[svsantosh]

loss of coolant could have made its mark on the head/head gasket, there is nothing you can do now, but expect a premature head gasket failure down the line. Didnt read all of the 1st post (too long) but hope you have taken all EXTENDED warranties Possible - Hey, its a TATA

[VM1]

Did another short (200 km up & down) trip last week with 5 adults - ride was good. No complaints as such - enjoying the ride.

A list of minor niggles still remains, which I am keeping pending for the 5k service. As other safari owners have mentioned, I am trying to keep it off T.A.S.S. hands as much as I can lest they mess up something else.

I noticed another thing today - the rubber beading under the rear top spoiler came off all by itself and was hanging to one side. I luckily noticed it while walking by the car in my office basement parking. I have just stuffed it back in so that rain water (finally Noida is getting some drizzles ) doesn't get in. Another minor item for the next service - I'll have to keep checking it so that it doesn't fall off.

[VM1]

The truck just completed 5000 km today .

No doubt I am loving the ride, power and road presence. And sadly there have been a few more issues since my last post of 2800 Km, like:

- Alternator failed! The car had to be at the TASC for 3 days and it took 3 trips to the alternator vendor to resolve the issue.

- The rubber beading on the rear spoiler fell off, and I once saw some water tricking inside during heavy rains.

Things like alternator failing at such an early stage drastically bring down my feeling of reliability of this Tata product. I have plans to drive to Leh, Bhutan etc and such problems freak me out.

So it's a mixed experience so far.

On the FE side, I am getting about 11.5 for city drives and I got about 12.7 on highway.

I have also bought the Jopasu duster (discussed in the forums here) and it indeed does a great job!

I have got Team BHP stickers as well, and will put up some pics with the stickers soon.

The ICE is still not in - this is on my priority list now. I am reading about this and doing enquiries currently.

[lohithrao]

Alternator failed that's bad, do you mean you had to approach the vendor ? dint TASC dint replace it once they learn't about it? and any idea what was the cause?

I would suggest, you get in touch with the GM service or someone senior incharge and discuss about the issues faced time, esp alternator failure. try to figure out whats the cause of the failure.

The SA's will be on thier tows when you are in touch with the superiors, i make sure i put a word to the Service head every time i leave the car and that has ensured to keep the SA on thier tows and also i have noticed the TASC here is pretty serious on customer satisfaction.

Originally Posted by VM1

The truck just completed 5000 km today .

- Alternator failed! The car had to be at the TASC for 3 days and it took 3 trips to the alternator vendor to resolve the issue.

[VM1]

No, I didn't have to go to the vendor directly. But, as this is covered under warranty by the vendor, the alternator had to be removed and sent over - TASC doesn't touch these things. It's the same in case of battery etc, where the part is sent over to the vendor.

In my case, the part came back reported fixed from the vendor but the problem still persisted - so had to be sent back.

And, I was told alternator failing (that too so early) is very rare!

[VM1]

I have been using the Jopasu car duster, which I bought from ebay (here - http://www.ebay.in/itm/Jopasu-Duster...item19cdbe3482) for a few weeks now.

It meets the expectations and is doing a good job so far. It definitely makes cleaning a car of this size much easier. I now dry-clean it 1-2 times a week and wash the car once in about 2 weeks. I generally apply Formula One car wax polish after washing.

[VM1]

Absolutely weird - this is what happened with me today just a few hours ago. And, that too in a parking ground!



I was coming out of the parking ground at the Noida stadium at around 8 PM tonight, and there were 1.5ft x 1ft pits dug out on the ground, abt 1ft deep as in the pattern in the pic (brown boxes). The red arrow shows the path I was on. I avoided one such pit and my truck landed with it's 3 wheels in pits (the black lines indicate wheels) as I didn't notice them in the dark. What the hell were these doing there!!!

It was such a weird situation and looked almost like a trap laid out for me .

So here I was, with both front tyres diagonal and stuck, LH rear wheel in the pit which just went on getting deeper with more revving. The RH rear wheel wasn't rotating at all.

As this was obstructing the passage, many people offered their help. We tried pushing, adding more weight by people standing on side steps, jacked up the LH rear wheel and filled the pit with bricks etc to get traction.. but nothing helped - it was just spinning freely. It was all the more "sticky" due to the front wheels absolutely not moving out of the diagonal direction. Lot of revving both front and reverse, but no movement. This is a 4x2.

It was nice to see strangers offering a helping hand, and thanks to one gentleman who took a lot of pain. He also offered me his towing rope, and left dissatisfied that he couldn't get me out. A friend of mine came over with his safari to try towing me out, but the steel rope snapped in a bit. There was a lot of smell from the rubber burning, and the truck didn't budge at all.

Finally I had to call a recovery crane and even with that it was quite tough to get it out due to the whacky wheel positioning. Pulling from the front didn't have any effect. When pulled from the back, the LHS rose about 2 ft in the air and when I got a chance to straighten the steering, my Safari was out on level ground.

After about 2 hours, I left the place thinking how funny the whole situation was. All this drama in a parking ground, of all places!

Could I have done something differently here that would have helped? How bad is this for the tyre & clutch?

What I learnt from this episode:
1. Carry an emergency light (the friendly gentleman lent me his light as well) that connects to the ciggy lighters - very handy in the dark.
2. Carry a good quality towing rope - now I at least know what rope will definitely not work for a safari.
3. There are still some good people, who instead of just honking away to glory get their hands dirty trying to help others!

[VM1]

It's about 10.5K on the odo now .. and this is what has changed on my truck over the last 4K km:

- Got Minda fog lamps - fog lights installed locally, with a below Rs. 100 switch that sat on the 4x4 slot - with direct wiring from battery. The switch blew off during a night drive. I then got the wiring changed at TASS to connect it to the stock wiring with the relay. However, they still couldn't connect it to the parking lights. I was told it needs the center panel switch board to be changed, which I didn't want a s it costs about Rs 4k.

- The fresh update for today is that truck FINALLY got ICE'd, and it rocks !!!

This is the setup:

Front components - Kicker DS65.2
Rear Coaxial - Kicker ES65
Bass box - Rockford Fosgate single woofer enclosure
AMP - Alpha 4-channel
HU - Pioneer DEH 1590UB
Wiring kit - Connect

I got the work done at Sachin's Elegant kar accessories, Lajpat Nagar and they have done a good job at it. The best thing is that I was able to audition the speakers, and the decision was made as soon as I heard the Kickers in action.

- I also got a Autocop remote lock fitted along with the audio setup today.