Got my brand new Fiat Palio Stile 1.6 Sport a week back. This car was a replacement for my 8 year old zen, which has done 98k kms and is still going strong. Havings always liked the Palio, I was very keen about this TATA-Fiat tie-up, and was absolutely floored by the new headlight cluster - I think with this new front-end, the Palio looks as dashing as any car more than twice its price.
Made the purchase from Manipal Motors, at KR Road, Bangalore, who were very friendly and courteous - I only have good things to say about this dealer based on my experience so far(Keeping my fingers crossed for the future encounters) What was immediately apparent as soon as I took ownership was the fact was that I wouldn’t miss driving my zen all that much. This car is one splendid machine to drive. As if testament to that, I have done around 750 kms in the past 8 days.
The build quality is pretty good, and even after driving for 40+ kms on some seriously bad roads(almost non-existent roads near Kanakapura) there hasn’t been any rattling so far.
I started car hunting with a budget of Rs 6-7L and zeroed in on the Palio after checking out the Swift. The car cost Rs 4.97L on-road after free extended warranty(36 month-150, 000km warranty!) and a corporate discount. Dealer freebies included the basic accessories. Used up the remainder of my budget on a decent audio setup and leather interiors. Still have some money left, which I was hoping to use up to overcome the "bad" fuel-efficiency that the 1.6 supposedly gives.
Turns out that I didn’t need to save that extra money for more fuel at all! Have done three petrol fill-ups so far, and the red lady has returned FE of 9.6, 9.8 and 12.14(The last one was with some conservative driving in the FE rpm band) A/C has been on around 50% of the time all throughout.
So one big negative that was haunting me when I decided on the Palio 1.6(bad FE) doesn’t haunt me anymore, and its now after-sales service that is the last remaining worry. I do sincerely hope that that TATA-Fiat alliance fixes the service aspect(and if the initial buying experience is any benchmark, I am extremely positive about the after sales service too)
The only crib I have so far with the car is the wrong expectations that FIAT sets with its horrible marketing - The fiat site, and the brochures clearly mention that the 1.6 comes with an engine immobilizer, leather gear knob and leather steering grip - However, none of these are actually available on the car. The engine immobilizer is only available on the 1.1 variants, and the leather goodies aren’t available on any variants! When will FIAT learn that they are now in the business of re-establishing credibility, and the first step to get there is to deliver what has been said.
*Update on August 28 2007
*Hadn’t been to this site for a long time, and logged in today. Was surprised to see that there’s been a fair amount of interest in the Stile, and there are lots of happy customers. Good news for FIAT.
Thought i’d update my review while I was here - and add the first service experience. I’d taken the car out for a highway trip some time back - and the cars underbody hit a rock on the road damaging the fuel pump. Dropped the car off at the service center - and the fuel pump took 2 weeks to be shipped from Pune. During this time, the service center(Manipal) had a temporary fix - so I could use the car - and also did the first service at 1300kms. The whole experience was very nice, except for the wait times involved with the spares. The normal consumables, and popular spares are more readily available - but for the complex parts like fuel pumps etc, it has to be ordered and shipped from Pune - which typically means a wait of around 1-3 weeks in Bangalore.
Apart from this, the initial service experience was very good, with very friendly and knowledgeable technicians. The car has clocked 3800kms so far, and still continues to give 9-10kmpl(nowadays, my a/c consumption has gone up - am just getting very used to keeping the a/c running all the time I guess) The car has become super smooth after the first service, gear shift has improved considerably with usage, car revs smoothly all the way till the redline - and I love the sound it makes during these rev sessions.
There has been absolutely no rattles so far, and I feel continually confident of the build quality. Am planning on a tyre upsize as soon as I finish by second service, because the current ones feel skinny going into fast corners. I love the looks that people give when the car comes to a stop at signals, and the double barrel headlamps are super powerful, apart from looking extremely good. No problems or issues to report from the time of the initial review, except for the pleasant service experience - One thing you might need to watch out for is that the FIAT team at the TATA centers is a smallish team, so you might need to book service slots in advance.