Oct 9, 2010

My dream beauty

Confused. Between Linea and SX4, which one to go for. I did a lot of research. Ground clearance, mileage, performance, safety, comfort, interiors, exteriors. The more I was in favor of SX4, the more I am getting inclined towards Linea. TD Linea today. Good performance, but with amount of lag during lower gears. But once past that, it was like a real beast, eating up all the potholes and bumps Bangalore is famous for like a South Indian gobbling up barota, like a Bengali swallowing a Rosgolla, like a Maharashtrian eating that Dheeng ladoo. In short, never knew when I hit that bump and when I cleared it. The breaking was very good and I feel this is the first sedan that has done justice to ABS + EBD. (When I test drove Manza, the breaking was not great, infact took some time for the ABS to kick in and during that time, my heart was almost near my throat with a truck in front of me :))

AC was OK. Wife complained that when AC was in full blast, the music from the 2DIN integrated music system was not audible enough (infact Santro was better here, that's what she said). But one good thing here was the availability of the rear AC vents (a.la. VW Vento) and would be a rear comfort factor for many old folks who complain about "It's hot in here". Rear seats were very comfortable with hand rests wide enough for both the passengers to place hands on without having to do that touching touching thing.

The model in the showroom had 190/60R16 16 spoke alloys, but sales guy told about Fiat replacing all new models with 185/60R15 16 poke alloys (Alloy standard for emotion and emotion PK Petrol). Now that might take the icing out of the cake since lesser diameter essentially means we are compromising on ground clearance and rear space. As such GC is 165 mm which was OK for all the bumps on Whitefield road which has one of the most enviable bumps in the world (infact I heard people actually come all the way from Hosur road to whitefield to test drive a car). But with 3 people in the car, there was no scrapping of the chassis at all,  so that means I have perfected the art of driving (oh me and my debacle on Honda Jazz)

Presence of a dead pedal makes long drives a pleasure. Tata, Maruthi, listen up. Arm rest for driver is a real boon. 500 lts of boot space makes sure I can carry a lot of stuff to Chennai and Madurai (which I normally don't do). Horn could have been a bit louder. I like the Indian way of thinking....the horn is more important than the brakes. Console was very complicated for a novice like me. Took 10 minutes to understand what each light means, something that my 5 year old nephew would have learnt in a minute and then gone to play with Thomas train for the remaining 4 minutes (the sales guy patiently explained for 5 minutes and then gave a "RTFM" kind of a look). Driver seat is height adjustable so is the wheel (tilt adjustable). And ASS as per the sales chap would be good especially since they are already in Whitefield which is a corporate hub and they cannot afford to screw up again this time. Driving in traffic was good especially since I did not have to shift to second every time to get that needed pickup with the AC on. All in all, Linea gets an 8.5/10 rating. I still need to take my dad out on this Italian stallion to get his feedback (He has 25 years of driving experience right since Fiat Premier Padmini till 2010 Ford Figo and knows every car inside out).

But I still keep thinking about SX4. And the one thing that motivates me in it's favor are the stocks. 205/65R16 and 190 mm GC, and 1.6L engine. When in the driver's seat, I could be looking down at the Toyota Fortuner driver next to me...might give me that ego boost :D. Need to wait till Jan 1, 2011 to finalize on one of these.

1 comment:

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.