Red Emotional Beauty on FIRE - Fiat Linea

Friends,

I got the delivery of my Linea Emotion Pack FIRE on 9th apr, thursday. this was about 3-4 days later than it was expected & planned.

wanted to take delivery during daytime & asked dealer to hastenup & be ready by 4.30 pm. but got into an urgent meeting at work & could reach only by 6.30 pm. first checked all dox with the checklist i carried. then asked the dealer exe to explain everything about the car. well, he was not quite well versed with the car features, he seemed to be an accounts/ backoffice guy as all regular sales guys would have left for the day. also i has understood everything earlier during PDI at stockyard. have asked him which petrol should i use - premium or regular. he said premium. when i queried that for diesel cars fiat recommends regular diesel, he still insisted (along with another guy) that one should use premium petrol or premium diesel. looking at his ignorance i did opposite. left dealership at around 7.30 pm & got regular unleaded petrol filled at nearby pump. (ODO shown 28 kms when i did PDI at stockyard & 123 km at the time of delivery).

(got to know later at night from owners manual that for petrol cars, fiat recommends unleaded petrol with minimum 91 octane. Guess which petrol is this? I googled it & found that IOC's ExtraPremium petrol is 91 octane petrol. BPCL's Speed is not though it is a premium version with additives.)

The drive from dealership to residence is around 40 kms with about 2.5 hrs in mumbai peak traffic.

When I did the TD, I did not feel engine to be underpowered at all. however, i must say that in my 1st drive in my linea, I "felt" it underpowered in 1st & 2nd gear. 2nd gear particularly is "felt" awful. The reasone I put quotes surrounding felt is because fiat's clutch ply is long & I have to get used it it first. probably after 4-5 days when I'm used to fiat's way of clutch-accelerator/brake/gear combine with all 4 fully synchronised, I'll be able to judge it better.

y'day I noticed that steering wheel is not centre-aligned but is tilting just a little towards right hand side (around 5-10 degrees) when car is going straight line. When I align steering to exact centre, car slightly goes to left. called sales exe, he said its ok, its only a little permissible margin. not satisfied & called again that i want it to be corrected. took their service station manager no. & spoke to him. told him that i would be coming tom i.e. today sunday. he said perfectly ok & though he won't be there, he'll instruct his assistant. another reason for service sation visit was i noticed impressions of water drops all over the cars. its like water was sprayed on the car & someone forgot to wipe so drops left impression when dried. i tried to clear it, but they were too stubborn even against mild soap. on chrome when i rubbed persistently on a small area, it got cleared but didnt want to take chance on colored body.

So, today went to service station around 1 p.m. my overall impression of it is they have good intentions, their ability on fiat products would take some time to develop expertise. i got a good reception & treatment there. advisor-1 took a drive of my car & got convinced on the issue. While i waited in their comfortable AC room reading owners manual, another advisor-2 came after 10 minutes, he also just understood the problem & went. Then I met that Assistant, he said the manager did instructed him to take care of my vehicle! They all excused for half an hour as it was lunch time 1.45 pm. Then during lunch hour assistant came & said he wanted to understand all issues. so, we went driving the car to show the steering issue. Coming back I also shown him the interiors plastics which was quite dirty for a fresh car & told him that PDI was not done properly. He promised to complete everything in half an hour. after 45 minutes he came back & said the work is done, we went on a test drive again, i was not satisfied as there was not much of a difference.

So, again he took the car inside & returned with the steering issue corrected. They also cleaned the interior with car interior solution. Regarding the water drop impressions, they tried everything. 1st they washed the car, it didn't go. then they washed the car with diesel, the impressions got fainter but still didn't go. then he said he'll do 3M polish & buffing & tried to call 3M guy who went off without telling him! well, that 3M guy could not come in so he very politely requested me if i can come again day after. I left at 4 pm.

One more thing - as I mentioned in previous post, though my car is emotion pack & has blue n me, the blue & me sticker is not there on the rear glass. am not particularly interested in the sticker but want to know the reason as may be PDI was not done properly. in that case, thinking of getting everything checked on tuesday when I go back ag