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My colleague wanted to replace his wife’s old Maruti 800.

Duties for the car to perform are simple. It’s for her short trips to local market. Dropping her son for tuition and guitar class. Going to meet her parents few kilometers away. And once in a while go out for those weekend evening trips here and there. For long drive, they have a Baleno.

My colleague asked me for my opinion. I told him to go for any one of these: ALTO, WAGON R, SANTRO.
All these are ok and time-tested. In short a no brainer.

He agreed and possibly narrowed down his focus on SANTRO. But his wife and son had other plan. They wanted to go for dumb, dumb, dumb.

Last Saturday afternoon car arrives from showroom to our office. From third floor’s balcony while having my after lunch smoke, car did look shiny and cute. Our office driver took it out immediately to SOUND FACTOR for ICE fitting.

Surprise surprise. Car sounded rather rough for a petrol engine from third floor.

After it came back, I went down to see the car and listen to new ICE set up. While having an overall glance, I found:

1. Front wheel arch inner PVC cover jutting out.
2. Front wheel’s tube nozzle is bent due to wrong fit.
3. Paint finish is not the same across the body panels.

Our office driver told me reverse lights were not working properly. In fact one was working. During pointing that out in showroom (PRERANA), salesman told him this is normal and that’s how it comes nowadays.

With newly fitted ICE and fresh upholstery and plastic smell, my colleague drove back home proudly.

Next morning (Sunday) car wouldn’t start! After multiple attempt and considerable amount of battery drainage, they call service help-line. Over the phone instruction says that press a button under driver’s seat. Upon doing this, engine gets back into action.

But after few kilometers of running and abnormal pressure on tube’s nozzle, tyre gives up. So my colleague ends up his Sunday by having a flat tyre and abnormal cold start behavior!!!!

For me it’s pretty new to know that a MPFI engine needs a cold start and that too in Bangalore kind of temperature! He told me that dealer is describing this as cold start and he may encounter this problem in future also. To avoid this, there’s switch under driver’s seat known as ‘Inertia switch’. This needs to be pressed if starting problem occurs.

‘Inertia switch’ is mentioned on trouble shooting section on dumb, dumb booklet. But you’ll never find it about its location. Apparently it’s a fuel cut off switch (from google search) but I’m still in dark to find out why it’s there in the first place? And why other cars don’t have it? Anybody can throw light on this, please may do so in a separate thread. This thread is not for fuel cut off switch discussion.

Today (Monday) my colleague’s day starts with the same problem. Car wouldn’t start! Even after pressing ‘Inertia switch’! After sufficient trauma, car reaches our office. Calling service center reveals the fact that nobody’s there to come and collect the car. It’ll take around two hours to send somebody. Our office driver takes the car there only to find out that they’ve no tube in their stock. They say that they’re putting up a complaint and waiting for the tube to come from the company.

After getting a mouthful from my colleague, they send someone to J C Road to buy a tube. When he gets back with a new tube and a huge smile, they find that one other tyre is also flat…

At 6.30 in the evening they decide to keep the car there and wait for a messiah to come from TATA tomorrow.

If tomorrow comes!!!

Rudra,
Which car did he get ? I'm not sure what you mean by dumb dumb stupid:

INDICA ZETA PETROL...For dumb, dumb, dumb.

Oh, I forgot, you're not in country...

"dumb dumb dumb"- as in the ad..... its a tata xeta i guess. tata cars build quality is really getting worse.

This is just unbelievable. I had one of my colleagues who went with all of his family to pick up his new Indica and found several dents - this after they registered the car! And the sales executive graciously offered to replace the door that had a dent and paint the bumper - on a supposedly new car on the delivery day! Man!
After a mouthful, they gave him another one - this time a new one lol:

This is appalling!

What build quality is TATA talking about if this happens to a brand new car??

Personally think that the dealer has passed on a lemon to your colleague


Oh!..just needed to add... This is what happens to a 4 Lakh car. I can't even imagine what quality we would be getting when TATA comes out with the 1 Lakh car!!

Really heart breaking to get such a raw deal after paying so much.
What do the dealers do with the pre-delivery checklist?? if there is one

Deepu

The inertia switch is present in the palio. Its some where in the foot well in the passenger seat. The location is given in the booklet and on the driver's side sun visor there is a warning - "This car is equipped with a inertia fuel cut off switch bla bla bla press the switch to restart the car again

I have a mixed experience with a V2 Petrol. When the engine is cold you'll have to force the gear lever into place. Even then chances are you wouldnt be able to find reverse. Rear stablizer bar changed during first service. Fuel hose was leaking. Could never fill up more than 15L.

On the brighter side the TATA dealer in coimbatore has been very helpful. All the problems have been sorted out without me having to blast him (as is the case with Fiat) and the FE has been a consistent too.

I would say it has been a wrong choice to go for a petrol TATA. But no major gripes either.

Yeah thats gotta leave a sour taste in the mouth.
Tata has never been known for high reliability(I kno all Tata fans will vehemently disagree)
But the plain fact is that I see one failed-indica by the road every week.
Thats enough to make sure i will stay away from Tata cars


ROTF
I bet the cars tires will fall off at random ;-)

oh dear... the more i want to love TATA motors, the more hate stories i keep on hearing... this incident is highly despisable...
Thats Really Really weird !

If anyone is still missing the point...Well well, they gotta be dumb dumb dumb..

Was the problem present before the ICE installation?

*EDIT* - PDI may not have been proper or some fuses / relays may have been dislodged. Just behind the battery, there is a fuse box. Please open that and check that all the fuses there are sitting properly. To be doubly sure, take each one out and fit it back in securely and THEN press the switch below the driver's seat and see if the problem recurs.

May be not. But there was no so called cold start issue either. Because car came from showroom only in the afternoon.

Sorry, should have asked this earlier - how much fuel was there in the car and did the starting problem occur on a slope?

Tank was full. Not on a slope. His house parking area.