[drvhplyevraftr]

Took a short test drive on the Harrier and here is my 2 cents.

My current drive is a XUV 500 and I have driven it for about 40k in the last 4 years. Just to give a background.

Lots have been already spoken about the looks so I wont say much about it. Except that I found the White to be elegant and smashing and the copper to give more upmarket kind of a feel.

In the inside, the dashboard layout etc, looks good, but it did not give me a WoW kind of a feeling. Maybe because I come from XUV.

Much has said about the placement and size of the outside rear view mirrors and yes, I did find it odd. It is a size bit too much and I also thought it should have placed a couple of notches down. I felt like I had to look up couple of inches for the rear view than I would normally do in my XUV.

Although the width of the vehicle is huge, I found myself cramped in the driver's seat. My knees were touching the panels. In contrary, XUV has lot of space for the driver.

The steering seems to be a lift from Tigor, Tiago and it feels a little out of place in this cabin. The size is a bit small too. They should give a better steering wheel. I like the one in Jeep compass.

The steering feels too light on the drive. Some may like it. I would prefer a little more weight.

I did not drive it for too long so I cannot talk much about the ride quality.

The sales person who accompanied, switched on the sports mode and boy I loved it. There is a noticeable difference between normal mode and the sports mode and the vehicle feels lot more free revving and relaxed in the sports mode.

In summary, I thought I liked the Hexa automatic that I test drove last year lot more than the Harrier.

I decided to not go for the Harrier as I did not feel it any different from my current XUV and the only thing that I really liked in Harrier was the sports mode, which my XUV did not have, hence I went ahead and installed the RaceDynamics Dualchannel tuning box on my XUV.

[madhukriss]

Originally Posted by civic-sense

To confirm that it is nothing wrong with a car, try to find an empty road and drive on the right side -

Originally Posted by venkyhere

Verna has electric steering, the harrier has hydraulic steering.

Originally Posted by Rahul Rao

Considering your second part, going left even when on right side of the road, then it is either a alignment or tire issue.

Originally Posted by Venkatesh.H

Hi Madhukriss,

- Try swapping only front tyres.

Originally Posted by speedguy

Did you notice any difference of efforts between Left & Right?

Thanks a ton everyone !! My first task this weekend is to go to a proper wheel alignment centre and get the basic checks done. In case it still doesn't work, I will try the options that all of you have suggested including writing to Tata Motors for getting a warranty replacement of the faulty parts. So far, to date, registering complaints on TMSC (Tata Motors Service Connect) app has worked quite well with prompt responses from Tata Motors and the dealer (Malik Motors, Hyderabad) end.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by TORQUE_AANJANEY

high NVH levels reported, unless revved to its gills

Almost all engines are refined at 2,000 - 3,000 rpm. It's above that level that the unrefined ones start making a noise.

A lot of times, Autocar's observations are plain bullshit. One should learn to discount them. Here's just one example of the EcoSport:

Ford has painstakingly tuned the suspension to strike a finely judged balance between ride and handling. The result is a car that feels surefooted at speed on any surface and yet pliant enough isolate you from road shocks. Playing no small role are the 205/60-R16 tyres, which offer superb grip and a cushy secondary ride.

Don't know which EcoSport they drove, but the 2013 models we tested - and which thousands of owners got - do NOT isolate you from any road shocks. This is even more the case with the 16" wheel variant which ACI is talking about. Ford did soften it a bit later with the facelifts, yet it's far, far from what I'd call "comfortable" or "cushy". In fact, a stiff ride is one of the major disadvantages of the early EcoSports, which is why we'd included it as a dislike point in the opening post of our review.

Source

[rajshenoy]

Finally managed to squeeze some time and test drive the Harrier and not very impressed !!

I also tend to agree with some of the observations already shared here, so let me not repeat the same.

I have 3 issues related to seating ergonomics due to the long clutch travel:

1. I am of average Indian height, hence forced to move the seat more forward leaving the left knee hitting the dashboard. Awkward !!
2. Driver armrest is useless. TATA should have provided regular hand brake and sliding arm rest instead.
3. OVRM blind spot is more pronounced !!

With an automatic all my problems can be resolved and I can set the seat to a more relaxed position. My search continues !!
This is where i find XUV w9 AT to be more VFM than the Harrier XZ.

[motorworks]

Originally Posted by GTO

A lot of times, Autocar's observations are plain bullshit. One should learn to discount them.

Very true! Almost all Autocar reviews tend to sound like manufacturer sponsored. Very predictable pattern of reviews and always biased towards certain brands.

And when I did a TD of the Ecosport I felt exactly the same, a very stiff ride. Nothing even vaguely close to what autocar mentions.

[AdityaDeane]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC7O9wyGQFE

Surprised to see them pick Tata Harrier over Jeep Compass 4x4 in the end. Proud of what Tata has been doing with it's product portfolio in the recent years, along with the Impact 2.0 philosophy.

[AirbusCapt]

Originally Posted by AdityaDeane

Surprised to see them pick Tata Harrier over Jeep Compass 4x4 in the end. Proud of what Tata has been doing with it's product portfolio in the recent years, along with the Impact 2.0 philosophy.

Nothing surprising here. The compass lacks all feel good features like auto headlamps, cruise control, auto wipers etc which the Harrier has. More over it lacks 6 airbags, corner stability control, drive modes as well. The Harrier sound system is much much better than the one on the Compass. The compass is a full size smaller than the Harrier and is a four seater at best. The compass has slightly richer interiors though. Overall the compass feels inferior both in feature as well As price compared to the Harrier.

[civic-sense]

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

Overall the compass feels inferior both in feature as well As price compared to the Harrier.

Different reviewers have different priorities. If one has to go by the feature count, you can do that in an excel sheet and declare the winner. Reviewers drive the cars and then tell you what they think is better. It's always a subjective thing.

For me a car is for driving. So before I count the gizmos, I will see how it is to drive. So for me the cars that drive better always wins.

[rajshenoy]

Has anyone here had a chance to experience the audio on lower trims ? Looks like only the XZ comes with JBL speakers.

[SaiSW]

Originally Posted by drvhplyevraftr

Took a short test drive on the Harrier and here is my 2 cents.

My current drive is a XUV 500 and I have driven it for about 40k in the last 4 years. Just to give a background.

Lots have been already spoken about the looks so I wont say much about it. Except that I found the White to be elegant and smashing and the copper to give more upmarket kind of a feel.

In the inside, the dashboard layout etc, looks good, but it did not give me a WoW kind of a feeling. Maybe because I come from XUV.

I'm inclined to agree with your every statements except for the dashboard part. No offence, but the XUV never was the benchmark when it came to interior aesthetics and quality. The dashboard layout is too crowded and all over the place and I knew when I first saw it way back during launch, that it wouldn't age well.

Can you please elaborate on why you said that? I may not be a Harrier customer, but I am a potential Altroz Diesel customer and seeing as most of the interior bits seem uniform ( independent touchscreen, digital MID etc. ), it'd be interesting to know your opinion.

[motorworks]

Originally Posted by civic-sense

Different reviewers have different priorities. If one has to go by the feature count, you can do that in an excel sheet and declare the winner. Reviewers drive the cars and then tell you what they think is better. It's always a subjective thing.

For me a car is for driving. So before I count the gizmos, I will see how it is to drive. So for me the cars that drive better always wins.

True, but I do not think the Harrier is significantly behind the compass in terms of driving dynamics, suspension set up or most other fundamentals that people consider important from a driving perspective.
The way I see it, the Harrier does most things right, and plus has a significant price advantage. For about 19-20 lakhs on road you can get a fully equipped Harrier, whereas for similar features and kit you may need to spend another 4-5 lakhs extra for the Compass. Thats a pretty big difference. Not to take away what the Compass is, but the Harrier seems to make its own case.

[ashutoshb]

Just came back from a 500 km trip (Noida, UP - Ram Nagar, UK - Noida).

# The car is ultra comfortable. Everyone, including me, was all praises about the level of comfort we were in. We were on expressways, broken roads and no roads. Five stars here.

# Among the drive modes, Eco is good for expressways where you don't overtake much. City would be my favourite on smaller two lane highways, where you need quick overtakes. I didn't use Sport much, as I was pretty happy with the City mode.

# The driver side ORVM is a big bother on hills and roundabouts. Its a big negative in my book. I had to sit up and look over the mirror to negotiate the turns.

# The fifth passenger, who sits in the middle of the rear seats, blocks the view while looking through the interior rear view mirror. The passenger was 5.3", so the height was not the problem. Again, an oversight. I just couldn't see any cars behind me.

# I should make it clear, I am 6 foot tall and had put the seat in the lowest height, which was where I was most comfortable in.

[drvhplyevraftr]

Originally Posted by SaiSW

I'm inclined to agree with your every statements except for the dashboard part. No offence, but the XUV never was the benchmark when it came to interior aesthetics and quality. The dashboard layout is too crowded and all over the place and I knew when I first saw it way back during launch, that it wouldn't age well.

Can you please elaborate on why you said that?

Good question and I am sorry for not making it very clear in my original post. True that XUV dashboard is not a benchmark and I actually did not mean to say that XUV dashboard was better than that of the Harrier either.

All I meant to say in my original post was that coming from a XUV, the interiors of Harrier did not give me that WoW feeling. For instance, lets say if I were to come from say a Maruti 800 (no offence to its owners please), I would have definitely found Harrier's interior to be amazing isn't?.

So, while Harrier's interiors are good and looks elegant, it did not give me the feeling that I should go and get it at any cost (the way Octavia's interiors does it for me).

[GTO]

Tata told us that they'll be sending us a second Harrier & we in turn paused our Official Review until we drove it. The orange car was mostly the same as the silver, with a handful of things that were better and a handful that were worse. Both point toward inconsistency in production.

Because this is such an important car - definitely one of the most important this year - we reviewed it again. Vid6639 & Rudra joined me on my Sunday morning run to Lonavla (my SIXTH trip to beautiful Lonavla in as many weeks and in as many cars).

When I'd last taken the silver Harrier out, it was with the family, so the driving style was a bit different. You can imagine how the cornering was yesterday, with 3 enthusiasts onboard. We were flying down the Lonavla ghat. Grip levels & stability were good, but the sensitive steering at speed is the biggest problem on the highway. A small touch @ 120 kmph and the car changes direction like you cannot imagine. Viddy hated the steering at high speed too and commented that “we’ll be seeing a lot of crashed Harriers”. As a group, we liked some things, didn't like some things. Details in our Official Review. My original opinion remains. The Harrier is 85% there...just wish Tata had completed the final 15% before launching it.

It's an absolute head-turner in orange. M-A-D amount of attention. When we left an open restaurant, EVERY single table was staring at us. More than in the quad-pipe 600 BHP M5, by the way. I'd taken it to a social outing and parked the Harrier in a sea of Mercedes’, BMWs & Audis. Impressively, the orange Harrier didn’t look out of place in that group at all (an XUV500 or Creta surely would). The Tata looked just as premium as the European luxury barges (orange was a contributor as well, not sure about white).

Aditya is currently shooting some parts of the orange Harrier and we'll be starting the proof-reading of the first draft later this week. Expect it to be up in May!

3 petrol-heads on a sleepy Sunday morning. Lots of observations, loads of conversations and roaring laughter sessions too. Much better than staying in bed till late:


How the opening picture of this post was shot by Rudra:


Rudra in a ditch, me on a pole and Viddy positioning the car for the camera:


With a guy like Viddy around, you need to continuously keep making notes as he is non-stop rolling out his observations:


Like this one (neat flap covering the seat mount + bolt):


Old man has a go too:

[Simat]

Originally Posted by GTO

Details in our Official Review.
.
.
.
.
Aditya is currently shooting some parts of the orange Harrier and we'll be starting the proof-reading of the first draft later this week. Expect it to be up in May!

This thread has gone so long with mixed views on Harriar, it is getting difficult for me to wait for the official review now

How the opening picture of this post was shot by Rudra

A little , I am a fan of Rudra Sir's photography, and am even using the photo of his Amby as my phone's wallpaper!