[dsingh70]

Originally Posted by GTO

When the Harrier was launched, just 1 drive and I knew Tata rushed it to market before the car was production-ready. It felt so unsorted and had so many rough edges. What pains me to see is that niggles are being reported on even 2020-21 cars. All the hard work Tata put in the Nexon & Hexa goes to waste when they again get back that "unreliable" image thanks to problematic Harriers & Safaris.

What is even more worrisome is how these cars are going to age! If a 1-year old Harrier has so many issues, what about when its 4 years old? Or 8? The used car market is brutal on problematic cars and this will bite Harrier owners in resale value.

The infotainment system is obviously buggy, but what's to explain the "car not starting" issue? Or the brakes making sounds like a truck? Even our test car had problems with the keyless entry & security system. IIRC, the keyless entry didn't work and I had to manually press the unlock button to enter the car.



One thing to sell a problematic machine, even worse when the customer is made to run around. What a difference between two companies of the same group. You can pay 5000 bucks for a dinner at the Taj Hotel or 10000 bucks for a room, and you'll be treated like a king. But pay 20-lakhs to Tata Motors and God help you!

I am shocked by such a apathy shown towards customer complaints. I was planning to book Safari in a week or so.But now i am forced to rethink my decision. Mind says wait for some more time and see XUV 700 launch . Heart says go for it. Few of my friends who are owning Harrier / Safari have given a positive feedback. Confused to core now.

[VT-RNS]

Originally Posted by GTO

One thing to sell a problematic machine, even worse when the customer is made to run around. What a difference between two companies of the same group. You can pay 5000 bucks for a dinner at the Taj Hotel or 10000 bucks for a room, and you'll be treated like a king. But pay 20-lakhs to Tata Motors and God help you!

Very well said, GTO!

On one hand, Taj's hospitality and ownership of customer experience is legendary, to the point that they give expert talks to institutions outside on how the culture was built.

TATA Motors needs to induct senior leadership from IHCL with complete control on customer service and run it for 5 years to see any tangible results.

For all the stuff that Skoda had got wrong, you have to credit them that there is a visible improvement in Skoda's customer service recently. Whether it gets institutionalized even after Zac Hollis's departure is another thing, but atleast some improvement there.

But for Tata Motors, such threads erode the confidence of future buyers like me. I am in the lookout for a new Crossover/CSUV like Kushaq, Harrier, etc next year, and till now, Harrier was one of my top contenders, despite my dad's notion that TATA isnt reliable in cars. But guess what, TATA is not helping matters here at all.

[tushky]

Originally Posted by dsingh70

I am shocked by such a apathy shown towards customer complaints. I was planning to book Safari in a week or so.But now i am forced to rethink my decision. Mind says wait for some more time and see XUV 700 launch . Heart says go for it. Few of my friends who are owning Harrier / Safari have given a positive feedback. Confused to core now.

Please go ahead and book the Safari. It is a very good car. I own a Tiago, and I felt that the Front right door speaker was not giving satisfactory output. Tata Technicians heard it and they felt nothing odd in it, still, they escalated my issue to Harman, Harman sent guidelines to check the speaker quality, they tested the speaker in front of me as per the guidelines and found no issue in it.

All car brands face issues with quality or services. it is not the same every time. please go ahead and book the car you like.

[Big Smoke]

I own a Harrier XZA+ since January 2021.

The keyless entry issue is real. It's just a sloppy unit. There have been innumerable times when I just turned off the car, closed the door and pressed the keyless entry sensor. For 2 seconds, nothing happens, and then: BAM BAM BAM!!! The horn starts blaring continuosly, the MID displays "Smartkey out of range", while the Smartkey is in my pocket!

In the initial days, it used to happen on a daily basis. One night (very late, post 1 am) I parked the car, shut the door and pressed the sensor, and again the horns started blaring in the middle of the night! I live in an apartment complex, and that definitely woke up a few folks. The worst part is once it starts blaring, there's absolutely no way to stop it! You just need to wait until it blares for 7-8 times.

After that incident, I stopped using the keyless entry feature for a while. I was forced to press the buttons on the Smartkey. Slowly slowly, I resumed using the keyless entry feature again. Then, because it was working without any false alarms, I got back to using the keyless entry feature only. BUT, the issue still persists. Now, it happens maybe 1 or 2 times out of 10 times.

Sometimes, even after pressing the sensor, nothing happens. No unlocking, no blaring, nothing. Then I just press the unlock button on the Smartkey.

One weird thing I have noticed : Suppose you unlock the car using keyless entry feature, drive the car, then if you press the button on the Smartkey to lock the car, the horns will start blaring! Similar case vice-versa! This is ridiculous! I have replicated the situation many times intentionally just to re-affirm myself, and viola! It is just the case. A sloppy, third class, possible cheap keyless entry unit.

Now why haven't I got the issue fixed? Reasons-

(1) It is not possible to replicate the issue (the horn blaring even after normal use) in the service centre. It just happens sometimes out of the blue.

(2) Tata Service center is painfully slow. They'll take days, if not weeks to diagnose and fix the issue.

(3) Tata service center is pathetic at solving issues which they're not trained for / acquainted with. Day before yesterday, they took 5 hours to solve an alignment problem my car had (despite it being a common problem in all Harriers).

(4) Even if they plan to replace the entire unit, they'll supply me with a new unit, which is basically the same sloppy unit I complained about.

(5) In case they proceed with the replacement work of the unit, I'm 110% sure they'll create some other new issue, and definitely not do a satisfactory job. Then it'll be a recurring pricess of me visiting the ASS every month / week, trying to resolve a new issue.

(6) The random occurrences of false alarms have reduced quite a bit now, so I've learnt to live with it.

Maybe in the future, if the problem aggravates, I'll show it to the service centre. Presently, as I've said, I've learnt to live with it and I'm hopeless of the Tata ASS guys coming up with a solution.

And you know what? Suppose I give my car to them to fix the issue, and they need to keep the car for days, they'll most probably not even provide me with a replacement car. And even if they do, I know what they'll give me. The dealer from whom I bought the car, Dulichand Motors (Kolkata), has a Tata Tiago as a spare car for the workshop (registered under their name) which they use for whatever jobs they need to do, and guess what? It's a Blacklisted Car! It's blacklisted because it doesn't comply to the pollution norms. So you can very well judge how they maintain the car. I don't want a blacklisted Tiago when my Harrier is in the workshop for warranty repairs.
And suppose they offer to pay me for can rides while my car is in the workshop, I'm very doubtful of the payment scheme.

[racer_7]

Originally Posted by vaibhav27

There may be a way to fix 90% of the problems yourself - get an iPhone and use carplay!

Cant agree with you more. I took delivery of my new Safari this Sunday and with my One Plus 7 Pro I was facing all kinds of issues with Android auto and Bluetooth connectivity.

My wife's iphone X worked like a charm at one go with Car Play!

[NotanF1driver]

I was planning to buy a car in the 18 - 24 lacs price bracket for almost a year and a half now, and this has been put on hold due to lockdowns. Basically the three cars in our family has been almost unused for the last 1.5 years. During this period, I got the time to go through many ownership reviews. Finally, yesterday, I heard that Tata might be jacking up prices of their passenger cars soon. I (almost) decided to book the car to save me from the price hike (the model XZA was costing 19.75 ex-showroom. If it touches 20, road tax increases by 5%).

Today, I opened Team-BHP (as usual) and to my surprise, this thread pops up in the home page! I am now almost forced to book a Seltos GT line 1.5 AT. The safety rating (how/ why does someone's head bottom out the airbags in a crash!) and 5 months wait bothers me. But continuous niggles and poor service are things which I can't be friends with! Considering my nature of work, I won't have the time/ patience to deal with service center push backs. I already get to deal with a lot of those at work

The only deal breaker I have with Tata Harrier are these niggles. I love the car and I'm actually really sad that I can't be an owner. Why Tata?

[racer_7]

Originally Posted by dsingh70

I am shocked by such a apathy shown towards customer complaints. I was planning to book Safari in a week or so.But now i am forced to rethink my decision. Mind says wait for some more time and see XUV 700 launch . Heart says go for it. Few of my friends who are owning Harrier / Safari have given a positive feedback. Confused to core now.

Dude I sold my XUV500 automatic and bought the Safari! I was facing issues with the XUV in terms of frequent air conditioner failures, gear slippage etc. coupled with poor build (doors needing tightening as they slack, new noises from the car every other day, fiber glass fenders which just crack on the slightest nudge) and overall refinement. Mind you my car was exactly 31k kms driven and 4.5 years old when I sold it.

Now after reading these posts it seems I jumped from the wok and straight into the fire!

But thankfully apart from the infotainment issues, I found the car to he a lot better built(door thuds, metal thickness) and refined (NVH) than the XUV500). Fingers crossed.

[krishnakumar]

Originally Posted by racer_7

Dude I sold my XUV500 automatic and bought the Safari! I was facing issues with the XUV in terms of frequent air conditioner failures, gear slippage etc. coupled with poor build (doors needing tightening as they slack, new noises from the car every other day) and overall refinement. Mind you my car was exactly 31k kms driven and 4.5 years old when I sold it.

Hey!

I'm seriously considering the XUV700, do you think it's a bad choice? Were your issues prevalent from the start or have they started to come up recently?

Also, from your other owner groups, have you heard the same?

If I leave Tata and Mahindra out of the picture, then I'll have to settle for Kia/Hyundai which I don't want to considering the poor safety ratings.

Originally Posted by NotanF1driver

I was planning to buy a car in the 18 - 24 lacs price bracket for almost a year and a half now, and this has been put on hold due to lockdowns.

Today, I opened Team-BHP (as usual) and to my surprise, this thread pops up in the home page! I am now almost forced to book a Seltos GT line 1.5 AT. The safety rating (how/ why does someone's head bottom out the airbags in a crash!) and 5 months wait bothers me.

But continuous niggles and poor service are things which I can't be friends with! Considering my nature of work, I won't have the time/ patience to deal with service center push backs. I already get to deal with a lot of those at work

This. Exactly this. Continuous niggles is just a turn off no matter how much we love the car.

Looks like the market is forcing customers to stick with unsafe options like the Seltos and Creta. Or else spend a bomb and push the budget all the way to a Compass.

Totally confused. I was hoping that the XUV700 would settle the confusion but seems like the niggles are a part of life in that world too.

Why oh why!!

[hridayjyoti]

I am probably one few first owners of Harrier in the forum (157th customer of Harrier as per record) and almost 2 and half year ownership with XZ model. No doubt buying new launch from Tata is big risk, overall I am happy with the vehicle if I take out infotainment system. Here my take on and adhoc solutions for some of the problems:
1. Infotainment system: I faced all the problems listed above and also replaced the head unit, still the problem is there. And I also use OnePlus and MI phone! What I understand service centre guys have no idea how to resolve it, as this is due to poor hardware/low RAM.
Solution: I think the system hangs due to low memory due excessive cache. So reboot the system. To reboot press both the physical button of volume and navigation together. Try it, it always works for me.
2. Smart key problem: I have also faced the problem of smart key not responding, key out of range, etc. It is due low battery of the key, change the battery. Solution: If you ask service centre guy they may not change it, better buy few battery online (battery size CR2032) and change it yourself. There is multiple video in youtube on how to change battery of the fob.
Apart from that there will be niggle here and there for any vehicle. I had owned multiple vehicles over last 15 year, be it Alto, Ford Fiesta 1.6, gypsy, polo, grand i10, 4th gen Honda City, Tata Safari dicor; all vehicles have it's own issues. Say Polo was great vehicle to drive till you met an accident- cost and quality of work will make you very sad. City is considered as best sedan in the segment, but not for me- it gave me back pain in long drives, rattling dashboard, poor repaint job (had sent the vehicle 3 times for a bumper repaint job due to poor QC) and many more issues. There is endless list of niggles and issues I faced with all the vehicles. Hence, don't be sad on facing niggles, there is a reason behind choosing a particular vehicle. Harrier is great looking vehicle with lots of space, give comfortable ride and many more features; just enjoy the ride and find a work around the issues.
Cheers!

[racer_7]

Originally Posted by krishnakumar

Hey!

I'm seriously considering the XUV700, do you think it's a bad choice? Were your issues prevalent from the start or have they started to come up recently?

Also, from your other owner groups, have you heard the same?

If I leave Tata and Mahindra out of the picture, then I'll have to settle for Kia/Hyundai which I don't want to considering the poor safety ratings.

Really cannot comment on the 700 man. It's supposed to be a completely new car but from the spy images seems to be built on the same 500 platform. If you are considering the Koreans then let me tell you they come with their fair share of problems as well. I owned the first gen i20 and after 3 years it felt like a 6/7 year old car. Suspension issues were the ones which I remember the most. Also, while evaluating the Safari I drove the Creta (Alcazar was not available) and it just didn't feel like an SUV but more like a raised i20.

I suggest you go for the car which you loved at first sight and enjoyed driving it. That's how I do it Most of the issues mentioned here are related to the infotainment and smart keys which, at least for me, are manageable niggles although I am keeping my own fingers crossed.

BTW we have also owned a Safari Dicor in the past which was sold due to its sheer adamancy in providing the driver even a bit of relief in city traffic. But the car never let us down. No matter what people used to say about Tata quality those days, and even today, the car worked without any hiccups till the last day.

I am also putting up some images of my current and prior possessions just to relive the memories

The father:


The prodigal son:


The nasty "Loki":


The illegitimate one:

[NotanF1driver]

Originally Posted by krishnakumar

Hey!

Or else spend a bomb and push the budget all the way to a Compass.

Totally confused. I was hoping that the XUV700 would settle the confusion but seems like the niggles are a part of life in that world too.

Pushing budget might not be an option for all. The price of a Compass diesel AT is way too high, for me at least.
Mahindra's too is said to have issues in their V1 releases. So can't be optimistic about XUV700. Also, price would be on the higher side as well, seeing the leaks and scoops.

[ashokabs]

I bought the Tiago XZ in 2016 - Q4 and I think my image of the company and it's products changed. However, what I am reading now is horrific and a real blot on the company that wants to become no.2 by displacing Hyundai.

[murcie]

As a HEXA owner, I had my share of niggles with TATA from day one.

A couple of bits were missing from the toolkit at the time of delivery, which I raised promptly and was assured it will be taken care of. I'm still waiting for that day.

On my service visit to concord motors, they managed to swap one of the second-row headrest with some other Hexa's front headrest. I noticed it many days later, raised a complaint, the ticket closed automatically after a couple of days.

Now its almost 4 years and I can give a couple of suggestions when it comes to TATA cars

1) They are mechanically solid machines, very few manufacturers would come close.
2) It's very important to find a good service centre, I was lucky to find one and the journey was smooth afterwards
3) The infotainment is too slow and cumbersome to use for any smart features, don't expect much. I'm happy that it can play songs via Bluetooth, I can attend calls and the reverse camera works.
4) If you hear a squeak somewhere, simply turn up the volume. The problem will go away on its own. TATA is not for people with OCD.
5) Always check the forums for feedback if going for an ECU or ICE software update, many times not upgrading is the sensible thing to do

Coming to my conclusion -

Are TATA cars (even near)perfect: Not at all
Will I consider a TATA again: Yes

[AZT]

I think Maruti is dropping the ball by not competing in this segment. Yes, some people will say it's not a premium brand etc. but MS should still get enough numbers to justify competing there.

[DeepCarTalk]

Originally Posted by kaushal-pandya

Hi all,

I will focus more on the unprofessionalism shown by the Tata Motors dealership (3rd point escalation person of the dealership, Centralised Customer Care team, Customer Care western region head, and the Tata Motors Customer Care head) in helping to resolve these issues.

The most ridiculous part is that you had to deal with the customer care of their suppliers. You bought a car from TATA Motors as a whole and not a bootleg product where you buy all parts separately and get it assembled.

It is not your job to track down their suppliers and chase them for replacement.
That is like saying that you buy an iPhone that crops up a display issue and Apple asks you to go to Samsung to get the display replaced.

TATA feels like a government run organization. When KIA and Hyundai can manage 10,xxx units per month with near perfection in terms of quality
TATA is still stuck in 1990s with their quality team.