Long Term Review Report 3
The Tata Tigor has been in the CarWale garage for three months now and in that time we have put the car through quite a few paces. This time around, we are giving you our experience out on the highway with the car.
Firstly, though, the car went for a service to repair a choked airbox for climate control unit. In that time Tata also repaired a broken bonnet stand which had loosened up during usage. The AC is back to functioning completely though we feel that cooling is still not as good as when the car arrived into our garage three months ago.
With a string of holidays over the last few weeks, I decided to take my annual holiday to my hometown in South Maharashtra. My trip from Navi Mumbai to the Malvan region and back took me over a triparte of good roads, bad roads and some that even a truck driver would think twice before driving on. Here, on these pockmarked patches, the Tigor’s suspension came alive and was able to absorb everything thrown at without losing its composure. The trick I discovered is to keep going with a constant pace over a majority of imperfections and only slow down when there was pot hole or bump that would affect the bumpers.
The 1.05-litre diesel engine, while having a decent amount of mid-level grunt, but is quite audible and you can really feel the gravelly tone when you are pushing the car into three digit speeds. Lack of refinement apart, the car has excelled fuel efficiency and gave me 20kmpl on the highway and 17kmpl in city conditions. What’s surprising, these numbers have stayed constant even with a fully loaded boot and five people/ four people with doggy in the car.
In terms of handling, the Tigor is softly sprung and this is evident in the way it handles. There is straight line stability at highway speeds but through the corners, it tends to roll with the steering, not weighing up accurately. It is best then to stay away from quick direction changes and let the car glide from point-to-point while doing the turns.
Our shoot schedule has been quite tight this month and this means the car has spent a lot of time shuttling on my daily commute route from the office to my home and back. This has given me an idea of how the car will perform in daily city driving conditions which I shall address in my next report.
Photos: Kaustubh Gandhi
Tata Tigor Long Term Review Report 1
Tata Tigor Long Term Review Report 2
Five Labours of the Tata Tigor