Oct 25, 2009 03:27 PM
8046 Views
I recently purchased a Fiat Linea from a Tata showroom in Chennai. I bought the emotion pack , foxtrot azure variety (petrol). I had test driven multiple cars before I decided to go for the linea (including the new honda city). I felt the linea offered the best value for money, features, space, driving comfort, passenger comfort, mileage. The pick up is definitely lower compared to others ( notable the new fiesta).
However I am not going to race with the car. Once you reach 3 rd gear, the engine takes a life of its own and is very smooth and you can glide along at high speeds . The FIAT suspension is excellent for Indian Roads. The special features like blue and me are very useful for me as I am a Doctor and have to take calls from the hospital and I found it works very well.
I did feel that the tATA folks are really not used to selling premium cars ( although they were very nice and polite) , but I was a little surprised that the car was a little dusty before delivery. They had changed the seats to artifical leather as an offer and had not cleaned the car very well( bit of a disappointment). It is still early days so its hard for me to get an accurate estimate of the FE although the FE indicator says 11.6km/ltr ( but I have driven only around 150km)
Ride quality and driving comfort is excellent. The AC with rear vents means the passengers in the rear seat also get an equal distribution of the cooling effect and so far the AC has been very effective (Temps around 35 degrees in Chennai)
The boot space is huge and can be increased by pushing the seats down like a hatchback.
The blaupunkt stereo that comes with the car is very functional however the bass levels are very low , and the speakers start to shudder at higher volumes... overall a little disappointing in an other wise excellent vehicle. The turning radius is not bad considering its a long car. The hydraulic power steering feels solid and stable and is very driver friendly. There are loads of additional features in the emotion pack variant which I am yet to use including the voice activated dialing and using voice commands to change tracks on the mp3 player ( it also includes a USB)
One small niggle was that there is a button on the dashboard for trunk , which my one year old son kept pressing and the trunk would open when driving! I had to stop the car and close the trunk!
I took it out onto the highway for the first time and hit 120 with ease and the car just seemed to glide along and absorbed any bumps and it was a smooth and wonderful drive!
