The quandary of a Tata owner!

Hi folks, How are you doing? Yesterday was a very interesting day for me from a perspective of an owner of one of Tata’s latest, modern vehicles viz. The Tata Harrier. Will come to this later.

The Harrier is my 4th Tata car, having owned the Indica V2, Tata Sierra, and Tata Safari Dicor previously. I am also currently part of a Pune-based SOUL group and the joke goes that if you want to stop any Tata car from rattling, turn up the audio volume. The rattles will drown and you will not hear a thing. 

The Indica V2 Non-Turbo was a coarse machine, low on power but high on reliability. But the door pads squeaked, the dashboard rattled, the rear parcel tray made various inhuman noises. 

The Sierra was a beautiful machine to drive. But the less said about NVH the better. firstly it was a 1995 vintage vehicle with 7 previous owners. Hhhmmmppphhh!!! It was an IDI NA engine, decent power and economy but I got tired of constantly fixing the rattles and of the old archaic handling.

Then came the Tata Safari Dicor. The engine was miles ahead of anything that was Tata that I had driven before. 140PS, 320NM and VGT Turbo CRDI super refined fast engine. Boy oh boy! What a towering presence she had! She was fast but with an old-fashioned torsion bar front suspension setup, the steering had a very vague feeling. But I loved her while I had her! I still do. Whenever I see a well-maintained specimen, its an eyeball grabber for me. I just can’t get over her! BUT – The rear door squeaked away in all its glory, the alignment went haywire because of the heavy spare wheel mounted on the tailgate. The overall plastic quality was flimsy. I even had the dashboard cave in due to missing fasteners. The seats were very comfy though. The steering made this “kkkrrrrrrrr” noise on full turns. Many things sounded off from unexpected places. So I had a decent sound system installed in an attempt to drown out all the noises.

In spite of all this I went ahead and bought the Harrier after seeing numerous reviews of safety, build quality, parts fit and finish, interiors and drive quality. I even tested it back to back with an Innova and came back impressed with the way she handles. I mean the Harrier! There is very little body roll, and with the Fiat-inspired 2.0 liter Kryotec engine, she goes like stink! The drive modes are nice, hill descent and multi-terrain modes work well.

Coming back to the owner’s quandary – my car has run only about 1800 km till date, what with the work from home and travel restrictions and all that! The other day I was traveling to the office and I thought I “heard” a rattle from the left front door pad. Seemed like it came from somewhere near the ORVM. Shucks! I did not expect that. I was really depressed. Then it stopped for a while and I thought it must have been some loose nut (like me). But then it reappeared yesterday. I was shit scared too. “Ab door panel kholna padega, ASC me jana padega aur isko resolve karna padega”. After having spent close to 23 lacs INR to get the car home, this is not what I expected.
On the way back home, the rattling noise grew in magnitude. Now it seemed like it was coming from near the dash. I opened and closed the glove box. It was still there. Then I purposefully drove the car over some rough patches wishing secretly that whatever was misaligned would fall back in place and the noise would go away. Only the magnitude changed, but yeah, it was there! That ominous Tata rattle in a brand new Harrier. I was furious with myself and with Tata. I even smoked a cigarette in frustration!
Then I got back into the car, slammed the door shut, put on my sunglasses from the sunglass holder near the courtesy light, started her up and started driving again! Somehow the rattle had stopped. There was no more noise. The car was as silent as a mouse. I could hear the engine humming. And then I realized that the bloody rattle was the pair of sunglasses placed in the plastic holder.

So the quandary that I was talking about is – “To buy or not to buy is the question”. I believe I have answered it in my dialogue above and so are other people who are buying the new Harrier and Safari in big numbers. They have probably sold more than what the Dicor and Stormes sold in their lifetime (I may be exaggerating). But all’s well that ends well!

No more rattles Tata!!! Do you hear that?

PS: All image credits to respective owners! Idam Na Mama!!

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