[theMAG]

That is unacceptable quality control, and specifically around a component that could be particularly fatal to the occupants. In today's world, where India is an established major global economy and no longer considered to be a developing country, defects of this nature from a manufacturer, even if one in a thousand, have no place.

I would urge the owner to file a lawsuit against the manufacturer; if anything it will serve as a symbolic bulwark for consumers.

[vigneshkumar31]

It gets scary thinking if the same issues would be carried over to the Harrier+ as well. Tata's stellar QC and aftersales can gun down even best designed cars in the country.

Only a matter of time until some moronic youtuber snips this picture from the forum and clickbait video out of this with a misleading caption.

[yogesh.8984]

Do we have any update on further investigation and response from TATA? Really curious to know what went wrong here as this is not any minor glitch / niggle but a serious miss on quality front which could have resulted in catastrophe.

[Salnv]

Originally Posted by GTO

Thanks to Saurabh Akhilesh Shukla for sending this information in. Heartfelt gratitude for sharing it with other enthusiasts via this page!

It is scary! Is it the under car coating which is seen in black? If yes, mostly it is done during the first service time frame and during which they tried to make the coating "perfect" by spaying it on the entire fuel tank and by removing the bolts and forgot to tighten it back as I don't think the car will be able to drive for 2000 KM if it were a assembly line issue. Handbrake and associated parts running close to the fuel tank might have been damaged/loosed due to the large weight and momentum of the hanging fuel tank ( with fuel ) while the car was running.

[akshay380]

Originally Posted by GTO

Thanks to Saurabh Akhilesh Shukla for sending this information in. Heartfelt gratitude for sharing it with other enthusiasts via this page!



Attachment 2118485

Attachment 2118484

Attachment 2118486

Do we have any further update from the original poster? We really need to get clarity on this. Was some mischief that happened at dealer end during some work or a QC issue. Tata motors will take this very seriously.

[Sedate]

It looks like it will take far more vibrations than just 2000 km driving to have the bolts loose - Especially for two bolts to loosen itself!
https://www.boltscience.com/pages/vibloose.htm



There is no clear requirment for removing the fuel tank and it is a major job considering it is straddled across the exhaust with heat shields in between.

Shouldnt this be looked at another angle - Some one might have removed these bolts as a sabotage attempt? It is highly unlikely that two bolts in critical part like fuel tank goes simply missing! Then again, will diesel catch fire just by contact heat exchange with heatshield and exhaust?

[wrongturn]

That's literally just One Bolt between a life and death situation and TATA wants us to go off-road with this? If one of the bolt on either of the clamps breaks I don't think the other clamp would be able to sustain the weight of the entire tank.

In this case, maybe one bolt was missing before the owner started the journey, and other one came loose later which led to this situation. Now would it be possible for the other bolt which later gave up, to hold the entire weight of the tank for 2000kms? This should probably answer weather the first bolt was missing from the very start or if it was a feat that the TASS was able to achieve, non the less it's very unsettling. These are just my assumptions.

TATA could have atleast secured the clamp with two bolts on both sides instead of just one, kind of like this pipe in this picture.



Is this the legendary LR pedigree they boast about. This is a design/ engineering failure in my opinion. No amount of production cost cutting excuse can cover up for the fact that a crucial component like the fuel tank is secured in such a way, that's just a single point of failure between a potential deadly disaster. A fuel tank should atleast be secured with a multi point failure system wherein if one system fails other can securely hold the tank.

This is just unacceptable.

[lurker]

A few months ago my bil just took delivery of a brand new tata harrier top varient w/sunroof dark edition xza+ ? yada yada was on the way from the showroom to home when it stopped abruptly in bangalore chennai expressway bang in the middle of a flyover with total electric blackout and no ignition no nothing. Imagine a brand new car breaking down in peak traffic and that too in middle lane of a busy inter-state highway. So entire traffic buzzing around the broken down stranded vehicle with new car ribbons etc in midst of peak traffic wondering what the hell is going on and why this jerk stopped in middle lane.

Fortunately an employee of Tata in blue company overralls happens to pass by on his activa after 15 mins and notices the stranded brand new Harrier stuck in middle lane in peak traffic and realizes the massive embarassment and shame that it brings to his employer offers to help and finds that the battery terminals have not been bolted down but are still in some shipping configuration where they are left loose and someone just casually connected it to battery to start the vehicle and maybe drive it to dealers and parked it there for delivery and forgot all about that. The Tata employee also mentions that he stopped to help because the Harrier was a brand new car and it was a prestige product for Tata. Otherwise he may not have stopped by.

BIL called up Tata dealer and asked him as to why such an embarassing situation took place and he had nothing to say. And even after bringing new car home the dealer didn't offer to send his technician home and rectify or offer to trouble-shoot, bil had to take the car back to the dealer next day where the terminals were properly clamped and bolted down.

So gents if you are getting a harrier please do a proper PDI including underbody inspection and take a look into engine bay to check if everything is bolted down proper.

[chittybang]

Is there an inquiry report of some sort for this particular case? How will the owner have a peaceful drive ever after such an incident. There will always be fear of something else messing up. It ruins the entire ownership for a long long time. I find it hard to believe that such a massive error is possible, it seems more likely something fishy happened at the service centre. Could the owner throw some light on what kind of work happened or is mentioned on the service bill? If nothing was done beyond a basic service then TATA has a lot to explain.

Finding a good service centre is looking like the secret to a happy ownership. It doesn't matter which car we chose unless we have a good service centre. One reason I am not considering a Mahindra in Navi Mumbai is because of my horrendous experience with G3 motors. We should collate a list of reliable service centres in all major cities for respective brands. It would be of immense help.

[srishiva]

So the PDI is getting more and more technical in terms of requirements. I thought it was more for cosmetic faults we were doing PDI

We are continuing the discussions but not sure if either the service centre or Tata has found the root cause. The clamps could have been something that is fixed at the bottom but removed and tightened at the top so that it can only loosen and not fall off.

[shancz]

Originally Posted by lurker

So gents if you are getting a harrier please do a proper PDI including underbody inspection and take a look into engine bay to check if everything is bolted down proper.

I am assuming its a pun, was a good laugh anyway.
But if it isn't its not a workable solution, we trust the service centers to do a good job because that's what they charge for. Its their QC which has to improve not us spending an hour checking all the nuts and bolts, pun intended

Originally Posted by srishiva

We are continuing the discussions but not sure if either the service centre or Tata has found the root cause.

Absolutely right, no point blaming anyone until the root cause is found.
Lets wait for the concerned person to come back with updates.

[vipul_singh]

Originally Posted by wrongturn

That's literally just One Bolt between a life and death situation and TATA wants us to go off-road with this?
.
.
.
Is this the legendary LR pedigree they boast about. This is a design/ engineering failure in my opinion.

That was actually my first observation, more than any assembly issues, or even sabotage. The fuel tank bracket my lowly Honda Jazz GK looks (to my eyes, at least) more solid than the one on the Harrier:

[silverado]

Team Bhp is more than 15 years old, Mods can confirm if this is a first such instance on Team bhp ( Fuel tank dangling on any car ! forget about a new 2k kms run Harrier ).

Not an expert at analyzing this, but had owner driven car in this state, the remaining two bolts would have given up resulting in entire loaded tank falling to ground between front and rear axle, which at speeds could have been catastrophic.

With Fuel leak and friction, chances of vehicle catching fire were high IMO.
There would be no accountability for this one unless owner does something.

How much PDI can one possibly do? and how many people actually do PDi? How many people outside automobile forums know what is a PDi?

Shame on you TATA, this is coming from a TATA Fanboy.

[gopa99]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Phew, you got very lucky here. That could have been a very serious and potentially very dangerous situation. Very scary indeed!

Would be interesting to see if the bolt has sheared off or just came undone. If it has sheared off, you should be able to see parts of it still attached. But If I interpret your images it appears as if the bolt just became undone.

Jeroen

I agree to your logic, usually such bolts have thread lockers on them to prevent them from loosening owing to all the road/ terrain induced vibrations; would it be that a hairline fuel spill would have washed out the thread locker and put TATAs torque calculations off the hook?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by gopa99

I agree to your logic, usually such bolts have thread lockers on them to prevent them from loosening owing to all the road/ terrain induced vibrations; would it be that a hairline fuel spill would have washed out the thread locker and put TATAs torque calculations off the hook?

I doubt it very much. What I have learned from some of the earlier post, there are two identical brackets, fastened identically. The changes of both shearing off due to some defect is remote.

My money would be on these bolts never properly tightened and or secured. Whether form new, or for some unknown reason afterwards. No idea why anyone would want to undo these bolts, other than to remove the fuel tank. Is there any other reason these bolts/brackets might be loosened to get access to an other part?

Jeroen