Fiat Linea/ Punto - "Did You Know" Series....

Punto and Linea comes with ventilated front disc brakes for better cooling and better response in wet conditions.

 

1. Once when I was in the service center, I saw a brand new Punto being towed in, for defect rectification. I was curious, went to the service technicians attending and had a chat. What I learnt was, the owner took the delivery and took it immediately to an outside mechanic for installing some fancy looking LED lights. The unauthorised mechanic punctured a wrong cable resulted in some shorting which damaged the computer, ie. the brain of the car. Oops. Car was immobilised and was to be towed. To top it, fingering with electricals will make the warranty void and according to the technician, the owner, most likely to shell out some 40000 odd bucks. I did not follow what happened further.
2. Once I drove the Linea into deep water accumulated in an under bridge. This was even after seeing one Sumo and one one Mahindra taking a u turn and not braving it. I crossed the water logged under bridge and thereafter found that the engine pick up was low. I was just starting from Tambaram for Coimbatore. I drove further about 20 KM and the car was not going more than 80 KPH. I decided to turn around to the Concorde Ambattur workshop. They found that out of four tracks of electrical signal from accelerator pedal, only two were giving output to engine throttle. They cleaned the air filter (which was also wet), opened and thoroughly blasted all electrical connectors whichever was appearing wet with compressed air, cleaned all visible marks of water on engine parts etc. End of it, I asked the service adviser, I have to cover 500 KM up and back with family. Will the car do and will it do at 120 KMPH? Without blinking an eye lid, he said, you can do even 140KMPH. I liked his confidence and took delivery (any alternative??) . When I was leaving, he just mentioned that the accelerator pedal may need replacement and he is logging the same in the Concorde computer data base (the accelerator pedal sends electrical signals to engine comp on four channels, it looks more like a rotary variable resister or a rotary converter, when opened). Thus we started and till reaching Kanchipuram, I was reluctantly touching 100 KMPH. After that I gained some confidence and started revving up. Like the adviser said, I soon was doing upto 140 and beyond. Before half way to Coimbatore, I even forgot that I had a serious problem with the car in the morning! The ride was so good!!
After about a week, some one called up from Concorde to inform me that the accelerator pedal had arrived and I can get it changed. Although the defect did not recur I changed the part under warranty as advised by them.
THAT IS WHEN I FELL IN LOVE WITH FIAT!!!

 

very informative...thanx a lot evryone

 

Sometimes when you do a full tank there are possibilities that the person filling fuel could have done a top-up instead of doing an automatic shut and 2-3 extra litres of fuel could have been added compared to before when u did a full tank

 

An eye-opener for me. Now I need to get these wooden wedges. If putting hand-brake is not recommended during parking, should I put the car in gear?

 

Thanks ramjn. What about day parking? I guess I should put the car in gear for that also

 

It's always a good practice to put the car in gear - irrespective of whether you use handbrake or not. For old cars (read Premier Padmini) the handbrakes were never effective, so there was no option but to put the car in gear when parked.

 

I follow this:

For temporary day parking, handbrake + first gear if the car faces level/upward slope or reverse gear if the car faces downward slope.

For long term/overnight parking, wooden wedges + first gear if the car faces level/upward slope or reverse gear if the car faces downward slope. No handbrake.