Nov 30, 2006 12:14 PM
9950 Views
That was the time when I was looking for a car with the following features:
Good safety
Compact for city usage, but spacious enough not to make me feel claustrophobic.
Good handling and ride characteristics.
Good build quality.
Good city performance and a decent highway performance.
Good highway stability.
Decent ground clearance.
Palio1.6 is a good car with a lot of soul. It is not a boy racer, neitherdoes it produce astounding acceleration. It is a decent city car and avery good highway cruiser. Yes, you will have to live with its boringinteriors, its blinding A and C pillars and its mammoth turning radius.But underneath all this, it is a solid car, built for Indian conditions.
Ride and Handling:
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It isamazing how agile a 1 tonner can be. Though 1.2’s suspension and tiresare a little ride centric, handling for most purposes is not an issue.The bodyroll is there, but is pretty much managable. I have done 3digits in my car and the long sweepers are not an issue at all. They donot require you to reduce the speed unduely. However, over sharpcurves, I prefer wider-lower-profiled boots. This certainly is on myagenda during the next tire change. The flip is that the ride isgood.Humps and potholes, what on the earth are they? It requires reallyhuge potholes to upset the composure of the vehicle. The normalpotholes transmit the sound, but the vibrations are very well damped.
Thehighlight of Palio’s driving experience is definitely the steering.Thesteering is pretty direct and very communicative. Palio’s steering wasthe one that actually tilted the balance in its favour as comparedtoOpel Sail at the time of my purchasing. Of all the small cars I havedriven till now, I have found Palio’s steering to be the best.
Driveability:
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MyPalio is a 1 tonner and a car with a paltry 1.2 litre 72 bhp engine andit lets you know in no uncertain terms. It is certainly no scorcher,both in the cities and on the highways. Ofcourse, a zen will whip thePalio initially any day, but as the Palio garners speed, you can seethe role reversal. It takes eternity to reach from 0 to 100, but oncethere,it is still rock solid on any surface. I can not say that I getthe same confidence to throw the car around if I were to driveone of the tall boys. I have tried a max of 135 on my car and theinternal ABS mechanism (wife) applied breaks on my speed; rightly so.Anything more than 80 on Indian roads is asking for trouble. Thestability on those speeds is amazing. There is no about-to-take-offfeeling even at those speeds.
1.2, especially the NV, is andfeels sluggish. I think it has more to do with the gearing rather thanthe outright non-availability of horses. In some gears, horses aresleeping till late in the rev range and then suddenly wake up andpropel the car. Is it Palio turbo? Ha,ha. In a nutshell, there is astep in the performance. If you are hovering anywhere below 3k range inyour rev counter, the car is sluggish. Then the horses wake up, a fewat a time. There are a few horses available right near the redlinealso. This makes my car revhappy. The bad side of all these is that youwill really have to work through the gears on the highways. I have feltthat the 4th gear on the highways is pretty much useless. It has almostalways been 3-5 and 5-3 for me. I pick up enough revs on 3 and shift to5 and vice-versa. However, the gear 4 is pretty handy in the cities asthis is an overdrive. Saves a few moolahs.
Breaking is also pretty good. Brakes do not lock till very late. But the brake feel needs getting used to.
Howcan I miss the vroom that I get once past 3.5k revs? It is unmistakablya Palio roaring. I love this sound and it shows on my petrol bills too.
