NOT INDICA WITH BOOT. Review on Tata Indigo - Diesel

The Indigo cannot be tagged as INDICA with BOOT. It is a much better car than Indica in terms of power, space & rear ride comfort.

I took some time in deciding which Diesel vehicle to go for, as my choice was limited to Esteem Di / Indigo LX. Finally I opted for the Indigo LX after extensive comparison of the features (technical & cosmetic), test drives and feedback from other owners. The car is simply superb given the price one pays for it. This feature rich car has lots to offer. Please do not compare the performance of this oil burner with other 1.3L petrol cars. The diesel powerplant will definitely be slower in pickup, but once hot she can leave lot of vehicles behind. I am yet to take her out on the highway, nevertheless the inside Mumbai the performance is good and mileage is near about 13-13.5km per litre that too of diesel. The aircon (HVAC) is very effective even at noon time in October in Mumbai. Overall fit and finish of the car is extremely good and it has many thoughtful features, some of which are not available even on 8-9 lakh cars. Few of these are

Engine Compartment light - a must but never provided OEM.

Boot Light with ON-OFF switch. - almost all other cars have the light but not the switch.

Instrument Panel Light Dimmer.

Reading Lights inside the cabin both for front as well as rear passengers.

Delayed light out after opening / closing door.

Intermittent wiper with delay time control switch.

The boot is simply huge, one can easily sleep inside, so is the rear leg and abreast space. On a recent comparison, three (fairly on heavier side) of us sat on the rear seat of a Honda City and we were really crushed, whereas in the Indigo the same three of us were quite comfortable. The nose of the car though low, the driver, however, has a good all-round view, thanks to high position of the seats. One sore point is the gear shift which is rubbery as compared to slick shift of the Palio. The shift doesn't feel positive and sometimes, I re-check whether the position I have changed to is achieved or not. The power steering does it's job well and I have driven thru some of the very narrow lanes of Mumbai and came out unscathed. The leather wrapped steering wheel and gear knob are superb, however, the instrument dials could have been the sportier white type as in the GLX. With so many features in the vehicle the Tata's could have easily provided an OEM music system (probably increased the price by another Rs.15000/-) . However, the recommended Panasonic system is pathetic to look and listen, so I settled for a Pioneer system.

Start the car and after 2 minutes you can hardly hear any sound. Be sure to idle the engine for atleast 1 minute prior to driving away. The inside cabin insulation is absolutely fantastic. Initially the vibrations on the gear shift were high, but after driving for about 1500km and maintaining exact requirements for drive-in period the vibrations are almost negligible. There is hardly any turbo lag, and once the tubo charger kicks it is a breeze to drive.

After using this car for the past 2 months I have concluded that we in India can definitely produce world class quality car suitable for Indian pocket provided we have the right drive and support to do so. This just leaves one question unanswered. Why can't Maruti sell the 800 at much lower price as the development cost for this car is practically nil and the overhead cost for producing the same must have been recovered 1000 times over since 1984. Compared even to the base level Indica the features on the 800 is very very minimal and hence the cost should be atleast 100,000/- lower than the present selling price. I am very confident that Tata's dream of producing a Rs.100,000/- vehicle will not remain on the drawing board but will be a reality. Just like GO-INDIA-GO, I would say GO-TATA-GO and like minded people like us will definitely support the drive.

To sum it up, if you have the dough go for the Accent CRDi (@800,000/-) which definitely offers a petrol like performance, else if cost is an important criteria opt for the Indigo instead of the Esteem Diesel.