After 9600kms review

 

I bought the Linea Emotion Pack Diesel, in the last week of December 2010 with an exchange offer and good sales team support from the Concord motors dealers in Cochin. The car was delivered in 4 days after my decision to buy from ready stock at dealer depot.

I have had a good experience driving the car aroud since it is very easy to drive and gives about 12.5 mileage in city and 15 in outside drive.  

However the service center and customer care of TATA is pathetic. When I went to first service in February they suggested to do Teflon Coating and anti rust coating. When I made the purchase, the sales team told it was already done and not required to do it again! So I ended up payng for the coating. But when I took delivery, I noticed some whitish color change on my car door which is tangerene red color. I asked them and they said it will go when I wash the car! and I didn't look into it for sometime. 

In April I noticed the whitish colour was still there and more visible, and also one of the break disc was rusting since the grip was hardly 30% of the disc surface. 

I went to Concord again to rectify the issues under warranty, and left the car with them. The Teflon coating issue was resolved and to my amazement they had applied sand paper on the break disc to make it look smooth! They claimed the car was not being used as a reason for rust (i had done almost 9000 kms by then in 4 months). I asked them why the other disc was lookign fine and only this one had rust. The service team tried convincing me that the disc was fine and not required to replace.

After a week I called up Fiat customer support and registered a complaint. Then they called me in couple of days from dealership and asked me to deliver the car again. I had to call Tata motors Area manager and Corncorde manager and tell them the case. Still the service team was not convinced on the replacement need! Finally after long discussions, the replacement was done!

Some of the materials used in Linea are of poor quality. the fuel pipe cover at the platform base has already fallen off beacuse the plastic is of very poor quality and in one impact in the potholed roads it broke off. Now it is being tied to the platform since the screws and the cover has fallen off!

I am happy with the car but FIAT should consider their own dealer set up instead of going through TATA dealers, who are always trying to protect inefficiencies of TATA cars  and giving lame excuses to customers.

 

driving comfort, value for moneyservice centers