Fiat really made a mess of itself so far with regards to its reputation in the Indian market. They had some crucial shortcomings like service, spare parts availability and resale value. Till now it doesn’t have its own service centers but has been in partnership with TVS (a really bad move) and now with TATA motors where their showrooms and service centers are shared.
So far their cars haven't been well received by the Indian customers especially after it screwed up its brand name. Their cars like Fiat Palio haven’t seen much success despite being a good competitor.
Meanwhile the engines which they supply to Maruti and Tata stables have been a huge hit and probably one of the best engines around in that range. So Fiat is looking to capitalize on that and offer a new range of cars to develop a good reputation in the Indian market.
It recently launched the Fiat 500 as a CBU in hope of a brand building strategy. It reduced the price of Palio cars by quite a good margin for the festival season (or may be as a clearance sale). Next it is set to launch the C-segment car Linea very soon and following that will be the Hatch-back Grand Punto both of which has been great cars in terms of looks and performance wise.
But judging by Fiat’s record so far, one can only hope that they don’t mess up anything with these great cars. So far the news about these cars has been positive about these cars but still one has the gut feeling that Fiat does something messy. But if it does well with these cars, then they are sure to be on a roll in the forthcoming years.
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