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-   -   Tata Nexon : Official Review (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/official-new-car-reviews/191396-tata-nexon-official-review-118.html)

Hi Soumen,
I'm a current owner in Delhi NCR of -
2013 EcoSport P AT (40k Kms) &,
2018 Nexon XMA Petrol (4k Kms)

I'm satisfied with AMT performance, particularly the Eco and Sport modes. The City mode doesn't suit my driving style at all.
Generally, EcoSport gives 8-10 kmpl depending on the conditions. Nexon is giving 11-13 kmpl depending on the conditions. Both for city usage.
The EcoSport transmission is a lot better and quicker, but Nexon AMT is acceptable enough for me. Compared to the older Ecosport the Nexon petrol engine has a lot more usable torque and revs up quicker. The EcoSport handles better. I say this when driving both cars concurrently nowadays.

You'll not go wrong with either. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

My XZA+ P is 2 months old and I got the first check-up done today, odo stands at 1600Km. The high GC and AMT make it a great car to drive within the city. I used to tire easily in my Rapid (diesel manual and a heavy clutch), but can drive this one (or any other automatic for that matter) all day. So this car is affordable and practical for city use. I have not taken it out on the highway yet, but going by the behaviour in 'sport' mode, it should serve well there too. The MID shows 11.5Kmpl average FE as of now and I drive in all modes with most time spent in 'city' mode.
The problems I have experienced are:
1. Weird throttle response and gear shifts in 'city' mode. I would prefer to stick to 'eco' for crawling and 'sport' while at speed. There is some turbo lag, which is less pronounced in 'sport' mode.
2. Minor rattles in the door and some of the plastics. But these seem to get fixed in service.
3. Relatively large blind spots around the A pillar, compared to the squeaky clean design of the Rapid.

Now you see why Honda iVtec engines felt like a turbo towards the flyup RPM, same goes for VVT , VTVT etc.
Since BHP is a function of torque and RPM, increasing the Rev range of an engine helps them market it as more powerful, while not necessarily being able to use that power in day to day driving. The same vtec system tries to make the engine more fuel efficient in lower RPMs at the expense of driveability. I find Honda vehicles difficult to drive in traffic.

This high RPM performance is not practical unless you want to look restless behind the wheel and tire the passengers as well while Your fuel efficiency also will take a hit . What you need is an engine that feels effortless In the idle to mid RPM levels, this however is difficult to achieve with smaller petrol engines.

:OT
It all depends on your definition of ‘fun to drive’. For me, fun to drive is ‘a high revving petrol engine preferably naturally aspirated, rev matching downshifts wherever required (hence more gear changes will be made compared to a sedate driver resulting in reduced fuel efficiency), steering held at 9 and 3 o’clock position’ etc. The roads in Kerala are usually single laned with lots of twists and turns, cruise control is of zero use here at majority of roads including highways.

I don’t find ivtec engines difficult to drive in traffic, my perception of difficult to drive may be different from others. So I think people are misinterpreting ‘ease to drive’ as ‘fun to drive’ or may be for them it may be a fun drive only when the drive was easy.

Note : I have boring ‘drives’ also when traveling with my parents, wife and kid. But when I drive alone (70% of time) I make sure I have fun, even though the drive is not easy. Please find a sample of the roads I have in my native below.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ujTnuBv8L5s

I drove a friend's Nexon the other day. A few observations:
- the glass area feels rather small comparing to the size of the car overall!

- the massive solid black notch behind the central rear view mirror! Why is it so big, and solid black? Why not dotted like most other manufacturers?

- the Steering wheel made a sight thudding noise when i set it the lowest position and drove through a bad patch of road.

- the doors were missing the tiny round rubber stub bushing from all the doors! This is just bad. Told him to get it fit from the service centre.

- the low end torque is a bit lower in sport mode compared to city mode.. that's weird.

- i was noticing a bit of outside smells and smoke even though all windows were closed and the ac was on recirculate mode. This usually doesn't happen in my car.

Not all bad though.
- engine is responsive, and fun to drive.
- suspension hits a sweet spot. Not too firm, not too soft!
- ground clearance+large tyres = never worry about scraping the bottom!

Observed this with Maruti cars and not with Hyundais.

When the seal on the recirculation door in the AC unit gets loose, external odours start getting pulled in.

Get the seal checked at the service station.

Regards
Nikhil

I feels it's as expected. The city mode would be more drive-ability focused for higher gear + lower rpm drive for more tractibility while the sport mode would be for flat out driving and favor the opposite - lower gear + higher rpms.

Hi BHPian's, has anyone of you observed some strange noise from rear left (fuel tank side) when going at speed over small bad patches on the road?
Also, please share your experience on the ECU update for the diesel. I recollect someone saying it has made the engine noisy!

I also feel that my nexon diesel engine is bit noisy after first service.

Coming back here to post about my latest tank fill.

Date of 5th fill - 7th Oct
Date of 6th fill - 25th Oct
KM run - 522KM
Fuel consumed - 33.7 L
Mileage - 522/33.7 = 15.49KMPL.
Mileage recorded by MID - had reset in betweeen, hence no end to end mileage recorded.
Mode of drive - CITY/ SPORTS ::

I could have held onto refuelling till I complete 550KM atleast. But 26th Oct, I had to go to a temple very early in the morning and I didn't want to go to a pump at that early hours, hence I decided to refuel on 25th itself.

This drive was purely on CITY mode, barring around 6KM in SPORTS mode when I had to zip ahead. Till now, this is the best mileage I have achieved and again purely within Bangalore.

I had many learnings from this run.

• The mileage is best when driven a little above 1500RPM. No need to constantly look at the speedo, I have kind of "understood" from the car's response that it is at this range. Whenever the engine is at this RPM, the car will be remaining in the current gear and a little push up will get you to the next gear. If come down by a couple of hundred RPMs, it will come down. Hence, being here, we can easily manage to quickly come down/ go up. So, I call this "sweet spot" myself!!!!
• When driven in this RPM, the instant mileage indicator will be at 30kmpl.
• It is not necessary to be in ECO mode to get the best mileage, I get better in CITY mode. In ECO mode, I am yet to find this "sweet spot", might be once I find, it could return a better average without compromising on the driving thrill.

Currently I have completed 2750 KM on ODO, so, probably from next fill onwards, I will go purely in SPORTS mode atleast for a tankfull to check how it is.

Completely OT, but I could not resist, it looks :thumbs up. That is some taste. Got more pictures? I saw in the Safari/Storme thread but maybe, your ride needs a thread of its own :).

Have you posted about your experience in the Storme thread?

I did my first long drive in the Nexon to Chikkamagalur earlier this week. Was happy to see the petrol AMT climb the Mullayanagiri mountain well in sports mode. Took it up to the Seethalayanagiri temple half way up, since there were other transport arrangements from there on.
Overall mileage was around 13.5Kmpl measured from tank-full to full. The eager-to-please MID was showing 15.5Kmpl over the same period. It was almost completely driven in sports mode. True to its name, city mode is purely for driving in the city. It is exasperating to use in a 2 lane highway with some truck traffic.

So got my 2nd Free service done last week as its been almost 6 months now. The ODO read 5054 Kms as its not my daily driver but still make sure i take it out for a spin every weekend. So coming to the service i received a call from my dealer reminding me about a next service date however i was not so eager to go their initially as its a bit off route for me. However i received another call from another showroom which had started its operations just a couple of months ago reminding me about the due service. TATA sends notifications and emails to customers and dealers alike to call them and remind them about the forthcoming service which is really a nice thing from TATA. I have a very busy schedule and am available on weekends only but this dealer offered to pick my car from my work place or home,get it serviced and hand over the keys back to me once done so that was really a nice gesture from them.Kudos to TATA for such a great initiative.

Somehow i thought i can give this dealer a try as its still a free service and not much is to be done on my car so decided to go there on a weekend by myself rather than asking them to take my car. Once i reached, couple of people greeted me and offered me a welcome coffee to get comfortable. I discussed a few niggles here and there my car was experiencing and they listened to me patiently. Once i was done they decided to take me along in my car to verify the niggles and find the exact issues what i was talking about.During the drive we discussed how the issues are realized and they were convinced with my claims of the issues i was talking about. They kept a note of it and told me i can either wait in the customer lounge or they can take me to my next destination if i have to go anywhere.I told them i will wait and was accompanied by another person to show me the way to the lounge.The lounge looked clean and well lit up and had a massive LED in place just to keep me entertained.

After some time i was offered another Coffee and a feedback form to fill up for the customer lounge service they provided. Once i was done with that i was told one of the issue has been fixed and i can check it personally.The executive accompanied me to the area where the car was being worked upon and drove off with me to show that the niggle has been fixed which actually was fixed correctly. After that, same process was repeated with another issue and they made sure i am convinced by the work they have done before they move to the next issue.

This is how things went at the dealership and overall i am impressed with the level of professionalism they showed while dealing with my car.Whatever i had told them to do with my car they obliged and didn't make any excuse which is really a good things.

Now coming to the niggles and issues i was facing below is the summary for the same.

1.Co driver window was vibrating if kept half or partially down when passing through the pot holes or bad roads.They fixed it and made sure other windows don't have such an issue.

2.AC Vents were blowing some hot air inside the cabin even when the AC was off which they fixed and as per them AC filter had a minor issue which they fixed.

3. Steering Road was making some noise and their answer was its not an issue as Nexon has Electronic steering and its the electric motor which makes the sound and is common with Electronic steering cars.

4. Cabin light was not dimming after 30 seconds once a while(happened rarely) when i close the door of my car which as per them was fixed by checking the door sensor.

5.I had told them i did not receive any call for updating my ICE as my car has August 2017 build but they said they will update the ICE on their own and need not to wait for the call from TATA which made me really happy. Now my car has October 2018 build with Apple Car play support.


My car was serviced in about 3 hours as i told them i have some urgent work in the afternoon which they obliged with so overall i am happy with the service. However once i left i tried to pair my Pixel 2 XL phone with the Car and it connected properly but the call log and phone book did not show on the screen surprisingly and i tried to delete the paired device multiple times but nothing happened so i thought its a huge bug in the ICE update which i should report and while i was trying to fix the thing my car went through a pot hole and there was a small bump or a thud in the car i could feel and miracle happened.All the contacts and Call log reflected on the screen after the bump and i was really surprised how it happened.Had that sheepish smile on my face after it as it was something really non technical thing to happen which caused my ICE screen to work correctly after the impact.

After the current ICE update i feel the sound has become much sharper and better than before not that it wasn't great but i feel the performance has improved a few notches.Plus i feel the video resolution has improved massively for the rare parking camera and now its giving better and clearer video output.Is it me only who thinks so or has the camera improved actually i would like to know from my fellow Nexon owners.

@Jakku, quite a few detailed updates there from you. However, would suggest you create an ownership thread for your Nexon, where specific details like fuel filling can be put in. IMO, this thread could be for common discussions.