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Tata Tiago Automatic Review
This is my first ownership review in any forum. So I apologise for lack of my writing skills.
I started driving car in 2006 after I bought a second hand Maruti Zen LX (1999) for Rs. 80000/- . Initially the use of the car was very limited. In 2010 my office shifted to Airport which is about 70KM round way and driving the Zen (which was almost 10 years old) daily was a bit difficult as it was a non-power steering version. The car also started to develop niggles. And petrol cost was too high to bear.
So my hunt for a newer diesel car started. In April 2011 came across a Swift Vdi in Kolkata which was about 3.5 years old, ran about 33000 Km and was in fairly decent condition. I negotiated with the seller for the car at 3.15 Lakh and closed the deal. The car served me well till 2017 despite its usual age related problems. The car developed some problem with the turbo and the steering became a bit hard. On enquiring with the ASS the cost for turbo was quoted as 15K and steering wheel as 35-40K (forgot exact amount). Ironically the steering wheel assembly for newer Swift cost only 9K. I decided not to spend around 60K in a car which was 10 years old and decided for new car. This time I was looking for an automatic as due to a injury in my left leg driving a manual car in city traffic was becoming very hard. I drove it almost 60000KM and ODO was at 89000KM.
My budget was around 6L max. Initially I was looking for a used Corolla AT but due to persistence from my family I started looking for a new car.
In my budget not much option was there. It had to be an AMT hatch. So, I test drove Kwid, Celerio, Ignis and Tiago. Going from a Swift all were downgrades in respect of the front seat comfort and driving pleasure.
Rejected Kwid as there was no manual override in the gear shift.
Celerio was VFM package. But it was too lackluster package. Also felt the steering a bit hard. Celerio top model (AMT) was around 75K less than the Tiago XZA.
Ignis was a good car but was priced around 60-70K higher than the Tiago but lacked some extra features. The driveability of the Ignis was best among all the cars that I test drove. But the non availability of the highest trim in AMT version despite of higher price was a downer.
The most negative factor about the Tiago was the Tata brand name. I test drove the manual version of the Tiago XZ in April 2017. The AMT version was just launched and no AMT test drive cars was available with any dealers in Kolkata. I liked the car in totality but the infamous Tata ASS was pulling me back. Finally after 3 test drives of the car (manual verion) I booked a Tiago XZA espresso brown from K B Motors. They offered me 1.30L for my Swift and Rs. 10000 discount for Tiago. The booking experience was good and the SA came to my house and got the booking done at my home. The car was supposed to be delivered after around 3 weeks of time.
After booking the car I got a call from Lexus Motors. They informed me that they have a Berry Red and Sunburst yellow Tiago XZA in ready stock. Their test drive XZA had also arrived. So, they brought a Berry Red Tiago XZA for test drive. Also offered 1.5L for my Swift and agreed to match the discount of Rs 10000 offered by the other dealer. It was 30 th April, the last working day of the month and they informed that I have get the invoiced on the same day to get the offered price and discount. I was a bit apprehensive regarding paying the full amount without doing PDI. It was a Sunday afternoon and we went to the Showroom at around 7PM and the staff were waiting for us. Both Red and Orange were on display and after some going back and forth my son and wife choose the Berry Red. So, the payment was done. Next day I did the PDI and everything was fine except a small nick (about 2-3 mm) on paint on the right rear window. It was agreed that it will fixed during 1st service. The ODO was around 50KM and they informed that their stockyard is in Singur which is around 40KM from city and they brought the car driving. So the odo reading appeared to be justified. The registration process was supposed to take about a week and they cannot deliver the car until the registration was complete. I noted the ODO and told them categorically that I will closely monitor it and it is not to be used for any test drive purpose.
The booking cancellation from the other dealer took some effort as they were not agreeing for complete refund. So I had to involve Tata Customer care and the refund was promptly made to me.
A lot of holidays came in between and the government offices were closed and finally I got delivery of the car on 11 th May 2017. I got the Insurance from Royal Sundaram which was about 4K lesser than the quote given by the dealer. Probably I was the first Tiago XZA owner in the Forum.
No freebies were given. The delivery was smooth although lacked anything special. I was given a box of wafers. Tata arranged all the important papers of the car in a neat folder. It was a office day and I went for delivery alone at around 1PM.
I started driving the car to office and back. The office was now closer to my home and was a merely 8Km run each way. The driving of the AMT is a bit unique. Specially the lag between the gear shift between 1st and 2nd gear is quite horrible even after 8 month of driving the car. You have to be really sedate while driving the car else you will feel the jerks. Coming for a diesel manual it was quite a learning process.
The car was otherwise good. Very good interior, great stock music system. Easy to handle. A perfect city car. Till now I never took her to highway.
In a hot day if you park the car under sun for a few hour, the AC fails to cool the car. The car had to be switched to Sports mode for optimum cooling.
Initially I was driving the car in manual mode. It was FTD but the gearshift sometimes becomes a bit confusing coming from a manual car. In manual mode the gear downshifts automatically to prevent stalling if you fail to downshift in time while it doesn’t upshift automatically.
After a month or so I started to drive in full auto mode.
I changed the engine oil and filter in the second service by paying extra. The FE increased a bit after the oil change. The car has run about 2300Km only in its 8 months of life as I was out Kolkata in between. Also my daily commute is very less (16KM).
What I don’t like about my car is the suspension. It is too bumpy. The car behave like a boat sometimes. Despite several complaint it was not resolved. Everytime they blame tire pressure. Although I have a TPMS installed and check the pressure manually too with my own gauge. I’ll taking the car again to the ASS this weekend to resolve the suspension issue.
Some mods that I have done to the car.
Seatcovers from Autofoam .
TPMS installed, bought from Aliexpress. Cost was around 5K. Also changed the tires to Yokohama Earth1 185/65/14.
Blacked out the roof and OVRMs with matt black vinyl. I planned to blacken the A pillar and C pillar too. But the odd shape is a problem and I think it will not look nice.
Smoked the tail lights. Only a little smoking was done instead of blackening.
Installed LED bulbs in both headlights and fog lamps procured from Aliexpress. Cost was around 4K for both. Also the parking lamps were changed to white.
Beam pattern:
Review: LED Headlight Conversion Bulbs For Cars & Bikes
Installed autodimming IVRM with backup camera display procured from Aliexpress. The cost was around 9K. The autodimming feature is really useful at night. But the backup camera display hinders viewing the surrounding at night. I’m planning to install a separate display for the backup camera.
Leganza Noodle mat from Amazon. It was custom fit for Tiago. Cost me around 1500 after some offers.
Installed sunfilms on windows and front windshield.
Installed a active subwoofer as the bass was lacking. I don’t like very hard bass. Just the little bass that competes the music. It is very compact and offers more bass than required by me.
Bought a ambicar electric car perfume from Amazon and installed just today.
DIY detailing whenever my time and health permits. I like my GTechniq C2V3. It is an amazing product. You can find my review of it in the ********* forum. My arsenal and the result:
This is my first ownership review in any forum. So I apologise for lack of my writing skills.
I started driving car in 2006 after I bought a second hand Maruti Zen LX (1999) for Rs. 80000/- . Initially the use of the car was very limited. In 2010 my office shifted to Airport which is about 70KM round way and driving the Zen (which was almost 10 years old) daily was a bit difficult as it was a non-power steering version. The car also started to develop niggles. And petrol cost was too high to bear.
So my hunt for a newer diesel car started. In April 2011 came across a Swift Vdi in Kolkata which was about 3.5 years old, ran about 33000 Km and was in fairly decent condition. I negotiated with the seller for the car at 3.15 Lakh and closed the deal. The car served me well till 2017 despite its usual age related problems. The car developed some problem with the turbo and the steering became a bit hard. On enquiring with the ASS the cost for turbo was quoted as 15K and steering wheel as 35-40K (forgot exact amount). Ironically the steering wheel assembly for newer Swift cost only 9K. I decided not to spend around 60K in a car which was 10 years old and decided for new car. This time I was looking for an automatic as due to a injury in my left leg driving a manual car in city traffic was becoming very hard. I drove it almost 60000KM and ODO was at 89000KM.
My budget was around 6L max. Initially I was looking for a used Corolla AT but due to persistence from my family I started looking for a new car.
In my budget not much option was there. It had to be an AMT hatch. So, I test drove Kwid, Celerio, Ignis and Tiago. Going from a Swift all were downgrades in respect of the front seat comfort and driving pleasure.
Rejected Kwid as there was no manual override in the gear shift.
Celerio was VFM package. But it was too lackluster package. Also felt the steering a bit hard. Celerio top model (AMT) was around 75K less than the Tiago XZA.
Ignis was a good car but was priced around 60-70K higher than the Tiago but lacked some extra features. The driveability of the Ignis was best among all the cars that I test drove. But the non availability of the highest trim in AMT version despite of higher price was a downer.
The most negative factor about the Tiago was the Tata brand name. I test drove the manual version of the Tiago XZ in April 2017. The AMT version was just launched and no AMT test drive cars was available with any dealers in Kolkata. I liked the car in totality but the infamous Tata ASS was pulling me back. Finally after 3 test drives of the car (manual verion) I booked a Tiago XZA espresso brown from K B Motors. They offered me 1.30L for my Swift and Rs. 10000 discount for Tiago. The booking experience was good and the SA came to my house and got the booking done at my home. The car was supposed to be delivered after around 3 weeks of time.
After booking the car I got a call from Lexus Motors. They informed me that they have a Berry Red and Sunburst yellow Tiago XZA in ready stock. Their test drive XZA had also arrived. So, they brought a Berry Red Tiago XZA for test drive. Also offered 1.5L for my Swift and agreed to match the discount of Rs 10000 offered by the other dealer. It was 30 th April, the last working day of the month and they informed that I have get the invoiced on the same day to get the offered price and discount. I was a bit apprehensive regarding paying the full amount without doing PDI. It was a Sunday afternoon and we went to the Showroom at around 7PM and the staff were waiting for us. Both Red and Orange were on display and after some going back and forth my son and wife choose the Berry Red. So, the payment was done. Next day I did the PDI and everything was fine except a small nick (about 2-3 mm) on paint on the right rear window. It was agreed that it will fixed during 1st service. The ODO was around 50KM and they informed that their stockyard is in Singur which is around 40KM from city and they brought the car driving. So the odo reading appeared to be justified. The registration process was supposed to take about a week and they cannot deliver the car until the registration was complete. I noted the ODO and told them categorically that I will closely monitor it and it is not to be used for any test drive purpose.
The booking cancellation from the other dealer took some effort as they were not agreeing for complete refund. So I had to involve Tata Customer care and the refund was promptly made to me.
A lot of holidays came in between and the government offices were closed and finally I got delivery of the car on 11 th May 2017. I got the Insurance from Royal Sundaram which was about 4K lesser than the quote given by the dealer. Probably I was the first Tiago XZA owner in the Forum.
No freebies were given. The delivery was smooth although lacked anything special. I was given a box of wafers. Tata arranged all the important papers of the car in a neat folder. It was a office day and I went for delivery alone at around 1PM.
I started driving the car to office and back. The office was now closer to my home and was a merely 8Km run each way. The driving of the AMT is a bit unique. Specially the lag between the gear shift between 1st and 2nd gear is quite horrible even after 8 month of driving the car. You have to be really sedate while driving the car else you will feel the jerks. Coming for a diesel manual it was quite a learning process.
The car was otherwise good. Very good interior, great stock music system. Easy to handle. A perfect city car. Till now I never took her to highway.
In a hot day if you park the car under sun for a few hour, the AC fails to cool the car. The car had to be switched to Sports mode for optimum cooling.
Initially I was driving the car in manual mode. It was FTD but the gearshift sometimes becomes a bit confusing coming from a manual car. In manual mode the gear downshifts automatically to prevent stalling if you fail to downshift in time while it doesn’t upshift automatically.
After a month or so I started to drive in full auto mode.
I changed the engine oil and filter in the second service by paying extra. The FE increased a bit after the oil change. The car has run about 2300Km only in its 8 months of life as I was out Kolkata in between. Also my daily commute is very less (16KM).
What I don’t like about my car is the suspension. It is too bumpy. The car behave like a boat sometimes. Despite several complaint it was not resolved. Everytime they blame tire pressure. Although I have a TPMS installed and check the pressure manually too with my own gauge. I’ll taking the car again to the ASS this weekend to resolve the suspension issue.
Some mods that I have done to the car.
Seatcovers from Autofoam .
TPMS installed, bought from Aliexpress. Cost was around 5K. Also changed the tires to Yokohama Earth1 185/65/14.
Blacked out the roof and OVRMs with matt black vinyl. I planned to blacken the A pillar and C pillar too. But the odd shape is a problem and I think it will not look nice.
Smoked the tail lights. Only a little smoking was done instead of blackening.
Installed LED bulbs in both headlights and fog lamps procured from Aliexpress. Cost was around 4K for both. Also the parking lamps were changed to white.
Beam pattern:
Review: LED Headlight Conversion Bulbs For Cars & Bikes
Installed autodimming IVRM with backup camera display procured from Aliexpress. The cost was around 9K. The autodimming feature is really useful at night. But the backup camera display hinders viewing the surrounding at night. I’m planning to install a separate display for the backup camera.
Leganza Noodle mat from Amazon. It was custom fit for Tiago. Cost me around 1500 after some offers.
Installed sunfilms on windows and front windshield.
Installed a active subwoofer as the bass was lacking. I don’t like very hard bass. Just the little bass that competes the music. It is very compact and offers more bass than required by me.
Bought a ambicar electric car perfume from Amazon and installed just today.
DIY detailing whenever my time and health permits. I like my GTechniq C2V3. It is an amazing product. You can find my review of it in the ********* forum. My arsenal and the result:
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. Some of my observations and questions below:
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