@ Victor - owning an automobile is not about just the upfront cost or VFM at the point of buying.
It is also very much about ownership experience. This is where Fiat does not seem to have scored with the last model it sold in this market.
Now I know many of you boys will say your Palio ownership was completely troublefree and stuff like that - we've read a lot of it online and if that were indeed true (one well-known gentleman claims that he has changed nothing but wiper blades in several years of ownership) then that car would have been an automatic and blind choice for those buying a car.
But we've also heard direct feedback from people on the ground - people who have owned multiple vehicles and are not afraid to experiment - about their horrendous ownership experience with the Palio. One old gentleman we know very well talks about how long it took for him to get the vehicle off his hands because nobody wanted it and he didnt want to keep it either. Another person we know would rent a car for long drives despite owning a Palio - he finally sold his car this year and tells us what a relief it was to get rid of it. Yet another long-time Fiat (i.e., 1100, Padmini etc over 30 years) owner speaks with such anger about his Palio ownership experience - this is my father-in-law who finally sold the 'damn car' & went and bought himself an i10 Sportz Auto. He reportedly wanted to set fire to his car once.
It is direct, first-hand reports such as these that make many of us cynical about the dream stories we hear on the net. It is stories such as these that become part of word-of-mouth reputation and makes even the most adventurous of car-buyers stay away from certain brands.
I personally have a '54 Millecento, learnt to drive on my uncle's pristine Fiat 124 and my dad's President (amongst other cars), drove a 118NE and loved its engine. I've really liked some of those cars like the Millecento and the original 124 (not the 118 - keeping that car in one piece was a painful task), but the first 'Fiat' that I spent a lot of money on burnt my hands and caused me so much of pain for a highly over-rated driving experience - I would think quite a few times before considering one again even though there are some cars from the same manufacturer like my friend's Lancia Thesis that I love. I have nothing personally against the current Fiats, but what I could not digest was the mindless eulogy of these very ordinary and not-so-special vehicles with below-average support and reliability record. On the net (here recently and elsewhere for a long time) these vehicles were bandied about as god's gift to the motoring fraternity, when in reality they were not very different from other vehicles.
Fiat's biggest enemy on the net is the Fiat Fan. They create an unrealistically rosy picture of the brand and its vehicles, creating legends around normal vehicles. Then you go and take a test drive, get a taste of the pathetic (dont blame Tata - the sales & service experience was infinitely worse before this, at least where I come from) sales and support and wonder what all the fuss was about. Then you go drive a Maruti or a Hyundai - cars that nobody has been tom-tomming about - and you are more than pleasantly surprised. In fact, you're delighted.
Ask anyone who owned a Tata Sierra or Estate whether he would ever buy a Tata vehicle again in his life, and you will know. There are exceptions of course, but the majority would say 'never again'.
Keep those wheels turning!
