[rove_drives]

You know what, new Fiat Linea 1.6 lts is almost confirmed to be launched in first quarter next year.

But the price is speculated to be 10 lakhs +.

NDTV Auto - Fiat Linea 1.6 Multijet Coming in Early 2010 | Upcoming Cars India

So good news for people with 7 to 8 lakhs budget.
Neither the current owners will think that they purchased a car earlier & repent nor will the prospective buyers who are awaiting some news on engine upgrade have any other excuse for delaying their ownership

[opendro]

Happy new year to everyone.

I'm eagerly waiting for next month to install Race Dynamics in my Linea. Already with stocks itself no one has ever come close to catching me on a free highway (ahh, yes, one Laura or Superb did once). Nissan Xtrail gave me almost equal chase once before it disappeared in my ORVM, but not until almost 100 Km. Next closest being Honda Civic and Scorpio CRDe. Nowadays I just drive, others just try to chase me I don't know what will happen with the performance tuner. Stay tuned till the end of next month.

[nkrishnap]

@Opendro: Would you please share the service experience at 15000 kms.

By the way hows the car performing after the 15K kms service.

[opendro]

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

@Opendro: Would you please share the service experience at 15000 kms.

By the way hows the car performing after the 15K kms service.

I always had good service experience in Concorde. My 15 service was combined with an insurance claim. On the diwali eve evning, my drive from Bangalore to Hosur (hardly 35 Km) took me three hours because of the cracker shops and huge jam and there a truck ahead of me reversed in the dead jam and popped my bonnet up. I continued my drive as nothing under the hood was damaged. Bonnet order took about 5 days.

The service was supposed to cost me 3800, which includes 2300 for engine oil and oil filter. I did the oil change a bit early again (though I realized later that it was not required from my experience of driving with the new oil). So, the service expense was about Rs. 1500, which is mainly for the fuel filter (Rs. 850 for the diesel ones).

Overall, people at Concorde Motors have been really nice to me.

The car is performing great as always. I drive real fast even on bad patches of road and the car is still in extremely pleasing condition after 18500 Km. To give you an idea about my driving, I do Bangalore to Coimbatore (350 Km) in four and a half hours very consistently. I did Bangalore to Ooty too in about the same time. People who know these routes will get a fair idea. I got so much used to Linea that I was not at all comfortable with the Spark which I was using before Linea (spark has done 10000 Km). Major problems when I drive any other car are the comforts over undulated or worn out roads and braking confidence, even at much lower speeds.

I got used to the ground clearance over the bumps, i.e. dead slow over big humps or live with a few scraps once in a while.

I never felt it underpowered though I need a few more horses for my driving, not because of anything related to the power of other cars on the road (which I have always kept myself ahead of anyways). I used to be annoyed with the growling over 2500 rpm. I wish I could switch of the growling. Over time, the noise at 100 Kmph now looks much more peaceful than it used to be. I wanted to install the performance tuning chip early, but my wife found an excuse to delay it, i.e. gift it to me for my birthday which is next month end. For now, I'm inclined towards Race Dynamics unless it disappoints me so much or unless someone comes up with excellent Linea review with Pete's psi tuner.

[recshenoy]

Originally Posted by opendro

Happy new year to everyone.

I'm eagerly waiting for next month to install Race Dynamics in my Linea. Already with stocks itself no one has ever come close to catching me on a free highway (ahh, yes, one Laura or Superb did once). Nissan Xtrail gave me almost equal chase once before it disappeared in my ORVM, but not until almost 100 Km. Next closest being Honda Civic and Scorpio CRDe. Nowadays I just drive, others just try to chase me I don't know what will happen with the performance tuner. Stay tuned till the end of next month.

just curious.. between Pete's n Race Dynamics, what made you choose Race Dynamics? I am sure you have done research on both. Kindly share same.



After the RD update, I am sure people will ask you "are you TD-ing Linea MJD 1.6 for Team BHP" like they asked geesh

[bnzjon]

Originally Posted by opendro

I always had good service experience in Concorde. My 15 service was combined with an insurance claim. On the diwali eve evning, my drive from Bangalore to Hosur (hardly 35 Km) took me three hours because of the cracker shops and huge jam and there a truck ahead of me reversed in the dead jam and popped my bonnet up. I continued my drive as nothing under the hood was damaged. Bonnet order took about 5 days.

Opendro, how much did the bonnet cost you ? How is the paint job ?

[FastLove]

the bonnet cost is INR 5200/- which was replaced for me in warranty so didn't actualy pay but was shown in the bill .

[geeash]

Bonnet alone will cost 5200/- but these TASS rob you for painting!!. Better claim insurance

[opendro]

It had never occurred to me that my Linea is underpowered despite the 86 ps on paper for this about 1.3 ton car. Nevertheless, the cheap options for a power tuning box in the market kept luring me. When I interacted with the guys in Race dynamics, I was decided that I would go for RD instead of Petes. Meanwhile, I was tired of blowing dust off my paper filter and it often ends up with black soots which could not be blown off.

Finanlly I went for the RD Ultimate along with HKS filter. HKS filter cost me 9K plus another 500 for a pipe. Keeping the RD price secret (gave my word to them ) That was way back in Feb. I requested Karthik (the Man in RD) to give me an aggressive setting. He set an aggressive mid-range P1 and for P2, he set a stock low to mid and aggressive high range.

Since then, I didn't get any chance to take the wheels. I go to office by bicycle and my last few treks ended up taking a bus (because of group I joined). I have driven it in the weekends in the city and I can feel a slight increase in surge. Once in a while I set to economy mode and stock to re-affirm that P1 is indeed good. But still I wanted to go for a free road sometime.

My apologies, guys. I couldn't take the 0-100 timing, neither in stock nor with RD.

You can take my experience with RD with a pinch of salt, because I never accepted Linea to be underpowered even without one and had always boasted of its performance on real road. So, my boasting here is not going to be anything new.

Last week, I got my chance to drive to the Bangalore - Salem - Coimbatore road. This is my favorite road for speed. This time, I drove most part in P2. Normally I go over 140 in this road. But I decided to be within 120 this time because of my father in law in the front seat. Even at this speed, I eventually end up overtaking everybody. On my way, I overtook an Optra magnum diesel. I suppose he wanted to show me what his car is. He came from my left and tried to cut in onto the right lane, where I was going. The evil in me saw this as an opportunity to try my RD effect. I gave a light honk and tapped on the pedal. He quickly maintained his lane and I zoomed all the way to 160+. Without RD too, I do 170 with ease, but the urgency to reach that speed with RD is amazing. I eventually slowed down and he also didn't try to show off. We went in peace.

Not worth mentioning the innumerable Swift DDiS, who always think that it has better performance than the Linea. On my way return, in the six lane Hosur to Bangalore 11pm traffic, I happened to overtake another Optra and this time, a very aggressive one. I usually don't cross 120 in the night even in multilane. He just woke up and zoomed past me. I tried my best not to let my wife know that I was going to chase. I slowly floored my pedal closing in behind him. He gave up at 140 and I zoomed past. The evil in me again wanted to wait for him, but how. Well, the two trucks trying to overtake each other blocked the two rightmost lanes. I could have taken the leftmost lane, but I wait. In the meantime, the optra zooms like a rocket and I again floor my pedal, this time in a hurry. Immediately my wife in a grumpy voice told me "you are racing". I stopped there and I confessed to her on the way that I wanted to see how far my car can go. I also confessed that this feeling of trying to prove point came from my visits to team-bhp and various auto megazines, where people (not Linea owners) write off the Linea as completely underpowered. My wife very well knows about this car as she is the one who drive everyday to office (35 Km everyday). I assured her that I'm not going to do this again, except for one car, i.e. ANHC. Why? I have never got a chance to compare its highway performance with my car. She was not happy, but the ego in me is not going to give up. I know it sounds too unprofessional and too personal. But we all know the members here have the craze for cars

Now, I got the extra bhp and I cannot use it because of my wife or the human in me The cosolation prize for RD is that when the human side in me prevent me from going fast, I have the economy mode of the RD, which will surely give a good mileage (not measured till today, but I can at least say from the absolute zero smoke in this mode).

Another update from RD, they are going to come out with a completely different design of the box. The new box will have plastic cover and very light weight (can be simply stuck with a double sided sticker). It will not draw power from battery (one less job connecting and disconnecting). It will also have a remote controller to change settings, i.e. no need for a switch to be stuck inside driver cabin. RD promised me the new box as replacement when it comes (expected soon).

The quoted price for the tuning box is 24K including tax.

BTW, I'm not visiting the site as often as I would like to. I will not be able to address any question immediately, but I will try to respond to them as often as I can.

[opendro]

Wanted to update one more thing that happened two weeks ago. My LH suspension strut has been replaced under warranty. My wife reported a feeble shuddering (sort of sound when we keep some item loose in the globebox) once in a while. When I took to service to show it to them, it was so difficult to reproduce the sound that I had to come back. Later I took my car to Bheemeshwari fishing camp with good amount of undulated roads. There the sound became more. One full day of investigation by Concorde found that it was the suspension strut. They told me that this is the first time they are changing this in a Linea.

My brake pads also gave grinding sound after 22,000 Km. I have replaced them as well. It cost me 2,100 plus labour, totally close to 2500. They informed me that a few other Lineas have changed the brake pad at similar mileage.