Fiat Grande Punto MJD Emotion Pk

I am not saying that I have never got the confidence to take the Punto on the highway, the car has done a lot of highway kms, just last week it made a run to Panchgani at 4pm & got back at 1 am.

The point I am making is that thanks to the recent small niggles there does come a doubt in my mind when taking the Punto on the highway. With the City, there is no worry at all. It's as simple as grabbing the keys , starting the car and driving it knowing that everything will work flawlessly.

How do you expect me to take the car on the highway when the check engine light comes on with a loud beep when I switch on the parking lights?

How do you expect me to take the car on the highway with the gear feeling spongy & sticky requiring me to give it a firm push to slot into the required gears?

How do you expect me to take the car on the highway when after 50K kms the alloy wheel cracks from inside?! In today's age a car should barely show signs of age after 50,000kms. The Punto ends up with a cracked alloy even after being pampered while driving it.

 

There are many cars that runs without an issue, but it is a fact that there are few cars that are having small issues and few are having issues one by one. As far as engine is concerned, Fiat is a bullet proof car. It can churn lakhs of miles without even showing a trace of its age. But the only problem with Fiat is from the data that we have here is that their quality checks should undergo a dramatic change. There is no option. My car, I think is also belongs to the former category, since I haven't faced any issue with car. I can confidently suggest this car to any one. But I am little bit disturbed about hearing some unpleasant stories about other members. Just like in science the average speak the truth. We come to know about the micro world is from average behavior. We cannot neglect. What Ram's, Ravi sir's or similar cars with no problems, shows how superior and reliable a fiat car is if it comes without problems from factory.. The ones with continuous niggles shows that how bad is their quality checks. For customer it turns out be a luck factor. They should tackle it at any coast. Remember to prove that some thing is correct we need to prove for all b but to prove for something is not correct we need to show only one example where it is not correct. Same is with Fiat. Most of their cars are running without any problems, but there are few which shows constant problems. That few should be reduced to the neighborhood of Nil. Where Honda shines is in this area.This fact we need to accept.

 

All this gets worse when you look at sales. Fiat sells barely 750 Punto's every month and still can't churn out flawless cars, even if 100 car's need a CSC replacement that's 13% of problematic cars while Honda does about 3,000 City's every month and none report even a minor issue or worse Maruti churns out 20,000 Swift's with not a single car having any problem. You are right about the luck factor but why should we accept it? Why should a prospective customer think 'I hope I am lucky enough to get a quality car'. With a Honda or Toyota, we don't even think or hope of getting a flawless car, it's expected. We want that feeling to come in for people buying a Fiat. In my case, it get's worse because I had a Palio that could stand proudly with any Honda or Toyota car in terms of reliability and that is the reason I am a repeat Fiat customer. Yes, the engine is flawless but a car isn't just made of an engine.

Very true & this also negates the bragging right's Fiat has about 15,000 kms / once a year service interval.

 

I again stick to the point that there are only few cars that are having niggles. Many cars are moving like any other cars. But the those fews are slightly higher than the few of other brands. That is a fact and it is related to their quality control and also part of the JV. They shouldn't allow a single car with a niggle to roll out of the factory. I think they them self think that if it show problem we will take care. They are far far better than others in terms of accepting their falt. If a honda or Hyundai get a major problem it is almost impossible to get the things done the way it is getting done at the Fiat. There may be some variation across the country because of dealers' reputation. Fiat Should change this attitude.

I have few friends who is using Linea and Punto. they are not facing any issue with their cars. Another fellow faced a AC compressor problem within one month of ownership and Fiat has rectified it, though it took one week because of some issue with parts dekivery. For the past 2 years the car is running without any issues. So if we look around there are many people who are using the cars just like any other car. But those few cars which I mentioned earlier are enough to screw up the reputation of the company. If we think of reliability then non of the brands skoda,VW,Ford fit in to that class. Only maruti(for service network) honda and toyota for(better precision(exclude etios)). As amit mentioned we can shut the door and drive peacefully. But if we are worried about safety, solid build quality and drive one has to look else where.

So the Mantra for Fiat to chant now is "I will change the niggles from few to Nil" Then I don't see any competitor for Fiat.

 

If you see the %age of cars having problems v/s no. of cars sold then you might find that lot of cars have some or the other kind of issues.

JFI, I have Punto 90HP for the past 17 months. I was not been able to drive for nearly 3 months after I got my car due to health reasons. After that Since I started driving the car has gone to the SC 15 times in 14 months and has been with them for nearly 2 months atleast all put together. Most of the issues I am facing is repeated. Do we call this as niggles?. At present for the past 20 days the car is with the SC. Why cant fiat give us a car without any issues or incase it comes solve them immediately?. The guys involved from Fiat as well as the SC are all working on trial & error method in solving the issues. They just cannot solve an issue confidently. I am surprised that they donot have a service manual even. I love this car & have already driven 42k + kms till now, but its not acceptable from FIAT.

Kiran

 

Kiran,
The problem is with the service centres all over,i feel the Service centre guys are not well skilled to handle these modern generation cars.All are trial and error method this leads to mmore visits to SC.
if the techinician is well trained on the fiat engines the problem might have fixed at that instance only.
I'm still struggling with my rear suspension sound, when i apply the brakes i get weird strange sound from the suspension.
the service guy took the car and given a underbody wash the sound went-off and after an hour the sound started again ,i'm fed-up of this and asked if the same problem exists in other punto he came back replied me it comes we also tested the car it was there,however when i asked him about the linea for the same test we didnt found any sound and he came up by saying linea had run of 15k Kms and my car have done 30K Kms.and then i prompt him the punto is reading 11K Kms.
The service guy was keep on giving bull shit reasons and says this is how the design of punto.

i want to ask here once again,when you stop the car on inclination and slowlly release the brakes and observe if you can hear the weird sound(some thing like rusting) from the rear ? if yes is this from the brakes and not the suspension ?Also like to add ,for me this sound comes when person sits and get out of the car(please note the car is not on handbrakes).

 

Ganges - Who had trained these service centre guys? Fiat I suppose....

Further when these SC guys are unable to solve a problem they speak to Fiat & then the trial & error method starts..... .

Sorry amit your thread is getting hijacked....

We all love this car so much that we tend to overlook issues.

Kiran