This car can become a benchmark. Review on Tata Indica V2 Xeta

A friend of mine and I booked our Xetas on the same day. In spite of the alarmingly lousy attitude of the sales staff at the local dealer we decided to go for it. Mine is a lagoon blue and his is silver. It was the engine specs and the price tag that attracted us to this vehicle.

The experience at the dealer itself would make enough stuff for a full-fledged review, so I am not attempting at it here. To put it in short, we had to complain to TELCO and a delivery manager at the dealer lost his job L- a very bad managerial action indeed.

Apart from that, my experience with the Xeta has been very impressive so far. It seems we made a right decision in going for this latest offering from the TELCO stable. The car feels good and looks good. And it is quite comfortable for your pocket too. Below given are my first impressions of the vehicle.

Build, fit and finish.

The car feels really safe. The strong sheet metal used and the side impact beams give the car a touch of sturdiness. This, coupled with its superior suspension, gives you the feeling that you are driving a big car (at the least as big as an Esteem J) and makes you confident on highways (good for a family man like me J). The AC is just ok but not up to a Zen AC.

But the fit and finish is one department where TELCO has to improve a lot. The edges of the dashboard and the door linings look coarse and inner beadings on the door feel loose. The door of the glove compartment looks cheap and bent. The paint quality has to improve a lot and is nowhere near a Zen or Swift. It lacks the refinement of the MUL or Hyundai vehicles but is nearly up there. Considering the cost, this isn’t that bad either. My friend’s car had an annoying noise due to a loose belt, when ac was turned on while idling after a cold start.

Ride and Performance

The vehicle pulls great and the low-end torque ensures that you can drive it without having to touch the accelerator pedal at 40kmph in 5th gear!! This will make you delighted in the city where you can ride along with your foot just on break pedal. All you have to do is to make sure that the engine RPM is between 1k and 2k. Though the car has got 70 bhps under the hood, you wont get to feel the punch because of its immense weight (nearly 1000kgs). But there is a +ve attribute for this too. The heavy weight makes the car quite stable on the road and you wont feel the unevenness of the tarmac once you are past 70kmph mark. Once past 70kmph and up till around 100-110, the car is just smoooooth!! Beyond that, the shivering sets in slowly. But this is ok, when compared to Zen. Handling at higher speeds is much better than that of WagonR or Santro. Thanks to its longer wheelbase, making turns at higher speeds is less risky.

The breaking is just excellent. The vehicle stops when you want it to and you only have to worry about the Marutis behind bumping onto you. If you intend to buy a Xeta, insist upon Bridgestone radials. The JK and Apollo are quite noisy.

The vehicle has a lot of “blind spots” and you wont be able to see the bonnet of the car while driving. This means a lot of guesswork on your part as to the length and breadth of the vehicle (quite painful for Maruti users). The hydraulic power steering is less responsive compared to the EPS on the Maruti vehicles. The gearshift too is a notch below the Maruti or Hyundai cars. Finding the reverse gear can be a pain, at times.

Mileage

Here I observe an interesting thing common to all “wholly Indian” vehicles. My friend gets a mileage of whopping 16kmpl in the city while I get only 11-12 L. It seems no two Indicas are identical- just like the Bullet motorcycles where performance and mileage vary considerably between individuals units!!

After sales support and resale value

These two are the Achilles’ heels for TELCO cars. MUL spreads its charm through the excellent after sales and service network whereas TELCO seems to think that just selling is enough. They need to understand that car owners behave quite differently from truck drivers. Their expectations are different.

As for resale value, no one is sure because Xeta is a new entrant in the market. The spare parts are cheaper than those of Santro or Maruti.

To sum it up;

You get a performing, spacious and safer car for the price of an Alto. Now, isn’t that a steal? It certainly is Value For Money.

Now, if you are toooo worried about the mileage, this car may not be the one for you.

This car certainly has got the potential to become an industry benchmark in its segment in terms of power, performance and price.