Hi Kamal,
I guess you are in the same situation as I was 3 year ago. Some will say "Ignorance is Bliss". I really think it is only a bliss if you are financially stable.
I bought a second hand safari, just 2 year old. The SUV was fine for one year, no issues. just regular servicing. But then one fine day the steering got jammed. Contacted our local Tata Showroom.
Now I don't know how the rest of India's Tata service is all about, but Coimbatore service came to my place in about 2 hours, and found the steering mount has snapped out of the chassis.
Which was quite a bad, prognosis "New Chassis". I don't know whether I should take it as a big relief as my parents were not driving the car at that time or get pissed for the situation that I bought a Lemon.
Now when it comes to servicing, they did a good job in replacing the car, bad news was the previous owner tampered the kilometer and sold it to me, Which I was only able to find out when the service engineer looked in to the service history. I cannot argue about it anymore because at the time of purchase I thought I am getting a good deal. "BUT NO". You have to be a bit technically sound to handle those guys and the service engineers. ( With practice everything will come to you, When you take the car to any of these authorized service center, Don't tell them all your problems, tell them the things you only want to get fixed. As soon as the write the jobs on the jobs card they will charge you once they fix it and most of them have fixed cost)
End of the Day, I cannot solely blame on the Tata build quality, The roads in Coimbatore were pathetic, you buy even a Toyota and drive it on those roads, they get damaged. Tata builds stuff to international standard, They also build Airframes to Sikorsky Helicopter and spare parts for other major brands.
My advise will be, Buy anything brand new and you are set to go either its Mahindra or Tata, they both are heavy vehicle and the roads are not so good, you will end up having steering play in 6 months and other rattles come into play. If you don;t want to take the risk then go for some small cars with petrol engines. If you are happy to spend Rs10 per kilometer then go for safari.( Including diesel).
Good luck with your new vehicle.

Enjoy safe driving.
Regards
Quote:
Originally Posted by kamal.sn After a lot of thought ( for more than a year ) i have finally made up my mind to go for GX 4x4 but there are still doubts in my mind regarding the quality issues which have been reported by a number of people on this forum and elsewhere. I waited for the 2010 model ( BSIV ) as i thought that the issues might have been rectified by TATA in this release but saw a review posted on carwale for the 2010 model. Link below : Tata Safari User Review by Shubhanand - Highly unreliable and No After Sale Support... - CarWale.com
Now i am a bit apprehensive about going for the Safari.
Experts : Need your advice for the same as i will be going against the wishes of my wife to buy the car, as well as currently being a bit tight on the finances and if the car turns out to be a lemon then i will be in a very tight spot.
Should i wait for some time for the new SUVs coming in 2011 and then make a decision on which one to go for or go for the Safari right away ? |