June 28, 2006 : 10 months ownership experience
What a car!!! Great looking pseudo SUV!!! On bad roads would give any real SUV a run for their money...
I have been having this black beauty since end 2005, and what an experience this has been...
Good.. Na.. GREAT...
I first saw this car when it was the Palio Adventure way back then it was falling in love again... Disheartened to know that this was discontinued once, was too exited to see the rebadged Adventure Sport back...
Was owning a Corsa before, and now was on the look out for a new car within the 6L band; saw the Baleno (good machine, has adrenalin, efficiency and space. great AC, but too low, small boot and lacks the strong feel); Accent (tin box); Fusion (great car, handles very well, harsh lowspeed ride, less boot, pricey).. when I test drove the Adventure; it was COOL. felt safe, comfortable, great ride and a huge boot, with some adrenaline.. though the fuel efficiency figures worried me... I was braking near the bumps but the dealer urged me on on the test car!! to hit at 80kmph.. wow... I am a weekend traveller.. Tata partnership was being heard of... and the big baby was in....
There were certain initial issues with the product, however the prompt dealer (Anuroop Auto) attended concerns very fast...
Since then it has been an exiting experience... Quite a stable vehicle, though a sluggish starter.. needs some revving to come into the exiting powerband.. great pickup then... Though the gear box slightly rubbery and the brakes spongy initially.. Torquey for the city ride , a great handler (though a larger turining radius), and feels safe and fast on the highway... Wider tyres may have made it more stable though on smoother roads at higher speeds..(Corsa is greatly stable on highways..)
Cabin is quite quiet, though the AC could be better...
It does drink a lot, but a good price to pay for those safety and the fun..
Looks... well, it is a head turner... the bull bars, side rails, the cladding... SUV... come and see...
lastly the beast within.. Take it to a winding gravel or a broken road, and you feel the change in character.. It is like a wild rhino out of the Kaziranga... at speeds of around 20 and and 3rd gear, it will chug along and you need to really control the beast (well do you need to control it?? ), while the ride quality remains as smooth as ever.....
May be the Pirellis play a role here...
Wish FIAT gives us more of these...
Vaskar
July 13, 2007 : 23 months ownership experience
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Now the add ons to the review done before, there are some moments of truth as follows:
Had a Rajasthan trip in between, details are below in case you need to know how the car had performed.
This is a head turner; has the same level of stability and reliability; pickup continues to be good, and fuel efficiency has become more constant.
Body paint seems to be having some issue. Hopefully I hope I dont need a paint job to be done soon.
The Pirellis did not last for more than 20 months/20,000 km. Replaced them by 195/70R14 Bridgestone Potenza RE88. This has improved the handling further, in fact the stability has increased manifold esspecially on highways (tyres are 20mm wider each, though height would have got reduced by 3mm) - this is a common complaint as per other users too.
Rear speaker slots can host miniscule speakers only, so added an amplifier/sub-woofer besides them.
Getting spares may still take time, though FIAT comes back postively. May be one needs to tie the Logistics end for spare availability or add to inventory; Adventure spares are mostly imported, so get ready to wait sometimes.
Dealers are still scarce; Yes Tata Motor dealerships does service the car, however the workshops that do so are rare. There is no authorized workshop within a 20km radius of Kandivali at Mumbai.
Lastly, Fiat responses have been good; any complaint on the web site or mail is responded to immediately; they come back soom on the event of any issues.
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Some excerpts of my experiences during a trip to Rajasthan in July 2006 (during the Gujrat rains that year), says more of this car:
Experience:
Total distance covered 2339 km. Only concern was a big nail puncture en-route to Ranakpur, which thanks to the tubeless never delayed us too much (managed with air fill every 6 hours).
The car did not show any signs of noise or fatigue after the bad Surat Baroda stretch both ways (coming back was the worst of Roads after the floods) and the Adventure handled it great. The roads were bad in Rajasthan in the rains, inclusive of some highways getting four laned (in construction), one had to drive kilometers through mud.
The ride quality of this beast is unmatched on the rough. I will not say that driveability and fun is best, though better, this not being a sedan (as the Petra), and being a higher vehicle with bigger profile tyres, though touching 160kmph+ on the NE-1 was easy, stability was a concern, with the back swinging a little, hence had to come down.
Though we averaged 100kmph on NE-1 (in somewhat heavy rain; no ABS/EBD, so did not take any further speeding risk) en-route, and 126 kmph while coming back. May be a little bit wider tyres would have helped.
The height of the vehicle is apt; even the worst of roads never gave an underbelly rub.
Car was near fully loaded, so had used 32psi in front and 36psi in the rear.
Fuel efficiency figures were not as good, we varied from 12km/litre to 14.5km/litre; would mention that the best figures were obtained only with the BPCL “pure for sure” unleaded petrol with System G. The car was also due for servicing in the next 15 days, may be a freshly serviced car would have done better.
