[LobsterB]

Current odo reading is within the first service interval band of 1500-1800. My overall impression at this point is quite positive. Actually nothing much new than what GTO, flyingspur and others have already covered. Their reviews have been quite accurate and no real surprises. I thank them again for their detailed posts.

Dashboard

The overall theme/feel here is to my liking, except those blue lit displays. Hope that I can find some color film to tone the blue down further. The illumination adjustment for them is already quite close to minimum.

The auto headlight/wiper sensor in the middle is not as obtrusive as I initially thought. The auto wipers works reasonably well, but I feel that the auto headlight calibration is done in a bit too aggressive manner. It turns on in almost all overcast conditions and as early as 5'o clock. Hope to get this re-calibrated as part of first service.

The fog lamp control are integrated into the same headlight control and cannot be switched on when auto-headlamps option is selected Don't understand the logic behind this.

Steering Wheel and Driver-side Controls

The steering wheel material quality in general feels quite good. The horn pad plastic of the TD vehicle was on the thinner side. So was happy with the better plastic quality in the delivered one. The left horn button seems have better contact sensitivity than the right one. Hope this can be adjusted easily.

The steering mounted audio and phone controls could have been placed a bit more towards the center of the steering wheel. It doesn't interfere as frequently as my test-drive time, but while taking turns the mute button was depressed a few times. I don't understand why the phone accept-call button is on right and reject-call button is on left - opposite to a normal phone layout.

The visibility of the outside rear view mirrors is excellent and it helps immensely in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The motorized mirrors respond a bit slowly to adjustment.

Express(one-touch) down for all power windows is good, but at least for driver side it would have been a good idea to have one-touch up as well. Similarly I would have preferred to have passenger side power window also covered by the power window lock button. Both NHC and i10 had passenger as well as rear windows locked with this control.

A gentle push on the turn indicators will turn the indicator on for three blinks. Quite useful for quick lane changes.

Central Console

The central console display serves as the car-audio display, reverse parking sensor display and phone display. The parking sensors so far has done a very good job of the situations that I encountered so far. The audible alert for parking sensor can be switched on/off seperately using a button next to 4x2 selection button.

The bluetooth connectivity seems to be working well from the integrated bluetooth connectivity end. But my Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 seem to disable bluetooth sometimes after connecting for a minute or so. This happens almost half the time after it gets paired. The voice quality and user interface are ok, but so far the voice activated dialing hasn't been able to recognize any names that I tried.

The car-audio reads ID3 tags from mp3 songs, but displays only track number, album and title. Didn't yet find a way to customize the tag display. The radio part supports RDS(Radio Data System) and TA (Traffic Announcement), but couldn't see any station Bangalore supporting the same. The switching between USB/Radio/CD sources is quite fast and it resumes from the same song and time for USB/CD. The sound quality is ok and the Speed Dependent Volume Control is cool.

The USB connector requires a compact USB stick and I was able to find a HP 4GB USB stick of the right size. Without a compact USB stick the cup holder tray below will be rendered useless.


The gear shift quality was far better than the test drive vehicle (even the leather around the gear lever was put together much better). The gear ratios in general was good, particularly like the 4th gear range and would have liked a bit more bottom-end on the 2nd gear. The quite relaxed feel of the engine (and vehicle as a whole) while doing 60-80 kmph in 4th gear is great. Didn't have too much of highway drive yet. The short gear lever feels good and is quite comfortably reachable from the arm-rest. But the arm-rest itself seems to have some 'rough edges'. The hard plastic around the arm-rest slant adjustment has sharp projections and hurts the bare arms while trying to reach the gear lever.

Need to file those edges...

Automatic Climate Control
With the current Bangalore temperature around 20-24 degrees, didn't have much of a chance to check the cooling efficiency. But the blowers are surely very loud. Anything above the lowest speed in the front is fairly audible. Also felt that irrespective of recirculation mode there is always some fresh air drawn in between.


The rear AC vents have a seperate blower control along with the second row roof lamps. At every ignition time the rear blower will be in switched-off mode and needs to be switched-on explicitly by selecting the blower speed. The rear blower considerably more noisy than the front ones. But the floor mounted second row AC vents (between the front seats) are controlled by the front controls and not by the rear blower controls!

The hard plastic around these AC vents (all the way up to the area around gear level) remind me of the Maruti Esteem from last decade.

Third row seats
]
The above picture has front row seats pushed max back and the second row seats pulled max forward. In this arrangement, for my 6'1" frame and size 10 footwear, doesn't any problem in second row and have enough space to put my foot down in third row. But in third row the floor is more closer to seat (so you sit down) and my head touches (when I lean on backrest) the rear projection of the roof shown in picture below.


Roof boxes

The roof boxes could have been of more use if their sizes were a bit more bigger. As of now all except one can hold only sunglasses or CDs.

Thankfully there is one that can take my maps.

Rear luggage area
The rear luggage space is comparable to my i10 (have measure exact sizes). For weekend shopping trips we had to fold at-least one of the third row seats. One major issue I have with the seats folded is the gap between seats and the luggage area.

Drumsticks and cucumber might get lost in that gap!


There is a manual fuel-lid release in the hydraulic jack compartment


I was able to fit my mini air compressor in the tools container

[condor]

Latheesh, good to see you enjoying the Aria.

Without a compact USB stick the cup holder tray below will be rendered useless.

One tip : get a USB to USB cable, so that you can then connect any USB drive while not intruding into the cup holder tray. You can tie up the cable and leave just the connector end for easy & flexible access.

[himavanth_m]

First of all, congrats for the Aria. and secondly a Wow! really detailed pics.
One question though: Have there been any irritating rattles so far on the Aria? I almost associate a Tata product with rattles. The maximum my safari managed without rattles is 1000kms. Would be good to see how long the well screwed Aria lasts until the irritating rattling starts. Hopefully never and I pray this Tata product changes my perception.

@GTO or others: Since the same 2.2 Dicor engine is doing duty on Aria and the Safar, I would like to know how different the engine feels in both these vehicles?

[swiftnfurious]

Congrats Lobster on the first south indian Aria ! And hats off to you for having the guts to buy a version 1.0 car from TATA at this price range. Lots of people including me dont have the guts to buy a TATA product when it launches initially.

And good to see that you are using it as intended and clocking lots of miles and smiles!

I am looking forward to the first service details - it should be coming soon right ?

And thanks a lot for those detailed pics. Wish you miles & miles of happy, safe and niggle fee motoring & ownership !

[adimicra]

A bit late but anyway, hearty congratulations on your purchase.

Your review and pictorial description of all the tiny bits in the car is absolutely wonderful and will be of immense help to all prospective Aria buyers.

Do you plan to do any off-roading with your baby?
Keep up the good work and congrats again!

[Trapezio]

Originally Posted by LobsterB

The hard plastic around these AC vents (all the way up to the area around gear level) remind me of the Maruti Esteem from last decade.

I think this is because small kids tend to rest their feet on the airvents while sitting on the centre seat!

[taranonline]

I feel Tata has done something really appreciating this time... second time after the might NANO. Everything else I see is junk..

[gshanky]

@ Lobster - I am glad your ARIA experience has been positive so far. I am eagerly waiting to know more about your highway experience and the stability of the car around 100-120 kmph. I really hope it is a good cruiser and feels planted around 100-120 kmph.

[jkdas]

Great to more pix and updates. I always ask myself if I will very get another Tata. Seems Aria is the only option now in the 14-18 lac budget ( as if I can afford now) which has a diesel engine. My 74k done Safari still brings me smiles and keep me proud & happy. Not a single irritating rattle and the engine just purrs. Cant ask for more. I presume the gearbox/engine combo will only make me love the Aria more.

[druva]

Originally Posted by himavanth_m

...
@GTO or others: Since the same 2.2 Dicor engine is doing duty on Aria and the Safar, I would like to know how different the engine feels in both these vehicles? ...

I did TD of Aria when I went to collect RC book for my Safari.
Aria is miles ahead in terms of engine refinement/ gear box and interiors. You can compare Aria against a higher class vehicle and not Safari.

[neoonwheels]

Thanks a lot for the pics Lobster The blue display looks weird and cheap. Rest interiors are quite spacious and seems to be of descent quality. Enjoy the ride and keep updating the thread. I guess your's is first Aria on the forum.

[rrsteer]

Originally Posted by druva

I did TD of Aria when I went to collect RC book for my Safari.
Aria is miles ahead in terms of engine refinement/ gear box and interiors. You can compare Aria against a higher class vehicle and not Safari.

Absolutely agree with what you said and even more. Whatever reviewers may say (Tbhp + automags included), IMO Aria is a step higher than the current bandwagon led by Innova in the MUV type and Scorpio/Safari in the SUV type.

[gshanky]

Originally Posted by druva

I did TD of Aria when I went to collect RC book for my Safari.
Aria is miles ahead in terms of engine refinement/ gear box and interiors. You can compare Aria against a higher class vehicle and not Safari.

Interesting... In that case it would be really great if this Dicor V2 engine and gearbox combo enters the next iteration of Grande and Safari(current gen and next gen).

[teamveevee]

LobsterB, congrats and enjoy the new vehicle. I am really surprised that you are the lone Aria owner in TBHP yet. We have >30 pages of discussion before the launch, still there is one owner?

[psbali]

Originally Posted by teamveevee

LobsterB, congrats and enjoy the new vehicle. I am really surprised that you are the lone Aria owner in TBHP yet. We have >30 pages of discussion before the launch, still there is one owner?

Well my dad is one of the first people to book the Aria on 12th october.. Now the thing is our dealership promised us quick delivery.. It was first within 10 days.. Then it was last week of october.. Then it was before diwali and then we stopped inquiring.. So it is for now Ramji ke bharoose.. They say that they didn't expect so many bookings for the Pride model.. Their regional head went on saying that they are under tremendous from politicians and "Union Leaders" to deliver the vehicle to them first.. What is keeping them from delivering the second silver Aria Pride in the whole country..?? I mean does a reason like "We have too many bookings for pride" even qualify as a reply in my case??? Anyway enough of OT.


LobsterB.. Really nice pics of the interiors.. The car got neat and clean interiors.. And look really very well put in place. The display cars dont give you the real ownership feel.. And I am waiting anxiously to soon get the Aria.. Really looking forward to my trip to Lavasa in my Aria