Indica Xeta woes !!!

[pankaj_veerkar]

I bought an Indica Xeta GLS two days back and on the third day its back in the show room due to some technical snag. The problem that occured was the 'check engine' indicator was not going off during running. The car manual says that in case of any malfunction the 'check engine' indicator will glow during running but will not glow when powered on battery. The case with my car is that the indicator glows whether powered by battery(indicating no malfunction) or on starting the engine(indicating malfunction).
Does any one have any idea about this.......
The mechanic at the showroom first diagonized the problem with cam shaft sensor, but when that was fixed there was some problem with the timing setting. He claims to have replaced the cam shaft sensor altogether, but the problem persists. He now says that he will get all the electrical connections checked.
Will the rectification of problem require fiddling around with the engine?????
Hoping that the problem will be fixed soon, will the engine performence get affected.
help me !!!

[esteem_lover]

I hope it is not anything major, nevertheless keep an eye out for any cover ups. Buying a TATA is always a gamble (Hope i do not get burnt for saying that), so watch out & see to it that they rectify whatever the problem is , within the warranty period itself.

[Zappo]

Ummm... I think you have ended up with a duffer mechanic. Xetas have a problem with that Check Engine thing. Two things buddy. One, even if a problem came for a split second that Check Engine will remain. This has been done in recent cars so that people immediately visit the service station and get it checked lest it aggravates. Most of the time they hook up the car with their comp which then starts checking parameters one by one and either oks them or flags any problem. After its through the error has to be explicitly cleared. The system asks whether the logged error should be cleared. If that is not done the car will keep flashing that Check Engine message irrespective of anything else done. So check whether he remembered to clear the error.

Now what could cause a split second problem that causes the flash but later on the computer detects nothing? After talking to a few Xeta specialist (one of my friend's new Xeta was showing this problem once in a while but nothing used to come out when hooked on the system) I realized that to increase the FE Indica runs a real lean mix. ECU and the engine has been tuned accordingly. However because of these it is also very sensitive to fuel adulteration. If any of the injectors feel choked for a split second the ECU flashes the check engine. By the time you reach the service station most often things are back to normal and system does not catch any problems.

My friends problem was solved when he chucked the pump next to his house and shifted allegiance to a well reknowned pump, albeit a bit far from his residence.

P.S. One technician told me that sometimes it can even be caused because a small few microscopic particulate matter entered one of the injectors from the tank. You can not even call that fuel adulteration.

[zenx]

Do a quick google on "check engine light" and be illuminated! You have lots of company all over the world. Yours truly faced that in a City once and had to pay for replacing the O2 sensor - still wondering if it was really the case given how much more (from what a very pro service station guy told me) Honda O2 sensors seem to apparently fail....

[hrag]

The Xeta is known to have this issue - caused by adulterated fuel.

[pugram]

Hi - I also had this strange experience.

I was travelling between chennai and Trichy on the GST Road on Friday. Absolutely no issues travelling at 110 -120 kph, as and when the traffic permitted.

Now at one stage i encounter some stop and go conditions. The car refuses to move on the 1st or 2nd gear. It literally shudders and the check light and other lights come on, albeit for a few seconds. But when i slip the clutch and increase the RPM above 2k, it moves and then goes on comfortably on the higher gears. There is a jerk the moment i take off my foot from the accelerator on any gear, whereas this had not happened before. This happened after 2 ~ 3 hrs of driving on the Highway and I managed to reach trichy, in one piece.

On my return, we left early (see nowadays chennai's become very hot with the mercury touching 42 deg C) to reach early. Absolutely no hassles till the time we reached chennai, the mercury shooting up. Now the car started acting up in the start and go conditions.

But for this, the overall experience was good.

I was just about to start a new thread on this, when i found this thread.

My questions:

1. Is this because of Bad fuel quality. This car is fuelled at a prominent BP fuel station in chennai and on my return had fuelled up at Reliance.

2. Any additives available to clear the Injector / FIP.

3. I thought the car (ECU) was acting up due to the high temp. And have always wondered why they had the ECU in the engine cabin, whereas it should be inside the dash with a provision for keeping it cool, similar to lots of electronic stuff.

Any suggestions / opinions ? .

Just hope Value For Money doesn't turn Value For Mechanic

Pugram

[Zappo]

Pugram, Xetas are sensitive to adulterated fuel, yes. However your problem had to do with overheating. When the car heats up too much it looses power and behaves like a ton of bricks. It feels like it would rather shut down than move. Even on 1st gear when you try to get moving it shudders and tries to shut down. This happens when the outside temperature is too high and the cars cooling mechanism is not able to cool the engine down even after putting in all its efforts. This problem is also experienced when you are stuck in a jam and continuously driving on the clutch in 1st gear with the AC on. A bad summer is only aggravating this problem a few folds more. I think in these scenarios the best solution is to stop somewhere and take a break. Better still lift the hood and let its cool down somewhat.

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by pugram

Now at one stage i encounter some stop and go conditions. The car refuses to move on the 1st or 2nd gear. It literally shudders and the check light and other lights come on, albeit for a few seconds.

Sounds like a badly overheated clutch - do you drive half-clutch?

[Zappo]

Steer I think it is more of a overheated car... clutch, engine and everything else. And even the diesel is susceptible to this. This friday I got stuck in a jam (billed in today's TOI as the mother of all jams) I experienced the same problem. In fact I was asking Tanveer about this problem as well. Then another friend of mine asked about the same in his Xeta and now Pugram. Could it be that Indicas are more susceptible to this problem?

[saurabh711]

On my trip from Chennai to Coorg, driving non-stop till Mysore, I got stuck at a jam at Mandya (don't remember the city exactly), for about 30-45 minutes, bumper to bumper with AC on. My car (07 Indica Turbo) did not face any overheating problem. Probably now i'll take care and switch off the AC atleast.

[wolfinstein]

@ Saurabh

The car in question is not Indica Turbo its Indica XETA..! Please read the full thread..!

Could also be the Lamda O2 malfunction, The Air flow is either having a Leak or the Mixture is too rich..! This is a possibility over and apart from the Fuel Injector or Bad Fuel.

Ask the Mech to disconnect the Fuel filter and collect some fuel and see, if it is dirty enough change the filter and find a cleaner pump.

The strange factor I have seen in my XETA is that with Premium fuel like HP Power I get 1 Km less mileage per Ltr , compared with Regular Fuel from HP.

Don't drive on Petrol, So don't know what any other effects or causes could be..!

[pugram]

Originally Posted by Steeroid

Sounds like a badly overheated clutch - do you drive half-clutch?

I was doing a highway run and i can assure you that i was not driving Half - clutch. I had to slip the clutch to get the car moving. Else it threatened to die on me

But I have made a longer trip in the same car and did not face any problems, except for strange noises at speeds above 120 kph (as per the speedo).

Again this year the weather is strange in the sense that chennai is facing a scorching 41 ~ 43 degree C continually and the humidity which is usually above 65% is around 40 %. That is why I suspect overheating (and ECU acting up due to the same)to be the primary cause. Yet to take the car to a service station.

@Zappo : What is the solution to this. Looking back, yes i made an almost non stop 6 hr trip with 4 fully grown adults in this car. But my speed was restricted to < 80 kmph most of the time, as the GST road was fully crowded with buses on account of karunanidhi's 50th year in the legistlative assembly blah.. blah... The temperature guage needle was in the middle all the times, which does indicate a normal position.

[Zappo]

Originally Posted by pugram

@Zappo : What is the solution to this. Looking back, yes i made an almost non stop 6 hr trip with 4 fully grown adults in this car. But my speed was restricted to < 80 kmph most of the time, as the GST road was fully crowded with buses on account of karunanidhi's 50th year in the legistlative assembly blah.. blah... The temperature guage needle was in the middle all the times, which does indicate a normal position.

I know... your temperature gauge stays in the middle. The same happened to me as well. I think its the frequent declutching that causes this problem. As Steer said... predominantly a heated up clutch.

There is probably no direct solution to it. If this has already happened the only way out is to park the vehicle and let it cool for a while (pretty impractical in the jammed roads of a city) or else be cautious from the word go.

I now have become more cautious. In fact a tad overcautious. I now have this thread running at the back of my mind continuously that I have to be cautious about the usage of clutch in those jammed roads. Try crawling on the 1st gear rather than frequent usage of clutch in crawling traffic. You will realize that in 1st gear if you slowly release the clutch without the accelerator the car rolls at a very very slow pace. That is better than using light accelerator on second and then again immediate braking. Because that will require more clutch usage. Typically we all are loathe to drive on 1st and try to shift to 2nd at the first chance.

My idea is that in the current weather a 5-10 minutes of bumper to bumper crawl with intermittent usage of clutch heats up the damned thing. I never faced this issue till date. It seems to have come in with the onset of this dry hot summer.

[pugram]

Originally Posted by Zappo

I know... your temperature gauge stays in the middle. The same happened to me as well. I think its the frequent declutching that causes this problem. As Steer said... predominantly a heated up clutch.

The problem initially occurred on the GST road, where i was not changing the gears frequently. And this continued inside the city also. But this happens only after a long drive and spiritied drive (2 ~3 hrs @ an average of 100kph - Chennai to Tindivanam on the Golden Quadrilateral). Seems to be working ok in the city for shorter drives

Anyways took the car to VST motors, Chennai and they replaced the spark plugs ??

Have to take it on a long drive to check out.

[tomjoe]

Hi,
I too have experienced lot of problems with my Xeta - particularly within the first 3 months of purchase. Plastic parts keep coming off inside the car. ery distressing is the mileage - city is 9.5-10 kmpl. Is this the same with others?