Hello,
This is my impressions on the 1.6 Sport. Have driven it for 1900 KMS now. Below is a travel log from Bangalore to Sulya, Dakshin Karnataka and back. We were 3 traveling together.
Friday 22:15 - Departed Bangalore and hit Mysore road. Drove for an hour and a half before stopping over at a Coffee Day for a Double Shot Cappa (kept me awake the whole time).
Friday 23:30. Doing a steady 80-90 Kmph towards Mysore. The car had undergone its first service the same day we left Bangalore. So the ride was very good and the brakes were tweaked to my requirement. I was very surprised by the handling part. I had read about the Palio handling, but experienced it for the first time. It just won't budge from the driving line. Just ease of the pedal on a tight curve; you are back on the line, quite amazing! (At least for me)
Saturday 01:30 - Reached Mysore only to get pulled over by the highway cops near the arch which welcomes you into Mysore. They check for all sorts of things. Liquor, WMD's, DUI the lot! Finally they spot my friend at the back, with his laptop, typing away an e-mail. They are convinced we are software geeks and let us go. Not before noting our license plate number and my name! I feel this is because of the election fever.
We do not enter the city of Mysore but take a turn towards Coorg. The road is pretty well lit and well laid too. So manage to touch 110 Kmph before being stopped by another check point. The same drill again. At this point I am a bit annoyed by these many checks. Along comes a cheerful cop and asks me my destination. "Blink" "Blink". I have gone blank. I ask my friend the destination. The cop is really happy to see a driver who does not know where he is going at 02:00 AM! Off we go.
After an "uneventful" drive we reach Madikeri at 03:00 we look for a place to sleep. No luck. We look for about 20 mins then finally land up at a place where the guy has a 3 bed room. Shell out 800 bucks for it and hit the sack. Thanks to my Double Shot Cappo, I manage to get about an hours sleep only. Wake up at 06:00 to get ready to hit the road again.
We start for Sulya at about 07:45 AM. Here is where things went REALLY wrong! As usual we were listening to some good music windows rolled up, a/c on, enjoying the drive (3rd gear). Even though the distance is about 50 Kms, the ghat section roads makes the drive slightly close to 2 hours.
Suddenly I felt the brakes vibrating. The road was a downhill ghat section for most part and I was worried that I was loosing my brakes! We shut the a/c and the music and listened. There was a sound more like a tin asbestos sheet being pulled on concrete. We decided to stop and investigate. I brake, the car simply veered off course to the right and pointed towards the guard rail, which was placed there to keep vehicles from flying off into the valley below. I steered towards the left and fought with the car for a couple of seconds and simultaneously down shifted to 2nd gear to slow down and finally 1st gear to apply my handbrake. Well I managed to stop. I was shaking and could not believe what had just happened.
My friend works for a well known German Automobile company here. He decided to investigate and got down to do just that. We found the left front was the culprit. We removed the wheel to find a clear circle on the left front disc. More like a metallic abrasion. The cause: Loose asphalt from the road somehow got stuck between the disc and the caliper and stopped the shoe from biting into the disc but held the asphalt onto the disc thereby causing the sound and the abrasion.
We poured some water over the disc to cool it down and then manually cleared the debris. After that we tested the brakes for about 2 Kms before we were confident of touching our intended speed.
How did we find out it was the left front? Simple. The car veered off course to the right when I braked. So that means the brake force was more on the right than the left making the left wheel turn further than the right, making the car go to its right.
Later during the day we went to a TATA-Fiat service in Mangalore to get the brakes checked. The service guy did a thorough check of all the brakes and gave a green signal.
We left for Bangalore at 17:00 hours and took the Hassan route. Along the way there was another ghat section. This time no loose asphalt but simply rough roads. On this particular section no buses or heavy vehicles are allowed, making life easier. Almost 60% of the road has been tarred. So I could really push the car. Believe me 3rd gear, 40 Kmph and then shift down to 4th gear at about 45 Kmph, all on an inclined ghat section with a near spiral road. That was the moment I knew the capability of the car. A great machine! Just kept the wheel on a particular axis and the throttle in a particular position, the rest was done by the car. In fact, Honda City tried his best to catch up but could not. He had to shift up to 2nd gear every now and then to get more power. Maybe he was more on luggage. Don’t really know.
Well after all the action we were back in Bangalore at about 02:00 AM.
To be precise 850 odd Kms in 28 hours.
Well that’s it.
Thanks for reading.