I have ownedFiat Linea Emotion Pk 1.4 Petrol since May 23 2009. The best way to describe this car is that it is a moving paradox. Some of the car’s attributes such as interior and exterior designing, ride quality, available space, safety and electronic features simply take your breath away.
Such sophistication was never seen in C-Segment cars in India, and is definitely welcome. I mean, how often do you see a under-10-lakh car that has a voice-enabled Bluetooth dialer built in!
The other side of the coin is that the car disappoints terribly in major areas. Most have been discussed by other people:
1.Dismal fuel efficiency, despite the utmost careful driving. Don’t let the Avg. Fuel Consumption indicator fool you. It’s waaaaay off the actual consumption.
Minuscule engine for such a heavily loaded car. This is probably the cause for the bad mileage and poor performance of the AC.
In my humble opinion, the most disturbing fact about the Linea is itsextremely low ground clearance. This is a lesson I learnt the hard way. After having driven the car more than 2500 km, I was well aware of this problem and took utmost - even to the point of stupidity - caution in driving the car on not-so-smooth roads. However, on a rainy night, the car grazed on the edge of a pothole in my locality. I regretted it immediately, however the graze was definitely of the magnitude to be worried about.
To my horror, the car stopped about 2 km later, in a deserted open area in the middle of nowhere. Attempts to get it started were futile. The battery would crank the engine but it would not start. At 8:30 pm in the night, I looked at the service booklet and called the so-called 24 hour helpline.
It was disturbingly amusing to listen to the call center exec ask us all sorts of ridiculous, stalling questions such as Color of the car! Anyway, they logged our complaint and promised help was on way. After a long hour of being marooned, they told us that nothing could be arranged at that hour and we had to tow the car to another place where they would pick it up next morning. As I had no choice, I made my arrangements and reluctantly towed the car to the house (having no experience of the potentially dangerous towing manouevers).
The nighmare was far from over the following morning. Each call to the call center was being treated like a new complaint as Fiat displayed its notorious bad management and red-tapism. At about 11 am, some concrete information filtered through. I live in a border town in Haryana, and the nearest service center was 15 km away, in Delhi (Him Motors). They refused to cross the border to tow the car, even though I, the owner, would be in the car the whole time and ready to foot the bill. I was unceremoniously asked to drag the car 8 km to the border and it would be picked up from there. Again, I went through this ordeal and the car was finally in the workshop, although in another one, totally out of the blue.
Next afternoon (as Fiat does not believe in same-day service even if it’s possible) I was told that the Fuel tank had been badly damaged by a hit on the underbelly and would have to be replaced, obviously not under warranty. I was taken aback, since the graze that the car went through did not seem so severe to warrant such a major failure.
These things happen all the time on Indian roads. Damaging no doubt, but unavoidable. I drove to the workshop to see for myself the so called damage. The look the vehicle’s underbelly made me gasp in horror. It seemed as if it had been beaten to death with a club. It bore dents and bends from every single time it had touched concrete. The fuel tank was so badly dented it seemed as if the car had an accident. The fuel pump inside was broken.
IMO, two things make this a very disturbing situation:
A dent of this magnitude must have been caused by a major hit on the tank. I do not recall such a bad hit that night the car broke down. It had been through worse earlier.
If a graze had caused this magnitude of damage, it is even more alarming. It speaks volumes not only about the low ground clearance of the car but also of thequality of steel in the tank.
When asked about how could the car sustain such major damage from such a small hit, I was told that this is to be expected from an expensive sedan, and that we should be more careful. More careful? I drive on speed bumps at 2 km/h, stopping traffic behind me just to make sure that the car doesn’t touch the ground. How much more careful can I be?
It seems that Fiat Linea, atleast in its current form, is not designed for the Indian road.