.

I didn't take the higher resale value and minor increase in servicing cost for the diesel car in to account. If those are factored in as well the break even will probably drop a little.