The best car for your Budget, best in Class

 

Exterior I loved the exteriors, you really feel its big car for the cash you pay. Clear headlights is best attraction, bumper, grills are class apart in design. So as the rear view with high mounted stop lights. Tyres are broader and look fit for size of car, although bigger wheel arches put you down a bit.

 

Interior (Features, Space & Comfort) First you would appreciate about Indica is space inside for 5 passengers. I had been a driver in all cases, but when had chance to sit on rear seats, I felt like I am sitting in some big sedan car, the front 2 seats can be adjusted by sliding accordingly, to suit your height. Front seats can be reclined fully to make a bed, while rear seats can be folded completely to make huge luggage space in rear. There are good and many storage spaces, excellent and easily readable speedometer and tachometer, AC is powerful and chills you quickly with 4 front and 2 front legroom vents. The negative sides are low quality switches and dash borard.

 

Engine Performance, Fuel Economy and Gearbox For 1.2 L engine and size of car, Indica can be called performance car for below 3 lakh budget. Its easy and cool to drive at speeds between 40 to 50 ( 4th gear ) and from 50 to 90 ( 5th gear ). You will take few seconds to reach speed of 50. But then it takes no time to reach speed of 90. Fuel economy is also good, considering this car is 1000 kg. Actually Fuel economy greatly depends on your driving habit. With this car you will feel bored to drive at 50 - 60 speed which is optimum speed for higher efficiency. Its your choice, to have fun at driving 80 km / hr or get more fuel economy. It gave me 16 km / ltr of economy on highways driving at 60 km / hr with AC off.. if you are driving in city with frequent stop and acceleration, it will come down to 12 - 14 with AC on.

Gearbox is one problem although its not bad. In city, you may have to shift between 2nd to 3rd gear often. The real headache abut this car is Reverse gear. You may even spend 1 minute to go to Reverse and few times you may get it on first throw.

 

Ride Quality & Handling You feel like car is moving slow, rock steady, but speedo will show it cruising at 60 - 70 km/hr. You never feel car is going out of control. I am giving my opinion for GLE version as it dont have power steering. If you are not driver, then relax on headrest of your seat and you may feel you are not really in car if driver is good. Indica softens up the pothelos and speed breaker, but fails to block them completely. Driving Indica XETA is one good expereince and if roads are good and smooth you wont get tired of driving.

 

Final Words I brought Indica XETA 1.2 GLE for Rs 2.85 on road in Nov 2007.. It was one great surprise for having big car at below 3 lakhs, but there was cash discount of Rs 22,000 at that time ... !!! if your expectations are not high and you have seen other cars in this budget, then Indica is very good choice. Remember it is 5 seater car with lots of weight adding to safety, so you are bit compramising on fuel economy to other light wight cars in this budget.

TATA offered me 3 year free service, and service station gave me satisfactory results. here in my expereince, I just took appointment for service, parked my car in servce station and got it in afternnon ready, on all free services. The cars which can compete with price budget are Maruti 800 and Alto few 20 or 30 thousand less, And santro competing on higher limit of Budget, but all these are small cars.

 

Areas of improvement Gearshift is headache, soecially reverse gear. Quality of interiors need to improve. I had replace few parts in these 3 years, and they are not expensive, but not really easy on pocket. TATA should refine the engine and it will help if we get more power in 3rd and 4th gears. In GL and GLE versions, you can get your bumpers, and ORVMs painted to body color and it looks like higher model and beautiful.

 

1. Space for 5 2. Great Looks 3. Solid Feel 4. Performance 5. Luggage 6. Fuel Economy for size1. Fuel economy in class 2. Average quality Interiors 3. Less power at low speeds 4. Resale value