I am a great fan of Fiat Palio. I owned one for the last 4 years before deciding to move onto something more economical like a Swift Diesel. Not that my Palio was a thirsty baby, just that it used to run on Petrol and given the way Petrol prices are I thought I should switch to Diesel.

You can read my older entry on Fiat Palio mileage HERE

I loved my Palio 1.2 ELPS extremely smooth ride and amazing handling. It took a really bad stretch of Road to perturb my baby. Most holes and ruts could not be felt at all, many were just a small sound, some were a bit of  a wobble but it took it in its stride without a jerk, jars, tail twisting or loss of direction. I could really throw it around the curves at 60 -80 kmph, without any fear, whatsoever. With curves I mean curves on Kerala roads, which are a bit more curvaceous than most.  I agree that I achieved the feat with 185 size tyres, which are a definite improvement on the stock 165.

Actually I was waiting for Fiat to launch the Grande Punto at the end of 2007, but that was getting postponed indefinitely, meanwhile I landed a good buyer for my old Palio and I decided to let her go, with some grief in my heart. I then immediately booked my next set of wheels in the form of a Swift DDiS. Immediately after my booking Fiat launched their own Multijet Palio. I thought that I should check out this vehicle before I take delivery of the Swift DDiS.

So I landed up at the Tata Fiat showroom in Cochin and the test drive vehicle was immediately available. I looked and saw this Silver Grey shape which looked similar to Palio.   Now the old Palio had a nice muscular, thickly curved bonnet, which lent it a very aggressive stance. The new vehicle’s bonnet seems to have been flattened a bit and the curves toned down, I think maybe to improve visibility. The grill looks good but looks like an afterthought rather than an organic part of the vehicle.

I opened the door and was greeted by a familiar layout complete with the Blue oval key. Only change is the Beige colour which they have tried to incorporate to lend a slightly modern look, but given the quality of plastic used looks a bit cheap actually. Cheap plastic looks better in dark Grey shapes rather than beige. If a company should use beige then the plastic should be similar to ones used in Chevy Aveo at least. Anyway……the layout is completely same as old Palio, they have not even given a digital odo/ trip meter. AC controls are same with heating and direction controlled by rotary controls.

Once I turned the key there was an earthquake and the whole Car shook once and then settled into a steady tak-tak-tak of a Diesel motor. The sound actually intrudes quite a bit into the cabin and the vibrations could be felt right through the steering wheel and the seats.

The ride quality remains as good as ever. Though the original fitment 165 tyres dont do much justice to the handling capabilities of the Palio. Under normal driving they are OK though, and the low profile of the vehicle and lower passenger seating helps bring down the centre of gravity and helps to hug the road . On Swift DDiS the 165 size tyres are positively dangerous, lacking in grip and frequently skidding under hard braking. Only when Swift is carrying four passengers it feels attached to the Road. So if you normally drive solo on bad roads, the the tyres should be upgraded to at least 185/ 70, or drive very carefully.

The Palio gear lever is the same though I feel with a smaller and cheaper gear knob. Gone are the precise gates and slick shifting. The lever is all wobbly and the gates are wide and sometimes difficult to find. Engage the first gear and release the clutch and you need not press the Acc pedal, the clutch immediately bites and the vehicle shoots of the mark. In-fact it is quite disconcerting. There is very little gap between fully disengaged and when it starts to engage, which means that the clutch needs to be fully pressed before engaging the gear and that it may be slightly difficult in bumper-to-bumper traffic where I drive only with the clutch. Also if the clutch is not released very smoothly the engine can also stall, like I managed to do once, even with a 1 lac kms plus experience on fiats. Swift on the other hand have come up with nothing I have seen on Maruti before. The gear lever is delightfully short throw, with nice smooth shifts, which click in with lovely TIK sound. The clutch also is light and has a good gap between fully depressed and when it starts engaging.

Both vehicles pickup is awesome with huge tank like roar filling the cabin as you push in the A pedal. The noise starts to get bothersome  very early in the Palio and by around 1500 rpm in Swift and may actually intrude in the driving pleasure as I love to listen to some music while tootling along.

Once you have reached a decent speed you need to brake. The Palio brakes are powerful and have an immediate bite like the clutch. I feel there should be smooth gradient in the brake force starting with a touch to some hard pressing. Old fiats had this nice gradient. With the pressure you could smoothly vary the braking force. Here the pressure comes all of sudden. A peculiar thing which I noticed was that brakes don’t disengage immediately when I released the pedal. There was just a fraction of a second delay before the wheels felt free from the iron grip. THe sales person said that it could be a problem with this vehicle only. Swift’s Brakes are also quite good and have the nice gradient which I have mentioned earlier.

AC is good and does not affect vehicle performance much in both cases, but pick-up from low rpms in high gears becomes slow, but that is hardly important as it is very rarely that I need to it. Palio says 184 Nm torque compared to Swift’s 190, but its impossible to make out the difference.

Palio also has this nice double barrel head lamps which illuminate the road nicely, though in true European fashion are highly focussed, designed not to blind the fellow coming from opposite side. But in India we have lot of ignorant and arrogant drivers who drive with high beam on. Swift’s headlights are a nice cure for such drivers. It throws a very wide diffused high beam which can blind such drivers coming from the opposite side and motivate them to dip their own lights.

Swift for all its good looks is built quite flimsily with door panels that actually stretch when the door is closed. Something or the other keeps making a nagging rattling sound. The bumps which could not even be felt in a Palio are a heard and those that could be felt,  positively make a jarring noise in the Swift. If the road is rough when you are taking a turn, you might end up loosing control of your tail, as it bounces out tangentially. Suspension is very hard and 36 psi of tyre pressure in the front does not help at all.

Swift seating is high with a lot of visibility, which helps handle this very wide vehicle. The seats are OK though not as comfortable as a Palio. The driving position is also not very good. I with 6 ft of height have to stretch for every control if I adopt a relatively comfortable driving position. Palio’s controls are within easy reach, I could comforably adjust AC controls by resting my hand on the gear shift.

Swift may probably have little advantage in Fuel economy as it rides on bigger diameter tyres and has overdrive in 4th and 5th gears, whereas Palio has it only in the 5th. Palio though may have better city driveabilty, but with almost maximum 19 Kgs of torque (same as Skoda 1.9 TDi)  both vehicles can be driven comfortably in any gear. Frankly with so much of Torque available, Palio could have done better by having Overdrive gears in 4th also. This when previous 1.2, 1.6 all had overdrives in both 4th and 5th gears.

Swift is serviced by Maruti, which has very wide network of fully equipped Dealer workshops and they have been servicing the vehicles for more than a year now, whereas in case of Fiat, all Tata dealerships have yet to get Fiat products and many still dont service them.

Multijet is a sophisticated engine and I would rather trust Maruti with the service than some Fiat trained Tata dealer workshop who is used to working on miniature truck engines.

Feature for feature Palio MJD wins hands down, with the top end SDX being almost Rs. 20000.00 cheaper than the Swift VDi. Come to think of it the Swift Ldi does not even have basic safety features like the passenger seat head restraints, Central Locking, Tachometer and prismatic rear view mirror and luxuries such as power windows and cigarette lighter, which even Palio SDE comes with.

Anyway my test drive was over and I decided to take delivery of my Swift DDiS.

First impressions of the Palio Multijet ?? It makes a lot of noise and vibrates a lot, I feel even more than the old 1.9 Palio D.  Even Swift makes similar sounds but they don’t intrude into the cabin until around 1500 rpm, which is where I do most of my driving. At least I could not feel the vibrations in Swift. Palio seems to have forgotten some of its good points, while Maruti seems to have picked up a lot..

As much as I loved my Palio 1.2 I cannot forget that once it took Fiat 2 months to arrange for a rocker arm, and all the while I had drive with a damaged Rocker arm. Its only a Palio that could have survived being driven around with a damaged Rocker arm and it could have been only Fiat, which could have left its customers in a lurch like that. I could have forgotten that had they come up with something superlative, but this is quite ordinary, even though it costs less than the comparable Swift.

So even though I am diehard fan of Fiat and my heart says Palio, my brain ruled in the favour of Maruti Swift in-spite of all the wekanesses, for the sheer peace of mind that comes with it. I will allow Fiat some time to grow and become more experienced in manufacturing, selling and servicing before spending my lakhs of Rupees with them  Maybe it will be a beautiful Linea…..or something absolutely ravishing like the Bravo. But that is in future

This column is about how to get more mileage out of your Fiat Palio. Why Fiat Palio. Because I have one and I have perfected the art of getting Maximum mileage out of the machine. The tips here apply to most other Indian Cars also.

Fiat Palio in India is a much maligned model. To top its gas guzzling reputation the dealers and company left the customers in a lurch. Last year I read a news article in which the head of Fiat India was proudly announcing launch of online spare parts ordering system, wherein the dealers can go online and order the spares. They can also check a VOR (Vehicle Off Road) button and spares will be despatched on priority. The cynic in me didn’t fail to notice that why allow vehicles go off road in first place. It’s a shame that a vehicle of such calibre as Fiat Palio is allowed to remain off road as some Italian clowns didn’t have time to maintain adequate inventories. OK Fiat bashing is besides the point which can become a topic for another article.

You would like to ask how much mileage I am getting in a 1.2 ELPS (petrol) , model which is marketed in India. I am managing 15 Km/ Ltr on mixed roads, which includes bit of city, bit of open highway and bit of hilly roads with AC on 50% of the time. My Palio has been delivering this ever since I am running her. This is very much contrary to the general feedback that I have from people that they are barely able to get 10 or 12. Recently my father-in-law drove the same car and he could barely manage 9.

What’s the secret? It is all very simple actually….. First you must know your vehicle.

Fiat is a very spirited vehicle and if you are bit heavy on the right pedal then the motor just revs on and begs to go faster.

1. You do not notice speed because of excellent noise damping, suspension and body work which does not shake or rattle as you rev up the vehicle, and you do not hear the engine until you have already burnt a lot of gas. Rarely any of us see the tachometer (which is the rev-counter).

So if you desire higher mileage then you must learn & practice as I have done. These can be applied to almost all the vehicles.

1. Do other things that they routinely tell you. Maintain good air pressure, service regularly, keep all fluids topped up and use good petrol. If possible us ones with cleaning additives.

2. Learn to be one with the vehicle, which is a slightly Zen concept, but just learn to feel the vibrations. Cars communicate through subtle vibrations through steering, seat & pedals etc. It is always not possible to check on the meters regularly.

3. Starting up : DO not press the accelerator pedal while starting, which is a hangover for us middle aged drivers who have grown up on Carburetted engines. The fiat and most other vehicles have MPFI engines, which do not need pedal pressing while starting.

4. After putting the vehicle into first gear, let in the clutch gently, feel it bite the drive train and then only push the race gently. Most cars including fiat are sufficiently powerful to take on the vehicle load without accelerating in 1^st gear. In fact I do not press the race till the vehicle has actually started moving.

5. Move into 2^nd gear quickly at about 10 kmph

6. Move to 3^rd at about 30 kmph

7. Move to 4^th at about 40 kmph

8. Drive in 5^th gear at all speeds beyond 50 kmph. Almost all cars including  the humble Maruti Alto, is able to pull from this speed upwards in 5^th gear.

9. Off course you may not be the first one of the block on a red light, but that’s not our aim here.

10. Switch on the AC once you have driven for about 2 mins.

11. In heavy traffic I generally put my vehicle in 1^st gear and allow it to coast with the pace of traffic without touching the accelerator. If required I coast in 2nd gear.Fial Palio can take this load with full AC. But it requires a gentle pedal if you are staring from stop with AC on.

12. While changing down shift from 5^th to 4^th only when you reach 40 kmph, 4^th to 3^rd at 30 kmph, 3^rd to 2^nd at 20 kmph, In a moving vehicle 1^st gear would be required only if you are slower than 10 kmph.

13. While driving uphill increase your gear changing speeds by 5 kmph to take care of momentum loss due to gradient. Mostly it will be very difficult to pull any decent gradient in anything more than 3^rd gear. DO not try to drive at 60 to 70 in 5^th gear at a gradient in full throttle. The vehicle might climb but after burning huge quantity of gas. As a thumb rule if you need to open more than 30% of  the throttle then shift down into lower gear. The vehicle is very comfortable at these speeds without any unusual strain, vibrations or noise.

14. I have specifically not given any speed limits as the Palio and most vehicles easily reach above 80 kmph with barely 20% open throttle

15. Someone might follow the speed  limits in each gear but still get less mileage. The key is acceleration. As a rule of thumb in normal driving do not open more than 20% of the throttle in normal driving. Allow the vehicle to gently accelerate to the indicated speed and then change up. Cruise with maximum 20% throttle, which is sufficient for 80 to 90 kmph on a decent road.

16. You can also open full and reach the indicated speeds faster but will also burn a lot of gas in the process.

17. Also there are other things such as anticipate your traffic and braking and drive accordingly. Don’t be surprised. Surprise leads to abrupt accelerations and braking which lead to excess fuel burnt.

18. For example if you are approaching dense traffic , let go of the pedal and coast to slower speeds and the drive on rather than running with throttle pressed till last moment, then slamming the brakes and again accelerating hard out of the traffic.

To sum it up the key is not low speeds, you can easily cruise at 80, 90 or 100 and still get good mileage provided you reach that speed gently without pushing too hard. In palio it is very difficult to know when you are pushing too hard because it is never too hard. You always want to go faster and the vehicle allows you to, without a hiccup or a stray sound. Key as I said before is to learn to listen with your hands and feet and your bums as you car tells you its time to shift up.

So drive gently and intelligently and see you mileage figures change. In the process you can also help cut on green house gasses emmision and pollution.