Hi,
I own a Palio D ELX AW. I bought this car last in 2004 Dec. Before cornering on Palio, I test drove Accent, Ikon 1.6, Ikon 1.3, Esteem and the Ambassador. My requirement was for a higly stable machine with an affordable maintenance cost. The car I liked most in the driving dept. is Ikon 1.6. The drive and handling was superb; infact best in its class. But, I decided not to take it because of the high maintenance costs; under normal conditions itself it seemed to get heavy on the pockets. I the test drove Palio Nv, but I didn’t like the power train; it felt as if the car is not at all responsive. Then I tried Palio D and found it’s performance quite impressive for a diesel engine. The torque is awsome and you can ride the car at 20km/hr in 3rd gear with A/C on. The fuel efficieny is also good. Under city condtions it will anyway give 12 to 14 kms. This car is great to cruise on high ways. The top speed I did is 150mk/hr on Coimbatore L&T byepass. The car is rock steady even at high speeds. You will only feel the speed when you start breaking. For high speed drivers, I would defenitely suggest to go for Palio with ABS version.
The only drawback I can point to is the DEALER NETWORK. They are very lazy and irresponsible. This reduces the overall score of the car. This is the only reason why fiat car are not selling as expected. My father owns a Hyundai Accent CRDi; but still loved Palio for its build quality and sturdyness; at the same time hates it for the dealer network.