Re: Tata Indigo Manza : Test Drive & Review My friend has finally take the delivery of his Manza. His whole experience in his own words below:
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"I requested the dealer to fit a set of old tyres but the test drive car they had was new too & had only been driven 350kms.
1. so on the 2nd day I test drove the demo car that too has this left drifting problem.
2. Then changed the tyre of my new car from the demo car but that did not solve the problem.
3.Finally reported the matter to GM of Urmil motors, he asked to get a new car from the stock yard 12 kms outside city, at the stock yard there were 11 manza for me to choose from so based on the VIN number I found that they all are similar batch & month (Jan2011) I picked up 2 cars I Myself drove back the new car which is older (serial number)than this new car billed to me. It had bridgestone tyre and does not show left drifting problem in 12 kms drive back but This drive was on a highway. The moment we reached the city area where we had been testing earlier left drifting was noticed, now I felt that when driving on highway the speed is different & in city the speed differs so it could be speed related issue.
4. I had 2 choices either take new car if I am satisfied or change to bridgestone trye, I decided to test with bridgestone tyre it was changed & alignment checked, went for the test drive with fully loaded car with 5 people just to know if weight can alter that behavior, just 500 mts drive & we still had the left drifting problem even after changing the tyre.
5.Came back & decided to cancel the car & ask for the refund, this is when almost all associated with the car & sales team gathered to know what is the issue, there were few options discussed but I put my foot down that I am not taking this car delivery.
6. GM of Urmil motors joined the discussion & asked me to come along he drove the car & explained me the same theory as you had mentioned, then asked me to drive back but somehow I was not able to get convinced with this as my disbelieving was due to this being a new car & tryes etc. I have always felt this problem when I changed only 2 front tyre but this car has all 4 new tyre. On the way back from test drive he shared his experience as an automobile engineer at airforce station maintaining the vehicles, at this point after returning to the showroom I asked myself that I have driven total 4 new cars 1. test drive of elan, 2. my own new car, 3. two cars which I picked up from the yard, they all are doing this left drifting on certain roads.
Myself being a professional have witnessed few of my own clients who find some problem in our work & we have to deal with them teaching them the facts without being overpowering, inspite of disagreement I convince them & give them options to do things their way, once they fail & acknowledge that what I said was right they come back & then feel educated. I asked myself why not trust the GM word as you also suggested the same reasoning, so I asked him for a written letter acknowledging the left drifting problem & undertake the solution to the problem if trye wear excess or the left drifting problem increase within 1500kms of drive.
He happily wrote a note on zerox copy of the bill itself & assured me that this is not a problem but a nature of new tyre before they are set to follow the contour of the road, he used those same words which you said & made the diagrams to explain the issue which would go away with time within 1000kms.
7. By this time it was already 6.30PM kind of late but they arranged the delivery & assured that any kind of problem they will promptly attend it. I finally drove the car 1 last time from the showroom at 7.25pm on 17th May. I must say that these 2 days were quite taxing on me the issue got to my nerves as I needed the car urgently but the support of this yahoo group was very much like an anchor reassuring me that I am not alone to fight this problem. The car was showing 37kms on odo when I did the PDI so the car is not driven much except that umpteen test drives to sort out this problem made the odo meter reading 105 when I finally took the car.
In the yard all the car I saw were of jan 2001 batch (based on VIN)& the one which I had was the highest serial number (last 4 digits) so no way that the car was accidental & at no time I felt that Urmil motors were trying to push this car to me, they cooperated as much as they could offered me to choose any car from the yard, normally they don't allow people in the yard but this case was exception.
Now my only question is that could this problem be due to any other reason than the new tyre, such as
1.misaligned chassis I tested 4 cars of the same batch (highly unlikely but can happen) a bad batch of cars?
2. some kind of misalignment within the steering wheel if any?
3. any thing else which I am not able to focus.
I have driven total 300kms & the car is smooth & not having any other problem as of now.
After 2 days of settling with the new car I took the car on the wrong side of the road on expressway early morning & the car is now drifting to its right. so I can safely conclude that indeed its a new trye burn-in period which will adjust to the roads, till that time I have to be careful with the steering.
Phew, its been a long tiring experience with this new car in hot summer
with temp going high as 42°C but I am hopeful that my worst fear would be soon subsided & the as car will be smoothly running. Anyone who has driven in this car feels the spaciousness in it, I will post my user experience later sometime next week."
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