[puchoo]

Me wanting to acquire the tjet is not a new story , in fact it’s an old long one which started in 2012 and concluded 10 months later!

Many on the forum would know that in 2011 I had just got myself a Fabia 1.6. A fabulous buy and a great great car. Excellent build quality , a peppy 1.6 mill , very low maintenance, silent and smooth and a lot of fun to drive. I had seen the Honda’s and the Verna’s and while one had the budget to buy a sedan I for some reason kept going back to this car and finally bought it. There was no t-jet considered at all , I simply had not noticed her.

Come September 2012 the loan on my wife’s Ritz finished and she expressed a very very strong desire for my fabia. She asked , rather told me , to look for another car for myself and give her this one. For the 1 year of ownership which the fabia had seen with me the interest in the car had been expressed many times and now with the Ritz loan over I knew I would need to surrender this one and there was no way out! The requirement was for a petrol engine and limited running simply did not warrant a diesel.

Started looking around , and this time the Tjet caught my eye , owing more to the massive discounts which were running on the car at that time which were about 200,000 INR. Lots of research and reading many many threads on TBHP got me to walk into the Fiat Caffee showroom in Delhi. Drove the car and immediately fell in love with it. I had found a piece of machinery which not only satisfied my requirements in the form of a sedan but one which gave a class leading driving experience. The decision was sealed and we decided to move ahead with the purchase and I booked the car within a few days…………. Now the saga began.

All the cars were 2010 / 2011 stock and the T-Jet was going to be phased out – hence the discounts , it also meant a lot of confusion at the dealership. After I made the first booking they failed to confirm the color in time (despite confirming verbally) and I cancelled it and told them to update themselves on the stock. About a week later post a call from the sales executive I booked again only to run into the same color confusion all over again. Booking cancelled again. The story repeated itself some days later but this time owing to some personal work I was unable to confirm and by the time I could speak on the subject again the color was gone and I received news that 2011 models were over. As much as I loved the car , buying a 2010 model simply did not make sense , mentally too many risks attached and I let it be.

For the next weeks I scoured the Delhi / NCR area hoping to find a 2011 T-Jet with another dealer. Multiple calls , many follow ups with Fiat Caffee as well as fiat themselves yielded no results and I gave up. For a while after that I kept getting calls about a white T-Jet from 2010 which I kept saying no to and eventually that was sold as well and I resigned myself to missing the chance to own a car which I was fairly sure would have been a lot of fun for many a years to come.

The only option available now was to find another car. My instinct was to buy the Laura , there were some good discounts on but more importantly I felt I would be very happy with that as well. A different segment but bang on with respect to power and driving dynamics that I wanted – unfortunately despite many months of discussions my wife simply did not feel comfy spending that much money and in hindsight I can but only appreciate her efforts in keeping me reigned in , despite the discounts one was still talking north of 16 Lacs OTR and by now we were sitting in 2013.

Off and on for the next weeks the search continued and the following car list was drawn up (just personal opinions , no offence intended to any owners of these cars )

City – tried and tested , good to drive , AVN model available and all in all a good buy. But with the city I would not have settled for anything below the paddle shift grade but that was still secondary because I was not “blown” away with the car , I have never liked the interior quality of the City and the OTR with the paddle shifters was close to 11. The dealership experience was great as always but the car failed to “connect” with me.

Verna – decided to give her a shot again as well with the hope that the suspension would be better now but It was not. It felt exactly the same with the rear slipping away fairly easily and enough on the bouncing front in Delhi itself at speeds which were only 60% of what I would typically drive at on the highway.

Vento – did not take a strong look at it , I had driven it enough times and had someone in the family who owned one was not overly excited or enthusiastic about it. Plus the last time , the VW guys had the South Delhi dealership had really managed to rub me the wrong way – a “ I am doing you a favor by selling this car “ attitude , this time around it was no different.

The three main contenders thus were already excluded!! Now I was really In a jam , at this point my wife decided to be a little more generous with the budget ( I think she was just running out of patience and did not want to wait much more for the Fabia) but it did not help much , I started looking at the XUV 500 and the Cruze. Both ruled out , there was nothing wrong with the XUV , simply did not need something that big , the Cruze was excellent on the power delivery front but I was once again not happy with the interior quality , especially in the back. A colleague has it in office and I have had the opportunity to ride in it many times.

The Sunny , Scala were never on the top of the list but did check them out and rediscovered why they were not on the top of my list to begin with. It seemed that a compromise would need to be made – either we just stick with the existing setup for a while or I go in for the City and be done with it , I was honestly by this time starting to tire out as well mentally.

Then the gods smiled!!

News of the T-Jet relaunch came out and clearly that solved my dilemma. The decision was made and all I had to do was wait for the car. At this point the launch period was April – my SA who I was in touch with off and on during these months called me to let me know to expect the car by the 10th/15th of April which by now was less than 1 month away.

Then disaster again….!!

The launch got postponed , instead of getting a call to tell me when the car would be available for viewing I hear that there is now a delay till June ( clearly by this time I had absolutely no faith in this new deadline either) , fortunately a couple of office trips outside the country helped tide the time over and this time around it really did seem that Fiat would live upto the deadline and they did.

The official launch in Delhi was the 14th ( why they would have another launch after 1 week of all the information being out is questionable) . I landed up at the Cafe for paying the booking amount only to learn that I had walked into the official launch. And it so transpired that mine was the first booking of the T-Jet in India and as an acknowledgement I was asked to unveil the car along with my wife

I booked the Emotion grade - It took another 3-4 days for a test drive to take place. They only had one car which was being run around across the NCR region , Dynamic. As I write this I believe they still have no emotion variant available for viewing and mine is the first one in Delhi. Another 10 days went in getting the documents and the processes for the loan etc sorted out , there was considerable lack of information at the dealership end on many aspects well after the launch as well – availability of remote , spare wheel being an alloy vs steel , extended warranty cost etc etc.

During this time another incident took place which almost made me cancel the booking for a 4th time! I had opted for the oceanic blue color , for a good 10 days no one told me that there were any problems in terms of availability or delay and that I can expect delivery between 7-10th of July. On a random follow up call to get the VIN I was informed that Blue and Black had not been made in the first batch and I wished to change then delivery could be as per the original timelines or else an additional 15 days – I blew my top and escalated it at Kashyap as well as Fiat , within 2 days I received an email from Fiat , followed by a call from the dealer with my VIN and Sales docket number , color confirmation and that delivery timelines would not be effected and lo and behold I got her home on the XYZ of July

I did manage to get some goodies out which I have listed below for reference but clearly nothing remotely close to the discounts which were being offered in 2012. I am also acutely aware that waiting for 2-3 months would have possibly meant that some offers would have come out but I simply did not have the energy , as I write this there are bookings coming in consistently for the T-Jet but they are slow and the car is not flying off the shelves , would not be too unrealistic to have something like ‘free insurance’ coming out soon. At any rate , I give a lot of credit to Fiat for re-launching this car and I hope that their decision yields something positive for them and that it’s enough to have her in the market for others to experience as well.

Free RSA
Free Body Kit
Corporate discount
Booking discount ( was basically offered a gold coin which I deducted against the cost of the car)

While not as lucrative financially as it has been , the car is cheaper than before by about 40,000 ex-showroom Delhi. But there has been some cost cutting involved on which I am a mixed bag of thoughts. The Alloy wheel is now steel and this one stings especially given how much I love the design. 2 headrests at the back instead of 3 as were earlier , some color changes internally (don’t think they effect the cost) but beyond this the car is pretty much the same. The engine is now locally manufactured and is another reason the cost is on the lower side. Frankly I think with the just the engine manufacturing here now , they could have saved enough of this 40,000 and not needed to sacrifice the other stuff – but none of them are deal breakers.


The dealership experience has been “so-so” , I took a liking to my SA who has been with me now for the last 10 months but overall this is an area they and fiat need to work on extensively and quickly to improve , people with less patience and love for their cars are not going to go through , for example

• I was informed there was no remote control , sent an email to fiat to confirm the same and they told me I will get a remote

• Delivery process took 3 hours!! Confusion over where to take it from , we went to one place and the car needed to get driven there from the other PDI not done properly in terms of overall cleanliness of the vehicle from the inside , waster a good 60 minutes getting that done prior to delivery – managed to get a free dry cleaning servicing endorsed onto the car General lack of pro-activeness

Many Many thanks to all the existing t-jet owners on the forum for helping me out.

A special note for my Fabia , it’s been a great 1.5 years with her and I am sad to see her go , especially that slick transmission - but she is still in the family and a few drives here and there every month are definitely going to keep taking place .For me the ownership experience was even better because I had a pretty decent ASS 2 minutes away from my office with some really nice people.

Initial driving and ownership experience

Absolutely fantastic. The car is just a great all-rounder be it features or the driving experience itself. Found my comfy spot as well as far as the driving position is concerned very quickly. While the steering is only adjustable for rake and not reach between the height adjustment and the rake and moving the seat back and forth its fairly easy and quick to find a setup which one would be fine with. A great chunk steering wheel which almost feels customized to ones hands!!

There appears to be a difference in the acceleration characteristics of the car , the power band seems to have moved closer to the 2000 RPM level and the delivery is more linear , the first few times i took her beyond 2000 RPM i was keeping a watch on the RPM needle and expecting to feel the surge that the T-Jet is so famous more but it did not come - or was quite mild at any rate - since the car is still being run in i cant put the metal to the floor right now so not entirely sure if this is new or whether it is because of me not pushing her hard enough unlike the test car.
Need to get used the shifting , the fabia was smooth and short , the TJet is smooth but long and it’s going to take me a few more days to get used to that however I find the clutch comfortable enough , there is substantial play in it but owing to the how soft it is , there have been no tired feet or knees so far. Just to clarify however that "long" is relative to what i have got used to in the Fabia.

In terms of ride quality the car does not change , the higher ground clearance does not impact the driving dynamics fortunately and its still as much fun. The increased ground clearance does however make the rear wheel wells look big - a direct result of this is that despite having 16 inch alloys there is substantial empty space around.

Driving is relatively easy , the steering is nice and light and weights up nicely as well - not that i have taken it to high speeds right now. I believe the steering is much more lighter now than it was in previous models thus allowing aspects such as city driving , parking to be much easier. I cannot comment because i cannot recall this from 10 months ago but i can testify to the fact that there is no need to fight with the wheel nor does it require above average effort.

I love how she corners , i do the pointing and she sticks to that line without a fuss. While speeds have not gone up i have taken some of my routine Home to office corners faster with her and neither me nor her have felt uncomfortable at any point in taking them at those speeds. Will love driving her in the hills!! The turbo lag is present as it has always been and its a factor i need to get used to since the Fabia 1.6 did not have it. There is a lot more downshifting with the T-Jet than there was with the Fabia despite roads and conditions being similar , that does not imply anything is wrong with the car just that i need to tweak the way i drive a bit to factor this in.

From the outside the car looks identical , the turbine alloys are unfortunately not restricted to only the T-Jet variant anymore and the badge at the back and front remains.

From the inside there are differences and one of the first things one will notice as i did was the color in the 2013 model. The color or rather shade is much more lighter now than what it used to be , its borderline white. The quality of the leather is still superb and i don't believe any changes have been made in terms of material but it is much lighter now. While this gives an even more 'open' feel to the cabin they are going to be even more difficult to maintain.

The area under the dashboard used to be black and is now white as well. Again while it adds to the general aesthetics of the cabin its going to be a task keeping it clean especially on the drivers side since the dead pedal is located alongside it , so some part of the dirt/trappings on ones shoes are going to find their way onto this area. Wiping here will be frequent enough especially during the monsoons.

Other than this the rear sees the removal of one head rest hence there are 2 now instead of 3. Not a deal breaker at all given that the rear is going to be empty most of the time so having or not having a third has no influence. The armrest fortunately now has a proper lining at the back , earlier upon bring it down one saw some kind of black metal/frame which has now been covered up with leather and blends in with the rest of the car. Quality of plastics within the arm rest in terms of cup holders etc seems to have improved marginally.

While i will hardly ever ride in the back the rear seats are comfortable with good support and the ride is relatively flat as well.

The car comes with good year NCT and unfortunately the alloy has been dropped and replaced by a steel wheel. Again not a deal breaker but i really do believe fiat should have retained this. No plans to upgrade the tyres immediately , will drive around on them for a while and decide if an upgrade is required to say something like Michelin PLC's.

2 new features come to the 2013 T-Jet - Rain sensing wipers and auto headlamps. The former is yet to be tried and the latter is now the default setting as far as i am concerned. Fiat has provided some amount of control on the adjustment of the sensitivity levels of both these features. They can be accessed through the car menu and degree of sensitivity can be adjusted on a scale of 1-4. Currently for me this is operating at default level and the headlights come on at as early as 6 if its cloudy. A bit too early for me since there is sufficient light still and i will be changing this. Wiper quality is excellent.

The famous Blue and Me system remains and seems to work well, for the most part quite well with my phone which happens to be a Samsung Galaxy S2. I am still tinkering around with the system and trying to understand everything but pairing is butter smooth and in terms of steering controls over calling they work well. I was not sure if the phonebook was picked up automatically the first time it paired so transferred them manually. Quality of sound over the car speakers is ok - nothing great but not bad either.

Android users will face problems with the SMS reader functionality -even the Blue and Me website lists it down as something which does not work well with Android's. I am trying to find a go around on this which could be an Android App which in turn might sync with the Bluetooth system and will keep everyone updated on this.

Media player is easy. Automatically starts playing in about 10 -12 seconds after the car starts and there is something plugged in. Easy to skip and access folders through the steering controls again. Small tip , have a folder structure which is relatively flat thus making it faster to find stuff while driving around.

Am satisfied with the sound quality for the most part. Find it a bit lacking in bass despite the multiple preset equalizers one has been given. There is however also a user controlled option which i am going to tinker around with and see if i can do something about it. Personally for now i have kept the fader at 2 ( towards the rear) thus allowing me to crank up the volume and not loading the front speakers too much and thus keeping the treble under control.

I am immensely satisfied with the interior quality. The leather upholstery across the car of-course add a lot but even in terms of fit and finish i find everything to be between OK - Good. One has seen a lot of pictures by other owners of unfinished bits , panel gaps etc but glad to say i found none here , infact

Ignition area switch and fit is now fine. No gaps or jokes here anymore :-)
No gaps with the glove box
No gaps or problems with the center console
No flakes , unfinished pieces of plastic anywhere.

Other features remain as were present in the 2011 models and work seamlessly. I really find the ability to adjust the ORVM's electronically quite a convenience , did not think it would matter so much but it does. Field of vision is good enough for me but parking sensors at the back is probably something i am going to go in for soon enough - audio vs camera remains undecided , probably the latter but this is an accessory which i think really makes a lot of sense with this car.


Summing up the differences between the 2013 and the earlier T-Jets:-

1. No spare alloy - standard steel Apollo
2. 2 rear headrests instead of 3
3. rain sensing wipers and auto headlamps in the 2013 model
4. this is a nice surprise - if one folded the rear arm rest down there used to be an ugly black metal type frame which used to show , now its been covered with leather
5. upholstery color appears to be lighter , and the area under the dashboard has gone whitish from the earlier black

Some pictures attached , more to follow I promise very very shortly. While i know a lot about this car i am sure there is a lot more to learn and even more enjoyment which awaits me. Shall keep everyone updated frequently.... thanks for reading!

[puchoo]

The infamous remote and the now steel spare wheel.

[nipcarlover]

Congrats on the Jet puchoo!! Was looking forward to this review since a long time!

The Linea looks very nice in Oceanic Blue, although the silver ornaments in the front are a bit too contrast-y to me, if you know what I mean. But, to each his own! Can we also have some nice, wide-angle shots of the car?

What is the 'body-kit' that you have mentioned in the freebies?

Hope you have an awesome time flying your Jet!

[Pancham]

Congrats on the car. I think this is the best colour on Linea. What is the body kit BTW?

[johy]

Many congrats Puchoo. One early question. Is Fiat using a space saver for the stepney??

[Biraj]

Congrats buddy!!! All the wait and all the research is truly worth it. With experience of owning and maintaining a Bronzo Scuro T-jet and an Oceanic Blue Punto, I can say that these colours are not easy to maintain. However, all the effort that goes behind maintaining the colour is rewarded by the admiration (and at times, envy) that the cars attract.

Wish you many happy miles on your T-jet!

[RIC.BURNS]

That is a beauty! congrats on the Jet puchoo. Im sure you are going to have the time of your life. You are going to hate driving other cars

Replace the stock speakers to infinity compos are similar they sound much much better, i did it in my GP the difference was huge.

Wish again you more and more happy miles!!

[puchoo]

Sorry , i should have been more clear. Its the basic kit - mudflaps , mats etc. Yes the chrome might stand out a bit too much , especially in this color , might have been better in body color but cant really comment on it since i have not seen any. Some shots of the car coming up...

And sorry everyone - XYZ of July is meant to be 7th of July , don't know how that happened :-)

Originally Posted by nipcarlover

Congrats on the Jet puchoo!! Was looking forward to this review since a long time!

The Linea looks very nice in Oceanic Blue, although the silver ornaments in the front are a bit too contrast-y to me, if you know what I mean. But, to each his own! Can we also have some nice, wide-angle shots of the car?

What is the 'body-kit' that you have mentioned in the freebies?

Hope you have an awesome time flying your Jet!

Originally Posted by Pancham

Congrats on the car. I think this is the best colour on Linea. What is the body kit BTW?

Congratulations and best wishes, puchoo. Explore and enjoy your Linea T-Jet.

[bharanidharang]

Congrats Puchoo. Awesome car. Please put up some nice pics of your car. This is one thread I am going to subscribe and follow.

What is the run in period. Can you give a break up of the price ?

[puchoo]

2nd batch of photographs.

[puchoo]

The last ones for now...

[TheTeacher]

Congrats, Puchoo! Very happy for you!

I am following in your footsteps; booked my T-Jet today. But I doubt I'll be able to do the fabulous job you've done photographing your beaut!

I look forward to reading about your experiences with this great machine.

What tyres did the alloys come with?

[Sarvodaya]

Congrats on your Jet. Wish Fiat could offer Auto Transmission on TJet. Fiat should not have skimped on the Fifth Alloy and the third head rest. Not deal breakers. Beige Colour looks good though it will get dirty soon. Some photos of the Steering Column behind the steering wheel. There was a large gap in the steering column plastic when GTO tested it. Has Fiat improved it?

And finally any Plans for REMAP?

[rajcs]

Congratulations on the Jet, which I consider as the best looking sedan of its class. I knew you wouldn't settle for anything less as far as the build and ride quality is concerned. Great details in the pix.