Fiat Linea Vs Honda City

After 2000 km, the pick up may improve considerably, though i experienced this phenomenon at around 2800 km. The Pick up is quite good now at 4000km. My Linea zooms ahead of the traffic leaving behind all other cars. I always carried an impression as I was taught in this forum that the Engine is sluggish compared to other cars. Well, I don't feel that now after driving 4K. Secondly, I find that we can shift to top gear even at low rpms and at a speed of as less as 20kmph. The car continues to cruise for quite some time in heavy traffic even if we remove our foot from accelerator pedal.

There are 2 more inputs for people interested about FL;

1] I see many Lineas in our city now, i.e Faridabad. The number of cars is increasing slowly. You can see many Red and White Lineas on road . The car is slowly getting popular.

2] Though the number of cars increasing on Road, there is another view to it too.

May God protect us from Problems -means hope you don't need to go to a service station for any job. There are some issues over there. Average lead time for parts is 2-3 weeks. There are chances that more the car gets touched by Service people, hey may create more problems than before. One needs to be patient in talking to them. If you visit the TATA FIAT dealer, you may find that they don't understand that they are talking to a customer who has bought a luxury car, they would help us but treat us like any TATA - Indica customer. Your wait time at the dealership might be more. You may observe that the Technical Skill level though sufficient to service/attend the Linea but not so good that could give you a customer delight. Problems may come , it may take some time , they may struggle to solve your problems but finally they may be able to solve it.

I hope some of you would have faced a small issue of Chrome part falling off the rear window due to poor adhesive. Well guys there is a stock out because the factory fitted adhesiveness is poor and the part costing @ Rs 240 has been replaced in many Lineas around.

FIAT is struggling to survive , I am sure they will, I can say this based on my 20 years of experience in the industry. The only thing they need to work on is the to improve the service skills of their front end people and to reduce the lead time of part availability to 3 days. Dealers in each state should join hands to sotck up parts at warehouses by mutually financing them.Shipment from Pune does happen but takes lot of time to reach places.

Well these are my personal experiences with Linea. Others may or may not subscribe to the views. Some of the inputs I have shared with Relevant TATA & FIAT Officials and they have promised some actions on this.

Lastly a very interesting fact, I was talking to one of TATA FIAT dealer & his workshop Chief , they have bought HONDA CITY for their personal use. Secondly, I have talked to one of Honda dealer, I had taken one of our official ANHC for an accidental repair, it costed us Rs. 55000 /- . That dealer said to us that Honda has weaker Sheet metal and we should buy Fiat Linea instead since its steel is rugged and strong.

This is quite amusing but a piece of truth which could be of interest to this thread and followers of the forum.

Regards Rajnish Sharma

I am not very sure of the increase in pick up after 2000 kms, but yes you are right about the top-gear at less speed thing. i used to that with the Swift Diesel ( Same DDis Engine ), i used to put it on the 4th gear and used to up from 20 to 40 without pressing the accelerator.

Every person buying a Fiat car might be thinking the same. They don't want to be treated like a Tata customer.

Tata really needs to pull up their socks, and stop acting as if Fiat owners don't matter to them. The company should stop giving that step motherly treatment to Fiat owners.

Though alot has changed since the old Fiat Palio days. But there is still consistent commitment required if the Car of the Year's " winner's " sales figures are to come anywhere near its competitors.

hi karan,first the linea was very noise initially,but i do not know where the noise dissapeared and it's pin drop silence till 100km/hr speed now,above that speed tyre noise creeps in though

the initial pick up was also low and sluggish initially but now it leaves every other car behind and zooms fast

Noisy ? and now its not ?

Did your car go through a servicing in between ? Did you try finding out why the sound was more ?

I agree with u Bala regarding speed and pick up, regarding noise I had no problem, are u talking about Diesel or Petrol? Regards Rajnish

I have an different view point of Car Zooming after Few K kms.

You might be use to drive a perticuler car. It takes time to adjust to the gearshift ratios & Pickup. Specially in case of Fiat cars.

I drove Palio & I took some time to Adjust & later found pickup Normal. (though slightly sluggish then Swift to confess). But Once I got use to the gearshift I am sure I can give tough time to Swift as well.

Incase of Linea Engine it self is quite powerful to take up the speed which once you get your hands on you settle in the comfert Zone.

Well this is my view point..

hi rajnish,i was talking about diesel linea

@karan,engine noise dissapeared even before the service,but any how they do not do anything during the first service apart from checking fluid levels

@satishmaster,your point may be correct but there is definitely additional surge of power,since my linea has done more than 10000km now

Bala, was the sound a good one or a bad one ?

I mean was it an irritating sound of an engine or was like a postivie Noise from the engine which is sort-off clearing up its throat.

Yes you're right. Very little is done in the 1st sevice, apart from oil changes and lubricating  certain components.

The sound that was present initially was irritating and annoying,it was not a positive sound,it was noise,,there was even the sound of air brushing against the orvm which was also loud and irritating,but the engine noise has totally dissapeared,so much so that i have cranked an already running engine twice,and this is a diesel engine!!!,besides in all other diesel cars from xylo to innova you can see the gear knob vibrating when idle,but not in linea,no vibrations at all,you can never tell that it's a diesel from inside 

Lol !!cranked an "ON" Engine !!! oops, i remember how it used to happen so many times in the honda City when we shifted from Alto to Honda city ! That was long time back, but it used to be so funny how my dad used crank it again and be like " Oho, its already on , shitt ".

hehe !