[teamveevee]

Originally Posted by DeKay

I am a victim of TATA as well. Right now there are 3 TATA cars in my family, a Manza, Aria and an Indica Vista. Needless to say, none of them have served us well. The service centers are useless, the quality of electrical equipment are pathetic and the build quality is unacceptable.

I am just curious, what made you buy Tatas one after the other. Normally when people faces issues with a brand, they try to stay away from it. In your case, not once, but twice came back to Tata. You could say it is different family members. Then what about "word of mouth" publicity people talk about in forumns? Very interesting, but quite unusual, i should say!

[mohitk1993]

Originally Posted by rockporiom

My point here is not to say something bad about tata owners but I just want to say that tata cars did not have issues when they were new but when they had problems and were taken to the service center not only did the issue keep repeating but went from bad to worse and are still suffering from those issues.

According to me, it is the combination of both factors that make a TATA ownership experience bitter.

1. TATAs rolling out of the factory line have unaddressed quality issues, which rear their ugly heads a few months into the ownership experience.
2. The ASC, overwhelmed by the problems that keep coming to them everyday, tend to carry out a half-hearted job, thereby laying a foundation for more problems to occur.
3. This vicious cycle continues, until the TATA owner finally sells the car.

If one goes through the Team BHP ownership reviews, many users have said that no new problems cropped up until they went to the ASC to get their old ones rectified. But then, you can't expect owners to live with their problematic cars, can you??

The first thing that TATA needs to do is COMPLETELY REVAMP its QC department. If the car itself does not develop problems, how will the ASC get to screw it up?? Also, you cannot expect the ASC to come up with miracles when the product itself has major flaws.

Also, one must note this: modern cars are incredibly complex and even a well-experienced mechanic may get overwhelmed in rectifying a major problem. Please do not me wrong: in no way am I taking sides with the ASC; its just that if they had a little less on their plate, maybe they would not have earned such a bad name.

Originally Posted by rockporiom

My uncle had more or less the same issues in his indigo glx. This makes me think does tata actually do any R&D while making a product or do they just think like " ok put a door here, put some plastic here, tie an engine to the front and voila we have a car"

Saying that they do not conduct any R&D on the product is a little harsh, IMO. Every major business house has some social responsibility too; introducing cars to the market without conducting any tests is not just unethical, it is criminal. However, one thing is for sure, their R&D is not as extensive or as detailed as, say a Toyota or a Honda.

Originally Posted by rockporiom

Either that or they just don't realise the fact that companies earn more in service than in sales and end up giving third class service to everyone possible.

Whatever the company might be earning in extra services, an equal (or an even larger) amount would surely be lost in multiple warranty claims.

Originally Posted by rockporiom

To make matters worse they tend to appear shocked when the sales fall and blame it on all other factors except for the troublemobiles I mean automobiles they make and their aftersales.

The fact that their sales have suddenly plummeted is not just due to the QC issues, but a combination of all different factors that make TATA a laggard among other car manufacturers.

Also, one must consider this: it has not been long since TATA started making cars. Remember, it took Toyota more than a quarter of a century to perfect the art of manufacturing a car and earn the reliability tag. Give the company some time and am sure, some day, we Indians might just boast of having a global car manufacturer of our own.

Originally Posted by rkg

I DO own a Indica Vista Qjet Aura from the very first batch of 2008.
--
--
Iam thinking of upgrading myself to ARIA in the near future.

Sir, you are not alone. I know many friends who own TATAs; even they are quite satisfied with their purchases and happy for what their cars offer. It's just that some (OK, a significant number) of TATAs develop problems due to quality issues and the ASC make things worse, which leads to unsatisfied customers.

[rockporiom]

Originally Posted by teamveevee

I am just curious, what made you buy Tatas one after the other. Normally when people faces issues with a brand, they try to stay away from it. In your case, not once, but twice came back to Tata. You could say it is different family members. Then what about "word of mouth" publicity people talk about in forumns? Very interesting, but quite unusual, i should say!

That is because their family still had trust in the brand which has now died. Now they are sure they will never go for a tata in their life.

[sinharishi]

Originally Posted by rockporiom

My question to tata is why can't they repair the cars in such a way that the customer doesn't need to make the service center his second home.

Nothing against you but you simply cannot generalize TATAs cars as Problematic.

Every coin has two sides. There are few happy & satisfied customers while few who are not.

Same can be the case with any other manufacturer. To list some.

The Polo suffered from Vibration/Rattling.The Etios made a bad impression of few of its owners (Pre facelift). i20 steering rattle. M&M Xuv. Remember the 2007 S Class?

Every manufacturer deserves a chance to improvise. So does TATA. Recently they announced that quality is of prime importance and there will be no compromise.

to your uncle who went ahead and bought a TATA after facing problems with the first one.

[rockporiom]

Originally Posted by sinharishi

Nothing against you but you simply cannot generalize TATAs cars as Problematic.

Every coin has two sides. There are few happy & satisfied customers while few who are not.

Same can be the case with any other manufacturer. To list some.

The Polo suffered from Vibration/Rattling.The Etios made a bad impression of few of its owners (Pre facelift). i20 steering rattle. M&M Xuv. Remember the 2007 S Class?

Every manufacturer deserves a chance to improvise. So does TATA. Recently they announced that quality is of prime importance and there will be no compromise.

to your uncle who went ahead and bought a TATA after facing problems with the first one.

I don't deny your point. But what I want to say is that almost all tata cars have problems whereas in the case of other manufacturers there is an issue with one or max two products.

Plus the problems never get solved and go from bad to worse.

[harry10]

@Sinharishi-I don't agree. Tata had more than a decade to improve its quality standard and services provided. But they had done very little in that regard. Not hearsay but speaking from experience of owning tata cars for last 10 years.

My Manza had done 1lac km by now.
I had been left stranded in the middle twice in this year itself.
First time was on a trip to punjab in february. Car just had a service and we took it for the trip. On the way back i was doing 100km on gt karnal road and suddenly there was some noise from the engine bay so i stopped it. It didn't started afterwards. Called CC and tow truck came and took it to nearest service center in Karnal.
Took 2 weeks for them to return the car. Engine failed. Reason- Oil pump wasn't working.
Now i was very pissed cos car has just been from regular service and it was their duty to check if all parts are working fine.

Second time it happened last month itself. Went for some shopping in Gk market. On way back car wont start. Had to be towed back to service center. Reason- some alternator problem and battery died.

Have booked Honda for myself just cos of its reliability as i don't want to be stranded again on a highway. Will be selling Manza off next year as soon as Emi's are over and wont buy a Tata car again. Period.

[Sheel]

My two bits?

As per me the problem lies in the products and then in the service department. While it will take few years for Tata to come to terms with International Quality, as Tata has started manufacturing Cars just few years back and Honda/Toyota are manufacturing Cars since decades. That is itself enough of a reason to see them marching past. Their association with Land Rover/Jaguar etc should have helped, but as of now, it seems things haven't changed much, or haven't changed at all.

While it is good to be aggressive & offer good value as far as loans & finances go, you can't skip the swelling number of Cars & customers who are dissatisfied with service & that your service center isn't equipped to handle as many Cars as you sell.

On top of that, neither your sales officers & neither your service managers are interested in solving your issue. However major/minor be it. Go to any service center of any manufacturer and one or two executives would attend you, but when you go to a Tata workshop, you have to find someone who can book a slot & then find a mechanic who would attend you. I did a bit of rant here

It is not just one Car which has niggles, the entire stable from Tata Motors is plagued. I bet, had it not been for Safari/Storme's appearance, there would hardly be any takers.

A bit of damage is done by Tata themselves. The franchise Shankar Motors has around 10 dealerships in Bihar/Jharkhand. They have a lot of say in the management. Hence, to make profit, Shankar Motors resolves to unethical ways and if a customer complaints, I bet Tata can't do much with a dealer having around 10 dealerships.

The service centers count is less as well. Its like Tata 2 < 8 Mahindra.

They need to work on everything (Quality, Service) But try not to do too many things at one time (too many launches, models, Cars). Correct the basic first.

Even Skoda has succumbed & Jia automobiles is their sole Skoda dealer in W.B and soon would spread their wings to North East.

[amit_purohit20]

First it was not necessary to create a TATA Bashing thread. As in other TATA thread someone has rightly said that people enjoy bashing a brand when it is already on its low. Take my own example inspite of me knowing that NOKIA phones are of good quality, I used to take pride in bashing them when their sales started falling! And not to my surpirise I found more and more NOKIA bashers like me. I think its sort of a herd mentality or an oppurtunistic mentality to bash someone who has already become weak ( I am not talking about humans here.)

Also we Indians like to bash our own Indian products and we never take pride in our own accomplishments (eg. bashing on recently launched INS Vikranta). But to be clear I don't say that bashing is going on only because its an Indian product. Its also a lot to do with Tata's laziness to improve. But once they themselves made some room for bashing, we all Indian's joined with great pride to bash them.

TATA's should learn from Mahindra how to tackle quality issues from being blown apart. Its not that Mahindra (Indian manufacturer) has not had quality issues but still they have worked fast, hard and in the right direction before the name gets spoilt. Tata was sleeping when this was happening. Its like the rolling stone theory. Things were quite under control when the stone was not rolling, but TATA slept a lot and the stone has not only rolled but collected a lot of momentum. It would really require herculian efforts to stop the huge inertia of this rolling stone which can cause their doom.

Well I have a Vista TDI and to be unbiased I would say based on my own personal experience short term reliability of TATA has improved and is satisfactory enough. Long term reliability is still something where I would not feel 100% confident with TATA. I feel their long term reliability would be 20% less than other similar brands.
Am I satisfied with my car? Yes I am, I think I have taken the right decision. Will this opinion change in future? Don't know only after a long term review I can tell you.

Well for me it was the space and the only automotive manufacturer to give me a Diesel engine at only 35k extra than the petrol version. To add to it the spare parts are reasonably priced. Labour cost in service centres is nearly the same as Maruti ASS.
I am also satisfied till now with the treatment given by the service centre and the care shown. I really do not find any reason to complain.
Recently I met a Safari owner who has owned the SUV for 7 years around 70-80k kms and he was spending first time on replacement of any part. (Wiper Stalk control assembly costing 1800 Rs).

So I think its not really that bad to own a TATA car as it is being potrayed here. As Greenhorn suggested yes might be in long term I will have to search a FNH garage, don't know!

Should we also start Maruti, Hyundai and other brand bashing threads? I agree there will be less posts in those threads but surely they too will find some bashers.

[madhu33]

I currently have Manza Qjet- June 2011 done 28100 kms.
I have owned an Alto and a swift before buying the Manza.
From the experience of Manza for more than 2 years I have following observations :

1)Some or the other points/issues used to be left unresolved even with Spectra Motors (MASS)& Same has been the case on 1-2 occasions with TASS.
And If we talk about TCRS-Worli in particular (touch wood )the experience with them has been marginally better so far.

2)Spectra motors - Malad mumbai used to always give the car back after service with several grease marks in the interiors and glasses. Whereas with TASS , due to rating system / fear in the minds of SAs the car (so far) has always been given back satisfactorily cleaned on the interiors and exteriors.

3)MASS had an inclination towards inflating the servicing costs.
They always used to recommend some or the other things other than the servicing and i used get the feeling that the SAs are motivated to persuade the customers for paying extra.
Whereas with TASS its indeed heartening to see genuine practices. Tatas have been very honest in honoring the warranty and being very genuine with regards to costs and billing. (however only 2+ years of ownership so far)

4)Due to point no.3 whenever in future i go for my 4th car of life and if it is going to be a non Tata car i am dearly going to miss the genuine practices followed at TASS(TCRS-Worli in particular). I some how feel i am spoilt by Tata on this.

5)Yes, I agree to the fact that Manza needs to be sent to service center at least once or twice extra between regular service intervals. But that might be also due to the fact that Mumbai roads are horrible and also that i am very particular about my machines behavior and language(i am sure all you enthusiasts here know what i am talking about),
But my experience with swift or an Alto was no different/ no better.
6)Waiting time and friendliness and attitude towards a customer is far better with TASS.

Having quoted above , today i have just dropped my Manza at TCRS worli as i was facing a metal rattling sound (Rear Right side) at speeds of 130+ & mild wobbling of steering wheel felt at lower city speeds. this wobbling used to disappear at higher speeds. Also the wheel alignment / balancing was due at 28000kms anyways and i did not wanted to wait till my 30k kms service.
Fingers crossed , i hope the complaints will be resolved. i am going to get the car back tomorrow.

[vaisakhr]

+1 to the bashing part. Being an Indian manufacturer we shouldn't do that at all to Tata.

Coming to the problem part. We cannot the blame the SC completely. They have limitations and its not their fault that the components fail. For ex: I had a suspension problem in my Indica at 30k which was 'rectified' by the ASC, since then I never used to get a proper alignment. It kept on getting worse and uneven tyre wear had became a usual thing. Normally I would blame them for all of this, and IMO this is what most of the people will do. But if you ask any other Indica owners, taxi drivers and mechanics you will come to know that this is a common fault with the car. Am not saying every Indica will have that, but the no of cars facing the same problem is very high. I know a guy whose brother had an Indigo, in which they had problem with the flywheel, clutch, inter cooler and turbo. All of them were replaced under warranty.

So it is obvious that the makers have something to do with this. Why can't they consider all this problem in the upcoming batches? That's the part what I hate the most about Tata. One more simple example, the door mirrors. Fold the mirror and it will break. I have changed them thrice and I got fed up when the fourth one broke, fixed it with black insulation tape.

ASC are the next culprits. Most of them doesn't do the work properly, I have never ever got my car back in time after a normal pre booked service. Late by 1~2 hrs always. They did park my car in rain with all the windows rolled down. And the quality of work was poor. And you will loose your temper when the SA comes with the request 'Sir, please give the feedback score 10 out of eleven". I felt like banging his head on the floor after seeing the dripping wet carpets! After that incident I switched my service to Concord and later to Carnation. Concord too had similar problem with the first one. Carnation was good, after all you can see the car interact with mechanics and understand the problems.

The good thing about Tata is the spares. They are available every where and so cheap.

My point is, machines cannot run at 100% efficient and trouble free. So there is no point in bashing a particular brand. But when you combine the not so good refinement plus bad service(mainly attitude), you may not have a peace of mind. Good thing if you can find it.

[sydras]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

The parts tend to last less, and QC is spotty.
But then, they are cheap.

A couple of cab drivers and mechanics I talked too mentioned that TATA spares are sometimes costlier than Maruti by upto three times.

One thing that I've observed over the years (many in my family are agriculturists and own and use TATA 207, 407, Mahindra Bolero, Bolero pickup, Armada, MM540 etc. and some among my father's friends cater to the automotive industry) with Indian manufacturers i.e. TATA, Mahindra, Maruti is that the manufacture of many parts and some sub-assemblies are sub-contracted. In addition, the sub-contractors are constantly pressurized to either give the parts at reduced prices or risk losing the lucrative and continued business of a large company.

Guess what takes a back seat under such circumstances? Quality. Even though QC is performed and many parts fail QC, the guys at QC mostly check for tolerances and not for structual integrity(this may have changed now so I'm not sure).

That is why I will never buy a TATA or a Mahindra vehicle unless of course, I'm forced to for eg: I need a UV for agricultural work at a reasonable price. (Labour is anyway quite reasonable in rural areas and the mechanics are sometimes much more skilled and honest as compared to the cities. It's more of a relationship thing.)

[a4anurag]

Originally Posted by mayuresh

While all the complaints mentioned in the thread might be true, such a thread can be written nearly for every manufacturer. There may be honourable exceptions about whom there are no complaints whatsoever, but I don't definitely find Tatas to be alone to write such a thread about.

For every manufacturer there are good stories as well as bad stories. For some brands, bad stories are ignored as an exception while some bad stories are attributed as a norm to certain brands. Tatas always find themselves on the wrong side of the equation. There may be some substance to it, but not so much as to deserve a thread targeting them alone.

I sympathize to a certain extent with you BUT what I want to say is that these guys just don't want progress in life with customer satisfaction. "Chaltha hai" attitude is too much with these guys.

I want the higher-up's at Tata to read this thread and get some sense in their sales men and service guys. Educate them what is CRDI meaning. Explaining the sales guy as a customer is not correct and mind you these guys have been selling cars for 6-7 years. I know many other companies also don't train their staff well but I have visited Honda, Maruti, Hyundai and Ford regularly and none of these guys are like them.

I am not against Tata and I love it more as it the sole Indian company who is competing with the European and Japanese kings. To compete they have to learn how to criticism positively and assure that it doesn't repeat so that customers would appreciate and visit them regularly. Does this happen?

Anurag.

[mohitk1993]

Originally Posted by amit_purohit20

Also we Indians like to bash our own Indian products and we never take pride in our own accomplishments (eg. bashing on recently launched INS Vikranta). But to be clear I don't say that bashing is going on only because its an Indian product. Its also a lot to do with Tata's laziness to improve. But once they themselves made some room for bashing, we all Indian's joined with great pride to bash them.

With due respect, this thread is not a bashing thread at all. If one looks closely, the thread starter himself has had a not-so-good experience on owning TATAs. Most of the comments come from TATA owners themselves who have stated their honest views, whether good or bad. Also, saying that we do not take pride in our accomplishments is untrue; we are the same people who lauded TATA for buying JLR and making a mark in the international space. Does that make us bashers?? No, we are just true critics at heart who feel bad for what the company has done to itself and want to see it rise and shine. Also, if the company seems to find itself cornered and being beaten mercilessly by Indians on various automotive forums, it is just because of its own fault. Do you think TATA would have ever embarked on such a grand mission (refer: HORIZONEXT) if its sales had never plummeted?

TATA has been a relatively new player in the car manufacturing industry and therefore, we must cut it some slack. However, one thing is for sure: TATA's progress in improving overall quality levels has been QUITE SLOW. If TATA ever dreams of regaining its lost ground, forget improving on it, it really needs to pull up its socks and overhaul its entire car manufacturing division.

[pgsagar]

I think Tata should exit automotive sector completely. Because even if they take their cars to Honda level, we Indians will see niggles in them the moment we see a Tata badge. And yes, after their exit from automotive sector, I think we will train our guns on Mahindra. But we will keep quiet about 1 crore German cars breaking down and giving all kinds of troubles. I think they are allowed to.

[a4anurag]

Originally Posted by pgsagar

I think Tata should exit automotive sector completely. Because even if they take their cars to Honda level, we Indians will see niggles in them the moment we see a Tata badge.

They were CV manufacturers and excel to quiet a nice level in that segment with respect to the Indian market. The whole country has given them multile chances to learn and build their name but, no use. Same niggles and problems in the portfolio.

Tata Indica to Aria all suffer will problems and no rectification for the next production vehicles.

Originally Posted by pgsagar

I think we will train our guns on Mahindra.

M&M ain't that bad either. At least they listen and try to rectify issues faced by customers in their cars. These guys get to the terms and know that Customer is God.

Originally Posted by pgsagar

But we will keep quiet about 1 crore German cars breaking down and giving all kinds of troubles. I think they are allowed to.

Now that is a silent shot on the trio. The Germans are let loose because of the 'premium' tag that they bear on themselves and give us a feeling that All is Well. Problems crop up when the masses start using cars from a company that will put up problems which don't arise when cars are sold in small numbers. Mass production with high demand will get rope in problems if things are not done as it has to be done.

Anurag.