Dealing With Tata Not Worth It

Dealing With Tata Not Worth It

I have now been an owner of the Tata Safari XZA for two weeks now, and have driven it for 2000 KMs, in the city, and the mountains. Here is my impression from this period. First, the terrible - The car shut down when driving to Rohtang, and could not make the climb. This was barely a few KMS away from Manali, just when the roads start to get steep. I have made this drive several times in the past, with a Hyundai i20 and a Maruti Ciaz, and neither had any issues making it to the pass. It looked like the engine was over-heated, but the temperature gauges read normal. We were unable to get this issue diagnosed and fixed when back in Delhi. The Tata service center was unable to find anything wrong with the car. We haven't experienced this again. Next, the bad - 1. The tech in the car is really bad. It's not just sub-par quality like the reviews make it seem, it's a pain. - The car does not seem to recognise the presence of the key in it's viscinity very well, and about 5-8 times in the last two weeks, we've ended up with it blaring it's alarms, and an error message saying the key was too far away. (The key was right there obviously - a quick start and stop using the ignition button fixes this issue) - We have had a lot of issue with getting Apple Car Play working. Sometimes it just won't recognise the phone connected to it regardless of the number of times you re-plug it, and a restart of the car is all that will fix it. - The rear view camera is god awful. The resolution is absolutely terrible, and is basically useless. The only bit about the park/reverse assistance that helps is the audio alert for proximity. I am very used to the excellent rear view camera on the Maruti Ciaz that gave me a lot of confidence - this doesn't. The other disappointing experience about this purchase was the delivery and post-delivery experience. I had some inkling of this, since poor reviews of Tata Service Centres and the showroom are not uncommon online. However, I did not expect it to be as bad as it was. The staff was generally uncaring, and it needed several follow ups for each step in the delivery process (from booking to the day we actually collected the car) for things to be done. Even now, we continue to painfully follow up on the registration, activation of the Tata iRA app, investigation on the over-heating issue we faced, etc. Since we were already over 2000KMs, we also experienced the first free service, which was also sub-par and disappointing. I will not go into the details of it, but everyone can do without the stress of dealing with Tata staff. The car does have qualities that makes it an attractive purchase, but with the problems I shared above, I do wish I could go back and choose a different, more reliable brand instead. ( Thinking Hyundai, Kia, etc ) The launch of the Mahindra XUV700 recently makes me feel especially bad, since it looks like they've done a much better job of the tech implementation in the car.