[aks_karthik]

Originally Posted by Sunney

Hi Geeash,
I got an MJD, bought 9 months.
When above 70/80 kms speed, Linea starts to make 'boooooming' sound. I think it is normal only.
But isn't it common to all Lineas?

It should be the Wind Noise once you cross 70 kms.
Air squeeze out from Outside Rear View Mirror (ORVM) and makes such booming sound inside the cabin.
It's normal in Linea and a design flaw of mirror casing somewhat.

[geeash]

Originally Posted by AutoIndian

Sorry to know @ the freak accident. After the ghastly rear ending, now this one, feels very bad, as you & your car had to bear the brunt for none of your fault. In a similar freak accident, outside my sister's apartment, when I went to park my car besides a pavement, I hear a loud karrrr-katttt sound. Came out only to find that my LHS tyre had two deep cuts on sidewall, it was flat within no time also the alloy wheel was damaged with multiple scratches, all courtesy to the sharp, protruding pavement tile. Same as you, this happened in late evening when visibility wasn't very good.



It is such callous attitude of the TASS folks that make our cars suffer. It is just because of this reason I am planning to get the 100K servicing of my car done from an independent garage right in front of my eyes & not a TASS (though the TASS is just half the distance from my home compared to the other garage)

Oh god !!

Did u buy a new tyre or what?. accidents keep happening so my mother has started pestering me to keep a few more god idols inside my car !!

Do let me know what price did you buy a tyre. My front tyres are totally worn out. its high time i replace them.

TASS callous attitude is right there from the start of the JV. IMHO they will never change as they are used to servicing taxiwalas and not professionals like us. It is no use to expect them to change as well. As you rightly said, the less you take your car to TASS the more the good for the car.

So honestl;y i have planned to take the car to TASS only for free service or when some parts are required to be replaced under warranty. For all the minor niggles, i have found this bosch car care who are doing a great job.

Its high time we have to see whether we can source the OEM parts for the car directly to us by paying the Fiat factory and get them by ourselves and get things done at our own trusted service station.

Does anyone know if we can get parts direct from fiat? i believe i heard there is some place in mumbai which sell the parts called Kava Automobiles. (Kava Automobile) can someone enquire. It is also listed in teambhp here http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/mumbai...le-mumbai.html

[AutoIndian]

Originally Posted by geeash

Oh god !!

Did u buy a new tyre or what?. accidents keep happening so my mother has started pestering me to keep a few more god idols inside my car !!

Do let me know what price did you buy a tyre. My front tyres are totally worn out. its high time i replace them.

I had to scrap (throw away) the damaged tyre & replace it with a new one. I had replaced all 5 tyres in Dec 2009 with Michelin XM1+ size 165/65R13 (@ INR 2700/- a piece). In a year I had done @ 20K kms on them, no issues absolutely & then this thing happened. In Nov 2010, I bought a new tyre for INR 3000/-. I have seen your tyres, there is no tread left on them. This is risky as you can easily loose traction, also the braking won't be that effective (increasing the braking distance). Hence my advise to you would be to replace the tyres asap (at least the front ones) or you can swap the rear ones to front if they are in good condition.

Originally Posted by geeash

So honestl;y i have planned to take the car to TASS only for free service or when some parts are required to be replaced under warranty. For all the minor niggles, i have found this bosch car care who are doing a great job.

That is a good strategy. So long as your car is under warranty/ extended warranty, get it serviced from TASS & update the service details in you car manual. Once you are out of the warranty period it is better to get it serviced from a good, trustworthy garage eg The Bosch Centre.

Originally Posted by geeash

Its high time we have to see whether we can source the OEM parts for the car directly to us by paying the Fiat factory and get them by ourselves and get things done at our own trusted service station.

You can always go to the TASS & purchase the spares from there. I have done this on couple of ocassions

[geeash]

Finally to end all the freak mishaps that keeps happening "Mr.Vinayak" steps in to my car and gets seated on the left corner of the dash



Hope all things goes on smoothly from now !!

[Sunney]

Yes, it is a good move. Believe it or not, keeping a statue, picture of God has a reassuring, strengthening, supporting, auspicious effect.
Scientific, atheist or not, we human are fragile and week bodies and tense minds.

Hence doctors say: Medicine can heal 25% alone, one's mental power do the rest.
To get mental power, strength and assertiveness 'to come out of the illness to life' is the critical need. We can draw a lot of mental 'Power' from believing in God (though our reasoning-mind say opposite, that no God is existing).

Thinking 'A supernatural power is to my help' is a lot more strengthen one's will-power. That is why 'medical' doctors ask us to pray, to be healed fast and surely...

[bottle]

That last pic of the tyre looks really bad, I think even the belt is showing. Do replace it asap

[blueblooded]

Yes OEM tyres are real suckers ,even in my may 2010 punto active ,the tyres are almost on their last legs and need to change .My odometer says 42000kms just as yours.
IMHO MRF and appollo are better than JK tyres

[geeash]

My car is due for 45k service. Have changed tyres Goodyear gt3 stock specification.

[rhenius]

Originally Posted by geeash

My car is due for 45k service. Have changed tyres Goodyear gt3 stock specification.

You should have tried out the new MRF ZLO tyres. They give an awesome feel to the ride and the compound is pretty good.

[rhenius]

Mod Note : Please do NOT use more than 2 smilies per post. We advise you to read our rules before proceeding any further.

Just wanted to bring this to the notice of the Linea Petrol owners, The last 3 weeks, I have had a problem which has been addressed by VST. Thought apart from Geeash, whether anyone else had this. My car AC suddenly stopped working and only hot air was coming from the blowers. So first call - VST Motors, SA was Anil since Kiruba (my old SA) has been shifted to the VST body shop in Poonamallee. I reached VST at 3.30 on a Saturday afternoon, they inspected the vehicle and since time was short, they filled the gas and asked me to drive for a few days.

It last exactly a week, and next friday, the cooling had reduced and warm air was coming out. So went to VST, they said they will replace the gas and also asked me to notice if there was a hissing noise from the AC and also if I could get a strange smell of a type of gas when the AC was on. Checked over the next 2 days, and found that both their points were happening, there was a hissing noise and a smell emanating when I switched on the AC. Called up Anil and told him, I will be leaving the car on Tuesday. I left the vehicle on Tuesday, and was told that since they had to disassemble the dashboard, and replace the cooling coils, it might take 2-3 days as the number of cars which had already been taken in for other repairs were quiet high. I was ok with that and organised an alternate vehicle for myself. I was pleasantly surprised when I got a call on Wednesday evening to say that the car was ready. I unfortunately could not pick it up on Wednesday.

Thursday, VST sent the car with a driver to the place where I had to drop my alternate car, and I just hopped into my car and drove back. The AC cooling coils having been replaced, and covered under Extended Warranty. WOW. I am happy with my choice of TASS. As mentioned in some of my earlier posts, VST has been happy times 95% of the times, except when the spare parts were not available with them, and had to wait for it to be sent from FIAT. The Service Advisors all 3 who have interacted with me since I bought the car, Lyel Sundar Singh, Kribhakaran and now Anil deserve a word of praise as without their commitment and customer friendly attitude and willing to go that extra mile in customer delight makes it a pleasurable experience, even when those small niggles keep coming. The reception at VST every time I go right from the Security guards to the mechanics inside the shop floor are extremely courteous and friendly.

Their new CRM Mr. Ashok Kumar is also very good and willing to do that extra bit to make sure the customers needs are met.Cheers FIAT and Cheers VST. Keep driving on.

[aks_karthik]

Great Going VST.
Ashwin,
Try MRF ZLO. I bought it for 4600 and used it in my Stepney and heard a lot of praising words from some of the users, though not the same specs.
For me, it's VGM and almost equal to Michelin PLC.
Me to plan to change my tyres. Most probably MRF ZLO 195/60/15 or Michelin PLC 195/65/15 to boost some GC. But Rs.1000 price difference is between two tyres.

[rhenius]

Karthik

To increase GC, Fiat is giving an option wherein we can get the 2012 upgrade which is standard on the 2012 Linea for a price. I am attaching a snapshot of the the note from Fiat to its TASS. We can also look at putting good rubber on our wheels. I am definitely going to go in for the ZLO tyres in another 8000km -10000km. Cheers
This service information provides you the update on Ground clearance (GC) improvement
kits available for Linea & Grande Punto models produced before year 2012. The spare
parts for ground clearance improvement are available as an aftermarket accessory kit.
Please note that the GC improvement Kit to be installed in vehicles as a complete kit & not
as individual parts. Failing to do this may result in vehicle handling & stability issues. The
kit can be fixed on the vehicle as per customer’s requirement on “chargeable basis” only.
The GC improvement kit can not be claimed under warranty.
Part no DESC MRP IN INR Labor Hours
59117352 KIT GROUND CLEARENCE-LINEA 10899.66 4.2

Originally Posted by aks_karthik

Great Going VST.
Ashwin,
Try MRF ZLO. I bought it for 4600 and used it in my Stepney and heard a lot of praising words from some of the users, though not the same specs.
For me, it's VGM and almost equal to Michelin PLC.
Me to plan to change my tyres. Most probably MRF ZLO 195/60/15 or Michelin PLC 195/65/15 to boost some GC. But Rs.1000 price difference is between two tyres.

[aks_karthik]

Originally Posted by rhenius

Karthik

Part no DESC MRP IN INR Labor Hours
59117352 KIT GROUND CLEARENCE-LINEA 10899.66 4.2

Thanx. I have already discussed with Jonn, VST. I am not keen on this, as It's sore to eyes after the changes and car is over hanged and wheel arch is not filled with our 15 inch wheels. Instead, I am planning for 195/65/15 tyres which gives almost 10mm increase in GC. Which is good enough for me to tackle bad roads.
Stock 195/60/15 - 117mm GC
Change 195/65/15 - 126.5mm GC
Difference is 9.75mm which increases 170mm GC to the stock 161mm GC.

[geeash]

I have already changed my tyres to GOODYEAR GT3 same as stock size in front wheels alone as the tyres were totally bald. My friend had a couple of those tyres in his home run only for 100kms (He got it with his ford car when he bought it and changed to yoko). deal was fixed and gave him 1k /tyre so 2k in total for both the tyres !!!. the tyres in the back are pretty decent so i am buying time to upgrade later.

Madhu / karthik can you gimme the phone number of anil / john of vst? i have lost their numbers when i upgraded to samsung galaxy note

[geeash]

Finally my car is going for the 4th 45k service tomorrow to VST. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Problems to be addressed
1. Sound on Start up probably due to Flywheel problem.
2. The glove box misalignment.
3. The boot switchon the central satia has gone inside.
4. I feel that my front bumper has comedown a little bit and there is more gap now between my bonnet and the grill ( probably my own perception. will anywauy look at it)
5. steering wheel is 5 degrees in anticlockwise when the tyres are straight probably misfitted when they changed the combination switch.

will keep you guys posted