[PrasannaDhana]

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to the ownership review of my new acquisition, the Tata Safari Storme Varicor 400 VX 4x2.

Introduction:

For starters, I owned a beautiful Safari DICOR 2.2 LX which I bought in 2012, and drove 1.4 lakh km without any issues. The ownership thread link is here

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-t...-now-sold.html








Long story short, I loved the safari to bits. It was solid, sturdy, durable, highly reliable, extremely comfortable and it fit my needs perfectly. In mid 2017, my dad wanted to replace the car as it was 5 years old that time, and we had clocked around 1.25 lakh km on it, Mind you, that is the most number of km we have ever done on any of our vehicles. We did use our swift for 90k km, sumo grande for 93k km and our chevy beat for 90k km. This is the first car that we reached the 1 lakh milestone.

Honestly though, I still feel we could have retained it for another 1 lakh km as the car was totally fuss free. It was used by my dad mostly and he wanted to have a new set of wheels.


New car buying ordeal:

User: Dad
Driven by: Driver
Types of roads: NH, SH, rural roads that are bad
Priority: Ride quality, Reliability, Space & Presence
Budget: 20 lakhs OTR top


So with the above mentioned reservations, we started our hunt for the new car. There were 2 opinions for the car purchase.

1. Mine: Having faced the terrible resale quotes for my DICOR, I decided to retain it and buy another car that is cheap.

Ecosport
Fuel efficient, value for money Compact SUVs that have sorted handling and decent performance. Naturally I went ahead to test drive the beautiful new ecosport. What a VFM package it was! 6 airbags, solid build, fully loaded Titanium + variant for just 12.xx lakhs OTR. In my opinion ecosport is a steal. Took my dad for the test drive, he bluntly told "This car feels like a bigger kwid". I cant blame him, he is used to Safari's space and dimensions.

I personally loved the way ecosport 1.5 diesel delivered and drove.It was silent, lag was inevident, the steering was precise and the car felt so nice to be in.

Creta

Interiors were better, the engine had a brilliant low end grunt, but the car felt cramped. And it is not VFM by any stretch of imagination.

TUV 300

I wanted my dad to check out the XUV 500, which he did not like. i loved the XUV500 for that stonker of an engine, it is the most responsive and peppy engine in the segment according to me. The way it builds speed is awesome. But he liked the way TUV300 looked. I understood that my dad wanted a proper SUV styled vehicle. TUV was a surprise. I had no positive image about the car until I test drove it. It was so nice to drive. The 100 bhp motor felt eager within the city limits. It was nimble and fun to drive. But the middle bench was too flat and bolero-like that we had to keep it as a second choice.

Innova Crysta

For a guy who has been selling away his Tata cars since 2004, it is a strong impact that resale is always absurd. I wanted that to change, and I liked the Innova crysta. Finally the brand felt like a costly car inside. Again, my dad disposed the idea saying it is a van.

Hexa

My most favourite car(along with the Ecosport) among the search. This car was awesome, VFM and looked great. Again the Aria side profile gave it a MUV look. I made my dad take a test drive, he was impressed, but he complained that the middle bench's seat height was a bit lower than the safari and he felt uncomfortable.

So after a lot of time spent on convincing my dad on cheap VFM C-SUVs to 7 seater 20 lakh MUVs, I had to yield to my dad's opinion.

2. Dad's Opinion:

Only one car was in his mind, and it was a new Safari. He wanted a Safari again. Period.

Back to back rides on Hexa and Safari made me feel safari suited our needs better. It had acres of space in the front 2 rows.
Hexa is a spacious 7 seater, Safari is a very very spacious 5 seater! And the road visibility from the middle row, well-acquainted ergonomics made us seal the deal. I booked a Safari storme VX 400 4x2.

Variant selection was simple. During my DICOR purchase, we actually went to test drive Sumo victa, where I convinced my dad that we should also test drive Safari. Safari test drive made him go for the Safari, but the cost factor was there. That time the difference between sumo top variant and safari base model was just 90k. So we went for the base LX. Now though, I did not want to miss out the top end variant. All other cars in my garage are all top of the line variants. And Tata is foolish enough to provide ABS and airbags in the VX variant alone. Another highlight was the Varicor 400 that also came only in the VX.

We chose 4x2 because we dont have any requirement to go offroad.

Model : Safari Storme
Variant : VX 4x2
Color : Urban bronze/ Pearl white (which ever is the earliest)
Resale for DICOR: 3.25 lakhs (best among 5 dealers in Trichy)
Offers: Exchange bonus 15k + monthly discount 15k + cash discount 22k
Freebies : None
OTR:Rs. 17,00,000/-

First sight, at the yard with my ciaz



Earlier during the day of delivery


Sad sight to see my DICOR unclean and parked under hot sun, hope it finds a caring owner


During delivery, yours truly, my dad and Tata dealer GM


Blessings from the Almighty


The storme does make everything else look small, my RC390 here

[PrasannaDhana]

Tata Safari Storme VX Varicor 400 4x2

Positives:

* Strong build quality
* Space
* Better interior quality
* Comfort
* Engine
* 6 speed gearbox
* Ride quality
* Seating position - view of the road
* Road presence- scares away autowalas
* NVH at 100-120kmph cruising
* Highway cruiseability
* Better brakes
* Better AC
* 5.4 m turning radius
* New key fob, door handles take away the 90s feeling of the older versions. Feels nice.
* Pearl white looks stunning, actually looks bigger than what the car actually is.
* Bridgestone Duellers HT, very durable and fairly silent tyres
* Stock headlamps - quite an improvement over the pathetic ones from DICOR


Negatives:

* Classic safari look is lost
* 20 year old platform - too tall and heavy
* Vibrations over steering and gear lever on bad patches of road
* Boring alloy wheel design
* Underthigh support not great at the front row
* Lack of features - like Navigation, reverse parking camera, MID, ACC, keyless entry, start stop button, cooled glove box, auto dimming IRVM, steering reach adjustment on a car that costs 17 lakhs!!
* Last row loses the floor net
* Handling - still a freakin boat around corners, body roll can be scary for sedan users.
* 6th cog has made the 4th and 5th a little shorter. Frequent shifts on 2 lane roads required.
* Placement of fuel cap release lever
* Complete unavailability of aftermarket accessories for storme - hardly half a dozen stormes run in my city
* Useless 3rd row jump seats. We consider 3rd row as a boot, but the seats do rattle over bumps.

[PrasannaDhana]

Exteriors


Safari has always been a massive car! It has a tremendous road presence and it is one large SUV by Indian standards.


Rear 3 quarters, I miss the tail mounted spare wheel. Grey insert in the middle is a good add on for breaking the monotony


Front - Projectors look cool, the hood is more muscular than before.Fog lamps are quite puny but they function well. Headlamps are a revelation over the DICOR. Finally a safari that doesnt need additional lights. Grille inspired by JLR, a thick chrome strip with storme branding







Rear - fog lamps look like reflectors but are powerful. VX badging on the rear.Prominent TATA badging on chrome strip. The rear step is pretty useful. Rear spoiler houses a rather large stop light.



Side profile is less curvy than before. 16 inch 235 section tyres look small for the bulk of the vehicle. Wheel arches are flared and look massive. Running board looks smaller than the DICOR but they are the same size.


Wiper should have been concealed, looks ugly!




With a small hatchback


With his own sibling - Nexon, shows why Nexon is called a compact SUV


With my Celerio and Kwid 1.0

[PrasannaDhana]

The power bulge


Useful wide ORVM, only gripe is it is not biker ready, wont fold outwards


Finally, a door handle that is not old school. My dicor had flap handles. No keyless enter/request buttons


Boring alloy wheel design, my DICOR's wheel cover had more personality than this. Disc brakes on all wheels


Wide but consistent panel gaps


Projector lamps have that beautiful purple tinge to them


Varicor 400 badging on the side panel


Storme decals


Trapezoidal twin exhausts (the real exhaust juts out as a circular pipe)


In your face front view


Finally a decent flippy Key


Door lock, unlock and headlamps on buttons


Oh yes, I love the pearl white shade


Front wheel wells get full cladding Very impressive NVH! Rear wheel well gets partial cladding though.

[PrasannaDhana]

INTERIORS

In my opinion, the biggest improvement over my dicor is the interiors. Black, grey and silver makes the interior feel a lot upmarket than the plasticky utilitarian one from the DICOR.





This is how my DICOR looked


Steering is similar to zest, comes with telephony and media controls. All stalks feel durable and nice to hold. No reach adjustment.



Best place to be in - Mid row, - excellent support and amazing comfort


Armrest has a storage space with two cupholders


Front seats - Comfortable, has lumbar support, can be height adjusted. Underthigh support though is slightly poorer than DICOR.


The dash is soft to touch (way softer than DICOR's hard dash,it infacts caves in a little when pressed by a finger firmly)


There is a storage space on top of the dash, right in the middle (So no place for idols). It has a soft touch opening action


ABC pedals, no dead pedal on a 17 lakh car There isnt much space at the left of clutch pedal, specially if you are someone like me who wears size 12 shoes.




Rear floor-mounted AC area could have used better plastics


Speakers get classy matte silver borders


A humble 2 din HK unit. Sounds great and pairs with phone easily too.





USB and AUX port, notice the storme badging. It has a small storage space with rubber lining for smart phones, can accomodate 6 inch smartphones easily.


Now Safari gets Euro style headlamp switch placement, near the right knee side of the driver. Rotate the knob to switch on lights in two stages. Pull the knob once to switch on front fog lamps, pull it again to switch on rear fog lamps.


Reading lamps are placed above the IRVM and at the center row. Pretty bright white light!


Finally a 6 speed Gearbox! Both front seats get individual armrests. White contrast stitching on dark grey on all borders of seats and armrests looks cool.


Rear door pad gets a long storage bin


Both front seats get back pockets. Legroom shown here is after fully pushing the front seats to the limit.


Both front door pads have 1 liter bottle holders and storage space. The plastics on door pad are fairly soft and supportive.


IRVM- no auto dimming feature

Look at the stupid placenment of fuel lid opener button. Only driver's window gets auto-down. My cheaper ciaz gets auto down as well as up.

[PrasannaDhana]

Interiors contd..

The front leg room is tremendous, and so is the second row's. I am 6'2 and I still have 4 inches left after setting the seat at the farthest position.


Underthigh support and back support is phenomenal
Minimum and maximum lw=egroom shown


Area under the parking brake can hold a big wallet easily


The rear boot space - jump seats are torture devices

View from the jump seats


Rear door pad

Useless storage space- too small for a bottle


Front AC vents - rotary knob for horizontal adjustment


Rear roof mounted AC vent (which I missed in my DICOR) makes cooling a lot more quicker and effective


Roof mounted AC adjustment switch


Simple yet classy odo- no MID. Just 2 trip meters, 1 digital clock, a temperature read out, a speedometer and a tachometer


Puddle lamps are bright

Driving the Varicor 400

The bonnet feels less heavier than the DICOR, gets insulation. The 2.2 Varicor is a refined mill, lot more refined than the DICOR.


Neatly laid our bay, with varior 400 engine cover


The Safari Storme Varicor 400 is powered by a 2.2 liter common rail diesel engine that puts out 154 BHP and 400 Nm torque. My DICOR made 138 BHP and 320 Nm torque, which was itself adequate.
The car wont crank unless you depress the clutch . The 18 BHP 80 Nm increment just makes the engine even more driveable. The lag is minimal and it pulls strongly from 2000 rpm onwards. The clutch is way lighter than the DICOR and it is easy to use. The 6 speed gear box is a boon on highways but I feel it has made 4th and 5th a little shorter, which is where we spend a lot of time on rural SH.
100 kmph comes at a tad less than 2000rpm, and the NVH at 100 kmph is extremely impressive. You can have a conversation easily and you wont even hear the diesel clatter. Storme can easily do 120kmph all day!

The difference between DICOR and VARICOR 400 becomes very evident during overtaking maneuvers. It closes gaps effortlessly and much quicker than the DICOR.

The gear box is a bit notchy and has long throws. But the gear lever is short and nice to hold. The brakes are vastly improved over the DICOR, the credit goes to all 4 disc brakes. Reverse gear needs you to get to 6th gear position and then a small push towards the right. Parking sensors help, but reverse camera is sorely missed.

Performance is quite adequate. To have a perspective, it has a 13.xx second 0-100 kmph, that is faster than a swift diesel! Not at all bad for a 2.7 tonne tall SUV. It does do filthy speeds on the highways without much of a sweat. But taking a storme to 120+ is illegal and dangerous if you are inexperienced with driving SUVs.

Ride and Handling

Ride quality is the greatest positive about the Storme. It glides over broken roads like it is nothing. I would rate safari ride quality better than even the impressive Hexa. I felt Hexa was stiffer.

Handling department is typical of a tall SUV. Body roll is very evident. The steering is light and it picks up all road undulations and shows it through vibes. The turning radius is ridiculous, i mean, it turns as short as a midsize c2 sedan. My ciaz is identical to my storme at 5.4m turning radius. The DICOR had a 5.9m turning radius which made it an intimidating SUV to drive within the city.

[PrasannaDhana]

In Car Entertainment

Storme comes with a humble 2 Din Harman Kardon unit which supports bluetooth, USB and aux-in. The sound quality is best among 4 cars of mine. I am not a person who focus much on music in a car. Hence my opinion about it is limited.

The ICE display doubles up as parking sensor read out.

Safety

Storme VX comes with dual airbags and ABs with EBD. Conservative list when compared to SUVs of its segment though. Too stupid of Tata to omit airbags on the LX and EX variants.

Conclusion

TeamBHP review states Storme Varicor 400 is "The Best Safari" till date. I have to agree to it 100%. For a Safari fan, this is the best you can get for 17 lakhs OTR. Excellent visibility, road presence, amazing ride quality, powerful engine, impressive NVH, good interior quality for most part, incredible space and tough build quality. It does have its flaws like compromised handling, useless 3rd row, minor niggles like random squeaks and rattles that may or may not repeat itself. For a Safari fanatic used to earlier safaris, it might be a different experience to have a safari that is more of a car than a truck to drive.

Thank you for reading my ownership review. I will be updating this thread regularly.

A few parting shots:

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Initial Ownership Section. Thanks for sharing!

[Thebat]

Congratulations,

May you have a happy and lovable time with a car which had caught the fancy of our imagination for over a decade. I still remember the classy safari advertisements featuring a red safari which was the dream of my childhood.

The colour is excellent and many might mistake you to be a well healed politician with the white safari and your personality.

Please do keep the thread updated, your thread on the RC and the Duke before that are a treat to follow.

Happy mile munching.

[SJM1214]

Congratulations on the new acquisition.

Safari DICOR replaced with Safari Storme. One of the big example of the cult following of this amazing vehicle. May your new car take you to new places and open up new opportunities in your life. Congratulations.

[NTO]

Congratulations on your new ride.. I have always been a fan of Safari and liked it much better than Scorpio but, my dad had something against TATA cars (he used to work Ashok Leyland and since TATA was their competitors, we never had a TATA car in our shopping list ever!). That said, I would love to buy a Safari just for its sheer presence and the way it drives over bad roads.

Contrary to regular belief, your review reads that your old Safari was niggle free. This proves what a proper maintenance can do to any car. You have maintained your old safari really well and I guess that has paid off. Please keep updating the thread and when I am in for a new car Safari will be on my bucket list.

[prithm]

Good one Prasanna. Safari's have always been the true models of SUV along with Sumo's of 90's. Atleast for the upper middle class families which wanted a vehicle for the love of the long distance road trip all season.

I fondly remember Safari and Sumo's in Tamilnadu highways competing each other during Summer vacation months and gliding effortlessly over bales of paddy spread on roads for drying and dehusking.

Very very enticing model, but Mahindra is fast catching up and recent facelift of XUV is making one overlook the Rs.2 lakh premium cost due to better safety and plush interior.

Tata needs to get into fight mode to get more air bags, exciting interiors and options to customize before delivery from dealer.

But loved the down to earth writing style and can relate to many of the topics that you mentioned here.

[gururajrv]

Congratulations Prasanna! I've read your ownerships on Safari and RC390!

I was and always a Safari fan! Macho looks smashing and it compliments your build too

One eye sore are the alloys and tyre size that doesn't go well with the overall proportion of the car. Tata did a sad job with the wheel design.

If at all you are planning on any mods, please consider a good set of wheels and tyres for the beast to compliment it's stance.

Happy mile munching on the beast!

PS:
Waiting for few more pics

[Amit_Kapoor4750]

Congratulations on your new ride.
Since ages, Safari has been associated with utmost power and presence. It is true that you can’t compare it with the rings and bells of the modern cars of this segment, but it still has that power and presence. I am sure that Hexa must have given a good competition to Safari in your decision-making process.

[APV]

Congratulations PrasannaDhana. True Beast indeed. Wish you many more happy miles.

As you rightly mentioned, the alloys look really out of place. any plans to change them?