[TheTeacher]

Congrats Arun! Wonderful car, lovely color.

Happy Motoring!

[finneyp]

Congrats Arun on the White Italian beauty! Enjoy the ride & admiration

[GrammarNazi]

Congratulations! Well written & an interesting perspective. The Linea is an excellent car for the highways. Somehow I LOVE the old design, it looks stately & elegant like a proper executive sedan.

Here's to wishing you a million happy miles ahead with the Italian stallion.

Will be interesting to know the perspective of someone who's owned a Dzire for 75k kms. Looking forward to regular updates

P.S. : I use an Android app called FuelLog to keep track of all car related expenses & mileage, do try. There's also another app called aCar.

[Chitta Pradhan]

Hi Arun,

Thought full decision. Wish you great times with your new car. Have you driven the new Linea. If yes, do you find any tangible improvements in the new model over yours? Is GC of both cars the same? The new model has 190 mm GC, comparable to a SUV.

I had a short TD of new Linea on well paved road. Liked the car, was not that under-powered. Could take it to 100 kmph only & did not find roads to go beyound that. Possibly, > 100 kmph the power may feel little wanting, not sure though. Do you have plans for a remap/ tuning box?

The stiff ride as you have mentioned was also not evident in the new model. May be, I did not feel it because of very good roads I took the TD on. Took this TD for my friend, who has still not decided which car to go for. Most likely, he may go for Sunny diesel.

Cheers

[tiger_stripes]

Congratulations on the new ride!! It indeed looks great. When I was planning to buy my car, I happened to read your accident thread. Was glad to know that you were safe and it influenced me not to compromise on ABS / airbags.

[PatienceWins]

Excellent review, crisp and detailed. Looking at the kms covered for your cars, it seems you do a lot of outstation trips. I love Fiat cars. The main reason of not considering Fiat is what you have covered in the thread - lack of under thigh support for a tall person, poor ergonomics and cramped dead pedal area.

I was of the impression that zero depreciation insurance policy is not applicable once the car is older and 3 or 4 years. Can you share the details?

Also, I see in the other thread that you got direct payment of IDV from insurance company for the damaged car. How does this work?

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by a4anurag

Let me be the first to CONGRATULATE you for buying this absolutely good looking car.

Undoubtedly nothing comes close to the design and build quality but I am shocked with the niggles you faced along with the parts changed within such short time. On the matter of fact, most of the parts should last the life of the car (except battery).
Anurag.

Thanks a lot Anurag!

The battery was Exide. As mentioned in post #3, this car was idle for around 9 months and hence the battery issue. During PDI they agreed to replace the battery but later decided to play around.

Shock absorbers, it was a known issue and hence they replaced without any question.

Hand brake, it was a liver issue which gets stuck once in a while. Again, they didn't want to take a chance and hence they replaced it without any fuss.

For door lock issue, door lock motor-lock assembley was changed. This was again a intermittent issue.

Coming from Maruti, we require some patience with these guys and I was kind of prepared for it.

Originally Posted by desdemona

Congratulations man! You've chosen well, specially given all your highway driving en famille, it just has the best-in-class harmonics of ride-handling-steering-braking-safety-comfort! All the best.

Thanks desdemona! I totally agree with your opinion.
Glad that you didn't have to face any niggles. Lucky you!

Originally Posted by GrammarNazi

Will be interesting to know the perspective of someone who's owned a Dzire for 75k kms. Looking forward to regular updates

P.S. : I use an Android app called FuelLog to keep track of all car related expenses & mileage, do try. There's also another app called aCar.

Thanks GrammarNazi!
Sure, at some point I will compare the maintenance/performance in this thread
Also, I will check out the fuel log that you have mentioned.

Originally Posted by Chitta Pradhan

Hi Arun,

Thought full decision. Wish you great times with your new car. Have you driven the new Linea. If yes, do you find any tangible improvements in the new model over yours? Is GC of both cars the same? The new model has 190 mm GC, comparable to a SUV.

Nope, I didn't test the new linea. Yes, even 2013 model Linea comes with 190mm ground clearance(for Emotion model)

[desdemona]

Originally Posted by Chitta Pradhan

Hi Arun,

Have you driven the new Linea. If yes, do you find any tangible improvements in the new model over yours? Is GC of both cars the same? The new model has 190 mm GC, comparable to a SUV.

The stiff ride as you have mentioned was also not evident in the new model. May be, I did not feel it because of very good roads I took the TD on.

I guess I might be able to better answer that (hope Josie doesn't mind us hijacking his thread, briefly!): about 8 months ago I had got the suspension 'up'-grade done on my 2010 Linea.

The ride is definitely a lot firmer than before, since they tried not to compromise the handling and steering despite the higher GC. But still a decent trade-off for the invaluable 185mm GC, no Josie?.

I recently also acquired a new Linea T-jet, and that firmness that Josie speaks of is gone, they've managed to recover the suppleness of the ride, with the handling remaining nearly as good. Whether that was done only through tuning or through new shocker specifications, I don't know.

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by tiger_stripes

Congratulations on the new ride!! It indeed looks great. When I was planning to buy my car, I happened to read your accident thread. Was glad to know that you were safe and it influenced me not to compromise on ABS / airbags.

Thanks tiger_stripes!
Glad that my accident thread helped you to understand the importance of ABS/Airbag.

Originally Posted by PatienceWins

I was of the impression that zero depreciation insurance policy is not applicable once the car is older and 3 or 4 years. Can you share the details?

Also, I see in the other thread that you got direct payment of IDV from insurance company for the damaged car. How does this work?

Thanks PatienceWins!

Yes, the under thigh support, ergonomics is an issue here. But I faced the under thigh support issue with Fiesta classic as well. This helped to seal the deal. I was more comfortable with Dzire, Ertiga, SX4 in these areas, even Amaze.

Yes, Zero depreciation is not applicable after 3 years, I think.

Insurance company sold the car for 3.2L, so the buyer gave me 3.2L and the Insurance company paid the remaining 1.85L. Dzire has a good resale value and hence they sold it for a higher price. If the car was sold for 1L only, then I think insurance company has the right to negotiate on the IDV value and pay a lesser amount to me.

Originally Posted by desdemona

I guess I might be able to better answer that (hope Josie doesn't mind us hijacking his thread, briefly!): about 8 months ago I had got the suspension 'up'-grade done on my 2010 Linea.

The ride is definitely a lot firmer than before, since they tried not to compromise the handling and steering despite the higher GC. But still a decent trade-off for the invaluable 185mm GC, no Josie?.

I recently also acquired a new Linea T-jet, and that firmness that Josie speaks of is gone, they've managed to recover the suppleness of the ride, with the handling remaining nearly as good. Whether that was done only through tuning or through new shocker specifications, I don't know.

No problem at all, desdemona. Thanks for sharing your experience. Good to hear about the improved ride quality in the new linea.

Yes, a good ground clearance 185/190mm is required to handle the mega speed breakers/bad roads, especially in bangalore.

Congrats on your New Linea!!! I have seen some of my friends who are addicted to Fiat and looks like you are also in the same league 2010 Linea and now 2014 Linea

[desdemona]

Thanks, new is new BUT there is no doubt that it is the pre-facelift Linea that is the ageless design classic, especially in white, as your lovely photographs reveal.

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by Chitta Pradhan

I had a short TD of new Linea on well paved road. Liked the car, was not that under-powered. Could take it to 100 kmph only & did not find roads to go beyound that. Possibly, > 100 kmph the power may feel little wanting, not sure though. Do you have plans for a remap/ tuning box?

Took this TD for my friend, who has still not decided which car to go for. Most likely, he may go for Sunny diesel.

Cheers

Yes, 1.6 MJD would have been great.
At this point no plans for a remap or tuning box.
We dint like the looks of Sunny diesel and hence didn't consider. It gives good FE when compared to Linea I think.

[deetjohn]

Great purchase arun_josie. If the upkeep of your Dzire was anything to go by, this Fiat is in for a treat. And glad that you got the pre-facelifted model. I love the classy retro instrument panel of the old Linea and I cannot understand why Fiat changed even that during the facelift.

Wish you many many miles with the Fiat.

[F150]

Very interesting decision. I would have spent the extra 1 L and fine for the vento.
I was expecting a lower price as the car was lying idle with the dealer for 10 months.

Congratulations on owning the Italian beauty.

Happy Driving, remap is readily available if you'd want to take advantage of the excellent handling capabilities of the car.

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by deetjohn

Great purchase arun_josie. If the upkeep of your Dzire was anything to go by, this Fiat is in for a treat. And glad that you got the pre-facelifted model. I love the classy retro instrument panel of the old Linea and I cannot understand why Fiat changed even that during the facelift.

Wish you many many miles with the Fiat.

Thanks deetjohn! Yes, the same trend of maintaining my car will be followed.
Even I liked the look of pre-facelifted than the new one. However I would have liked to have the indicators on the ORVMs and the bottle holders.

Originally Posted by F150

Very interesting decision. I would have spent the extra 1 L and fine for the vento.

Thanks F150!
Our budget started at 8L and hence 10.25L itself was a stretch. So, we didn't want to go any further for a 4/5 seater.
Regarding pricing, this was before the tax cut. Overall I got around 1.7L discount. If it was after the tax cut, I think it would have gone down by another 20-30K
Vento top end was around 11.5L+ before the tax cut

[ghodlur]

Arun,

Heartiest congratulations on getting home the timeless beauty. The colour looks so royal on the car. Sad to hear about the delivery issues but that should not stop you from enjoying the car. It was a good decision not to for the Fiesta classic diesel and overlook the so many features the Linea had to offer.

Happy many more mile crunching and drive safely.