[garry.brant]

@Path_Finder : Like i said he didnt know anything about the knob that he had to pull up before shifting into reverse , so BAANG there you go , he broke it.

@Sam Kapasi: I think the above answers your question too, and yes its still a unique feature in that much of money.

@bonobashi: hi good to read your experience and what you said is absolutely right , the more you know about your car, the more you can do with it.I have already tried some of the hills. We went to Chintapoorni, thats in Himachal and yes the exprerience was rocking. I am still learining and the hate part is still to come, so keep following the thread.

@swale84: True Bhpian.

@HappyWheels: There might be many cars with the same feature, however in this segment i think its only the pailo and corsa.

@fidaford: will soon post some pics of the car, still learning how to post pics.

@Bass&Trouble: Just four gears because the support was broken, just below the gear knob there is some part you call support and if that goes , no reverse and no 5 gears for you.

[garry.brant]

www.orkut.co.in/Main#AlbumZoom.aspx?uid=13825045045959577604&pid=1 215148829652&aid=1215120236$pid=1215145658419
the pics are before i changed the OEM rims to AURA alloys and before i got the bumper fixed.

[garry.brant]

dont know why, but the pics are not shown here..?

[JayD]

Originally Posted by garry.brant

www.orkut.co.in/Main#AlbumZoom.aspx?uid=13825045045959577604&pid=1 215148829652&aid=1215120236$pid=1215145658419
the pics are before i changed the OEM rims to AURA alloys and before i got the bumper fixed.

Copying a link will not show the pic here, Here's a guide on how to upload pix onto the forum

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/announ...-team-bhp.html

[abhinav.gupta88]

In the cielo , you had to push it down , as far as i remember.

[garry.brant]

some of the pics are these would post more soon

the pics are before i got the bumper fixed and before i changed the OEM rims to AURA alloys

[gemithomas]

What is that thing by the side of the gear?

[amitpunjani]

Originally Posted by gemithomas

What is that thing by the side of the gear?

Hi

Its gear lock buddy.

amit

[garry.brant]

So i was lately I have been talking about how lucky i was in getting the spares in ORIX, I was not.
After that first visit there were no problems in the car and it was running pretty smoothly untill Sunny happened(My Roommate). It was a night when i was in the office and my car was not, Sunny and Sherry(My other Flatmate) took the car to a hotel and Sunny asked Sherry if he can drive the car and Sherry agreed and BANG...G, he smashed the car into a Big ROCK and Twisted the Bumper , the next day when i came from office Guys you wont belive what I was about to do , I thought and felt like giving a tight Slap to Sunny as i knew he didnt know how to drive(how can he ask for driving when he can not), Anyhow i refrained from giving him THE SLAP and i took a deep breath and started thinking what NOW.
At that very point i asked Sunny to accompany me to ORIX which he did, the ORIX people were shocked to see the car in such a bad condition as they saw the car in excellent just a week ago. I told them about the accident and i had the car insured, So they told me that 48% of the expense is, what i am going to get from the insurance company, not bad as the make of the car is 2003. Sunny agreed to pay rest of the expenses as he was the reason for all this. The people in ORIX told me about the damage , as follow:
1. Front Bumper changed with paint work
2. Radiator changed
3. Front light left side changed
4. Labour
They told me that the bumper is not available and would take a week to be delievered from Pune, and so was the case with the front light. I had no choice , i was cursing SUNNY in my mind and i agreed to leave my love in the workshop for a week as it was not a good driving condition. After three days i called them and they told me that the parts are on the way and would be here soon, i was relieved. After 8 days they got the parts and the did the courtesy to call me and let me know, without waiting i went to the workshop and saw the parts and i was pretty happy and satisfied, but there you go again they told me that i would have to wait for two more days for the work to be done as the Bumper was only available in Black color so they had to do the paint job. Big deal, i waited and finaly i got my car delievered to me after 12 days of being without one( at that time we did`nt have the wagonar).
The bill was 19000Rs only and Sunny swiped his card for all that and after that we had to run after the insurance guy for a month, thats another story and i wont share that here.
would write more soon

[garry.brant]

So, that was the first big jhatka for me, although i did not pay the expenses however it was my love which got hurt, i hope all the lovers here can understand this feeling. After that i started to drive the car regularly without any major troubles , One day i was going to office and suddenelly there was a noise "crik crik crik crik" and i stopped the car to inverstigate where was it coming from , it was coming from underneath the bonet and when i opened the bonet i saw that the timing belt was damaged. Oh my GOD what to do now. As the belt was not moving, the Alternator was not getting charged and the power steering was jammed, and being used to power steering i couldnt move the car. I gathered the courage and started the car and took the car to a local mechanic nearby, believe me Guys, he might not know anything about Fiat but he was very good with customer service. He took the car of some other of his customer and came to ORIX with me to get the belt and ORIX was closed so I could`nt get the belt. So that night, I had to leave my beuty on road and i came to office the next thing i did as soon as my shift ended was , i went to ORIX and asked them to tow my car to ORIX which they did. They changed the belt and the car was good but the very next day it broke again, i was lucky to be near ORIX, i entered the workshop with anger that what kind of parts do you Guys have , which keeps on braking again and again and then came the supervisor into picture(Mr. Ashok) a very knowledgable guy if you talk about Fiat. He told me that they wont charge me for the new belt and he diagnosed and not only told but showed the reason for the damage to the belt. It was nothing but the part of the alternator which keeps on rotating and helps the belt to rotate. So, he told me that the alternator would be changed and i would have to wait 4 days at least untill the alternator reaches Gurgaon from PUNE. There we go again , again without a car for 4 days, no options so left the car there and i got the delievery finaly after 5 days, the bill was not much Just 9000Rs .
This car was now eating my not very deep pockets and deep inside my heart i was thinking that this car is kind of a curse or what.

[bonobashi]

Originally Posted by garry.brant

So, that was the first big jhatka for me, although i did not pay the expenses however it was my love which got hurt, i hope all the lovers here can understand this feeling.

Dear Garry,

I know exactly how you feel, having gone through almost the same sequence myself.

First, within a few days of my taking over the car, while a group of us was at Chawla's in Ludhiana Feroze Gandhi Market, a youngster who had no four-wheeler experience, whose father doesn't allow him to touch the family car, started fooling around with the controls. Because I was then at the counter, paying up and collecting the food, he started driving the car around in the parking lot, and drove it over a raised concrete slab with a terrible crash.

I was leaving for Delhi the next morning.

While I was seething with anger, there wasn't much I could do at that late hour, and the Delhi trip was also critical.

Somewhere near the Patiala turn-off, the third gear started giving way. Within about another 20 or 30 kms., it was completely dead, and I had to manage to drive to Delhi without a third gear.

It was a day-long visit to Delhi, with three offices to go to, and therefore no time to hand the car over to a mechanic. Nor was there any way of leaving it behind and returning to Ludhiana through other means; I had very little money on me, and not much even in the bank. I was forced to drive it back to Ludhiana in the same condition.

Repairing it took nearly a week, because parts weren't available; also the local Tata dealers are the lousiest that I've had the misfortune to meet.

Moral of the story: There's a Sunny in every life. Don't allow these idiots even the slightest latitude, but make it clear right up front what their limits are, and keep them within those limits.

Originally Posted by garry.brant

After that i started to drive the car regularly without any major troubles , One day i was going to office and suddenelly there was a noise "crik crik crik crik" and i stopped the car to inverstigate where was it coming from , it was coming from underneath the bonet and when i opened the bonet i saw that the timing belt was damaged. Oh my GOD what to do now. As the belt was not moving, the Alternator was not getting charged and the power steering was jammed, and being used to power steering i couldnt move the car. I gathered the courage and started the car and took the car to a local mechanic nearby, believe me Guys, he might not know anything about Fiat but he was very good with customer service. He took the car of some other of his customer and came to ORIX with me to get the belt and ORIX was closed so I could`nt get the belt. So that night, I had to leave my beuty on road and i came to office the next thing i did as soon as my shift ended was , i went to ORIX and asked them to tow my car to ORIX which they did. They changed the belt and the car was good but the very next day it broke again, i was lucky to be near ORIX, i entered the workshop with anger that what kind of parts do you Guys have , which keeps on braking again and again and then came the supervisor into picture(Mr. Ashok) a very knowledgable guy if you talk about Fiat. He told me that they wont charge me for the new belt and he diagnosed and not only told but showed the reason for the damage to the belt. It was nothing but the part of the alternator which keeps on rotating and helps the belt to rotate. So, he told me that the alternator would be changed and i would have to wait 4 days at least untill the alternator reaches Gurgaon from PUNE. There we go again , again without a car for 4 days, no options so left the car there and i got the delievery finaly after 5 days, the bill was not much Just 9000Rs .
This car was now eating my not very deep pockets and deep inside my heart i was thinking that this car is kind of a curse or what.

Hah! This happened about a few months into my owning the Palio, when the belt gave way, fortunately close enough to Ludhiana (returning from Wada Haveli on the Jagraon Road) to be able to limp into town. This was far more complicated to fix, as the belts involved are not readily available. I managed with a substitute for some days, till the proper size reached, and then got back to normal.

After these trials, and the trial relating to my battery, which was the wrong size for the car, as I discovered long, long after taking it over, there was never a day's problem with the car. It's always been reliable and I've done critical trips in it at short notice.

Moral of the story: Misfortunes come in threes. Fortunately, after they occur, there's a long and pleasant trouble-free (misfortune-free) period of pleasant enjoyment with the car.

I suspect once you've licked these two problems, the first of which has to do with your idiot room-mate permitting your other idiot room-mate to drive the car, you may not have much to worry about for many more months to come.

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by garry.brant

my GOD i just realised what a powerfull car it is , the pickup, the top speed everything was just WOW..... NO CAR and i mean NO CAR could overtake me , there were just few of them who even tried to like a safari and within five minutes it was behind me and five more minutes i couldnt even see that.

This was exactly my feelings when i drove my first good car, the M-1000.
Only later did I realise that there are many many more really fun to drive cars around. This is just a newbie feeling, enjoy it.

[sumanth_mk]

Hey congratulations on your new found LOVE...

[garry.brant]

The car was running fine after that and i had no troubles whatsoever , just like "banobashi" said, "there is a trouble free period and you should enjoy that".
After two weeks of the trouble free period, trouble caught me again. This time i went to the sec 14 market in gurgaon and locked my car and went to buy stuff, i came back and i was not able to open the car with my keys, ANOTHER DOOMSTONE, I was standing besides the car and was not able to get in the car( let me tell you guys that since i bought the car , only one door would open from outside the car), i was thinking and i called a Chabiwaala and he came , opened the DIKKI and went into the car and opened the passenger side door from inside, as the driver side door was blocked , may be the gun was gone or something. I thanked him and gave him 100Rs and took the car directly to ORIX, they gave the same excuse, that they would have to order the locks and gave me the estimate of Rs 8000(all locks changed), I was not ready to wait , so i came home and my friend Atul suggested me a mechanic , who has like 10 yrs of experience working with ATIL AUTO(FIAT dealer and service center) his name is Farahim Khan. I called him up and told about the problem, within two hours he was at my place. He checked the car and told me that either he can replace the locks or get them repaired , i was never in favour of repair as the problem could happen again. I told him to replace them and next day he came with parts and replaced all the locks within one hour, the locks were working now but the central locking wont work , he knew exactly was wrong and told me that its a point in fuse box and i told him to change that , but i was not sure if that was the issue though he was very sure

[garry.brant]

As stated below he was sure of what the problem was, so he came next day and changed just that fuse box thing and there you go, central locking was working now. I was very impressed by this Guy, atlast someone knew what he was doing with the Fiat cars. That was the end of my problem and he charged me 4000Rs for all the locks changed and that fuse box plug. Not a bad experience and he came to my house and did everything in front of me, that was realy satisfying.
The car worked in trouble free period for 3 weeks and i realised that the AC wont cool now. I took the car to ORIX and MR.Ashok from ORIX told me that it would be nothing but just some leakage in the AC pipe, i left the car with him for one day and it was delievered to me next day repaired. Mr.Ashok told me that he got the AC pipe welded from outside the workshop as ORIX would not weld parts. Well that was not my concern , i got that the job done in only 700Rs. I took the car back home and the AC was working fine, and it only worked fine for a week and gave me the same problem "NO COOLING". I was disguised by ORIX , so i called the same mechanic, MR.Farahim Khan and he came to my house and diagnosed the car for 20 mins and showed me the leakage from the CONDENSOR , i told him what happened in ORIX and he was amazed as well because he knew MR.Ashok(they both worked in ATIL AUTO together). Anyways he told me that a new condesor is arround 6000 and he can change that, i asked him to go ahead and next it was all done in front of me, " I dont know guys but if your car is repaired in front of you , it gives a kind of satisfaction, i hope you understand". I paid him 200 bucks more for labour and good service. The car was up again , everything was lovely , this beauty was a killing machine and i still loved it , even after spending all this i never thought that the car is bad , i took everything into general maintanance thinking that the previous owner might not have got these things done in last 4 years.