Fiat Avventura review, test drive

The tarmac roads on the outskirts of Pune allowed me to put the Avventura through its paces. Immediately, the ride and handling balance of this crossover shone through. Despite the stretched springs, there was limited body roll around bends. Even while negotiating curves in quick succession, the Fiat didn’t shift its weight around much, the rear anti-roll bar helped it no doubt, while the fat rubber kept the front planted. As with the Punto, the hydraulic steering felt well-connected to the wheels, allowing for a fair bit of dialogue to come through. The downside is that it suffered a bit from road noise at typical highway speeds; the wider tyres the likely culprit here.

Ironing out potholes wasn’t a problem either. The well-calibrated suspension remained unfazed even over rough patches and the Avventura tackled potholes even a bit better than the Punto. In fact, it has the wherewithal to handle mild off-roading and as long as you don’t subject it to slushy, slippery mud (since it lacks four-wheel-drive traction), it should do fine on broken, dusty trails.

Power comes from the same 92bhp diesel motor found in the Linea and the Punto Sport.  The motor felt a bit lazy when spinning below the 2,000rpm mark and this meant I had t work the slightly rubbery 'box often to keep the engine where it punches best , which is between 2200 and 3500rpm. While driving on a small hillock, the dearth of bottom-end grunt meant I had to really dial in the revs when starting up an incline to prevent it from stalling. This means, in an urban setting, it isn’t the best car to tackle stop-and-go situations. However, on the highway, it was much easier to keep the motor in the meat of its powerband and the performance was more than acceptable.