/* Updated twice */
Tata has made a brilliant car. And I decided to purchase one. I selected the Palm green Xeta GLG variant. I brought this baby home on 29th Sep. Within three days, I did a little below 500 km, mostly for searching right accessories, showing off to friends and family etc, along with a >100 km trip to nowhere, just for a fun highway run :)
My criteria for selecting this car:
High and flat torque curve
Good looking and balanced contours (I hate Wagon R's Flat back.. Santro more or less, falls under the same category. One of my friends calls them "taboot" !!)
Spacious, well designed, good looking and comforting interiors. (I fell in love with the white instrument panel... The first time I turned the lights on, I, for a moment had to take eyes away from the road just to admire the beauty). The digital clock on the dash board adds to beauty and utiliyty both. I have never tried to set clock on my mp3 player!
My experience with this Car..
Stand aside the car and admire the beauty. Tata has actually povided some great colours with xeta, and choosing between the red and green colours is a hard job. I finalized green just to be unique!
Move to the back. You will see sgnature indica lighting. Clear lamps and high mounted stop lamp. looks and positioning are great. compare to any other hatchback!
On front, the grille has been chrome plated. a little more chrome on this green body should have looked excellent. Still, Its cool. Lets open the doors now.
I prefer pushing my seat as far back as possible. But, friends sitting in the back never complained about leg space. Very comfortable room at the back. Large headroom for the driver is really appreciable. Console sports a tractable coin tray, and floor has some groove to put some things in it. Very handy to keep mobile or remote control, or maybe CDs. Floor has an illuminated socket just behind the brake lever. Position doesn't seem very handy for a cigarette lighter, but its better than having nothing there. Very large dashboard. I have not measured, but the width of usable space on dashboard should be around 8 inches, extending from instrument panel all the way to the passender window.
So far, I have done 600 km on this car. (Didn't get enough time to spend with it during weekdays).
The performance is simply.. superb. The difference to other cars is visible very easily when you start off from a red light. The AC is powerful. It gives hard time cooling after parking in bright sunshine for an hour or two, but sit in other cars and you will know the difference. During mild weather (mornings, and evenings) I have to put AC and blower at minimum after initial cooling!
As of now, max speed I allowed my car to run is 120 kmph (that too, for a few seconds only), and I was amazed to find the tachometer needle still close to (towards the lower side of) max torque engine rpm. (correction.. engine rpm is arund 3000 at 120 kph, 5th gear, max torque is at 2600.. galti se mistake ho gaya) It was real hard to control the temptation, but I didn't want to try higher speeds on the new car. She really liked high speeds. Car is extremely stable at that speed and you will not feel any amount of vibration on a clean road at that speed! Look in the rear view mirrors, if you are unsure! Car shows some (minimal) vibrations at idle engine rpm, but rev it up slightly, and its all gone!
For economy conscious, it has given me somewhere between 10-11 kmpl so far, which is more than what I was expecting at this time. An accurate fuel consumption study is still pending and I will update this article after I finish that.
The cabin is extremely silent, and if the you dont pay attention to indicators on instrument clusters, you might end up twisting ignition key in hard traffic while engine is running. Only sound I hear is the blower inside the cabin, and some music (mizuk, as I call it) of course.
Suggestions to Tata:
Xeta must be made available with ABS! I dont think people would mind paying ~20-30K extra for added safety feature on this car. ABS is real nice feature for a minimally skilled driver, and I believe there should be a rule for providing it on all cars! Air bags are also welcomed.
The gear box. It feels a little truck-ish at times, specially at low speeds. However, it feels better than other indicas I have driven!
The weight! This car weighs 995 kg (kerb), which, I believe, is highest in the segment. If its possible, tata should try reducing the weight to somewhere close to 800-850 kg. I hope it will increase the fuel economy, and engine responses drastically! I am not saying that it does not have good responses now, but they will be better with lesser weight.
The C pillar. Its very very wide. It impairs visibility. One might just want to cut a h_ole through it!
Overall, its a nice car, specially a nice 'driver's car'. And I am not a bit disappointed from what I have purchased :)
Some people might feel that fuel consumption is high compared to other cars. I would like to advice them to take price of car into account for running cost. If you prefer getting a loan for a car (like me), add your emi and fuel usage and see how much is the difference. I calculated that if I drive this vehicle for next five years (upto usage of around 1000 km per month, which is way past my expected usage), at 10 kmpl average mileage, compared to any other car, the emi + fuel would be cheaper on this car (for a loan tenure of 5 years) compared to any other car available today which can give 16 kmpl average mileage (except, of course, alto and 800, but who wants to buy them??) . I have, however not added maintainence costs, since I have no information on them as of now.
If you are planning a purchase, try this car once. And take test drive after you have driven all other contenders.
Hang on for an update to this article (will take around 2 weeks)!
till then.. happy searching
:)
GPS
/* Update 1: 12th Oct */
The car required 18.40 l of petrol in going from (precisely) 450 km to 650 km, which indicates a fuel consumption of 10.8 kmpl.
/* Update 2: 23rd Oct */
I have just returned from my home after the diwali weekend.. had a nice ride, apart from the rim failures!! three of my rims bent, and a tire died, on my way to home (G.T. road, Noida-Ghaziabad-Aligarh-Kanpur.. dont ever pick that road.) and it took me 17 hours to cover a total distance of ~ 450 km. the highway had loads of traffic jams.. around 4-5 hours almost standstill between khurja-start to aligarh-end! Obviously, mileage died on the trip.
Return journey was great.. covered ~ 550 km (Kanpur-Agra-Delhi-Noida) in around eight hours, without any problems, apart from vibrations due to unbalanced wheels, of course :)
Mileage figures will be updated by tomorrow...
And I am really sorry amohan78.. had a busy week, and couldn't arrange better camera Its my phone's camera... pics taken on the return journey.. I am not a good photographer.. so please excuse for bad quality. (To view full snaps, click on product overview tab)
Cant update any more here.. Plz read comments for rest of the update...
