Tata Manza - First thoughts on my new car

Model - Aqua Quadrajet BS 4

Place of Purchase - Concorde, Ambattur, Chennai

On-Road Price - 6.7L

Experience with the Dealer - Very responsive & helpful. A salesman by the name of Manikandan helped us throughout the entire process; from TD to Car Delivery to delivering the Extended Warranty at doorstep.  I strongly recommend this person, since he was absolutely helpful inspite of my telling him that I was trying to decide between Manza/Dzire/Verito. I also had no need to shop around since he did not give me any reason to do so.

• Test Drive done twice: TD + car brought on a different day to my house to check if it can be parked inside compound wall
• After payment, proper follow up from Manikandan
• Vehicle delivered on time

If I have to be really knitpicky, then I would say that the car was not cleaned properly before delivery.

Thoughts so far

Pros:

• It feels fantastic to be inside the car
• Except for the rear boot design, the car has lines on the front and sides which give it a very nice look
• Driving on highways is an absolute delight - the car can easily punch out power when required, esp. in the 60-100 Kmph range
• Great stability - no body rolls like in Dzire

Cons:

• Clutch action - There is very less clutch play and mostly very close to the floorboard. This makes it quite difficult to control the car in Chennai city traffic where half clutch is absolutely necessary for inching along.(Hopefully I can get this fixed in the first service)
• Car size - The car is quite large making it a nightmare to protect the car from scrapes by bikers/autos who buzz like flies on both sides of the car with cms to spare.

I highly recommend this car if your monthly usage involves atleast 60% highway driving. Well, tbh, I would recommend a Hatchback if you drive mostly on city roads :) & not a sedan(be it any), I will write a more detailed review after doing a couple of 1000 kms.

Vijay.