Good balance of sturdiness, Fuel economy, Comfortable, and a true 5seater hatch back

Hi All,

I Purchased a Fiat Palio 1.1SL Black from Concorde. Its now correct time to talk on the ownership experience, but would like to put down the selection criteria.

Wagon R is a thin metal sheet ok for urban (cross to cross and local area commuting) and is a good replacement for a 3 Wheel autorickshaw. Only thing is it sells at 3.32L for LX despite its huge sales numbers (higher sales gives scope for manufacturer to reduce the margin on individual cars and offer it at lesser price, which maruti is not doing). Xing is a good car except for the backseat comfort and narrow width. Koreans and Japanese people have comfort cause of thier own average people sizes. but still SUMO wrestlers cannot fit in either of these. they still have to go for a SUV. Fuel effy of both these are good, considering, but beware they have 5 seatbelts and can seat 4 people.

Fiat Palio- the front axle width is wider than the back axle (very imprnt for cornering at high speeds). most SUV have similar axle width ratios.

the body is of same width all along and is clearly wider by 10cms then xing and 15cms (half feet) than Wagon R. both xing and WR have equal axle widths and are squarish treads.

Tubeless tyres are in Palio. 165/80 rubber 13inch.

My palio, a Corporate lease car, returned roughly15.8 kmpl in its 3000KMS range with 1300kms city/bad road/hilly terrain drive. this is with in most cases, 5 people on board with GVW-990KGS+360KGS.

Pick up is clearly slow but observe the 1/4 mile distance is covered in 5seconds delay to that of Xing and Wagon R. Even if for the entire life, we cummulate the 5seconds, we may loose 5 yrs time for 60yrs of driving. But tell me who drives for 60yrs driving time and if so, what would 5yrs matter for him then.

If the 3cars are put on race from Bangalore to Delhi (with a perfect straight highway exclusively for the 3), and all the three are on full throttle (that is 150kmph xing, 145kmph wagonR and 131kmph Palio Stile), only then Stile would take a full 3hrs late arrival at Delhi after 15hrs 2200kms continous drive. Thats the maximum difference. We (the palio users never pitch palio for doing this job). We know that our OEM has a much better answer in Ferrari's to do this job. and

Suzuki is known to be a very good BIKE manufacturer.

But lets remember, the tolerance on Indian roads are 80-100kmph and also, I do remember we frequently have to decelerate and accelerate where the Xing's and WagonR's may win.

Most important to remember also is, we do not have a straight track all along. for curves, a Differential width pair of axles (particularly the wide front track) is important (and no tall boy design please). Palio manages to maintain a relatively although may be 10kmph higher speed while cornering.

Another important thing is the 80-0kmph braking distance required, which is the lowest for Palio and the other 2 have real problems.

A typical indian car customer is lured by the BHP (they also dont see at which RPM is the BHP), and the KMPL (they never bother how much is the seating capacity) althought there can be 5 seat belts on every car. well, if we are actually thinking to have a good FE for 1 person, then better drive a Bajaj Platina? for FE, or if we think we need a reasonable so called societal commute (?) then better those buy a 3 BOX Sedan like SX4?.

Among Getz, UVA and Fiat Palio (the comparable 3 cars), The choice is clearly Palio Stile 1.1SL, for some trade off for sure in the pick-up. The power is really pathetically low and is best sutied for sedate driving people. Fiat is just 5cms lesser in width compared to Getz and UVA. Again, please do not take those pick up and BHP figures.

The xing's and Wagon R's are better compared with SPARK (all the 3 are 4seaters 1ltr engines).

Driveability, steerability at high speeds, comfortable back seatslightly sluggish