[PAVAN KADAM]

I remember somewhere on this forum i had posted one MINT looking TATA Estate.

Not only the car looked just out of showroom, even the interiors were as fresh.

But the icing on the cake was its engine, He was running on a new 2006 Safari TCIC engine, which was super silent.

[jaysmokesleaves]

If someone here has the relevant contacts to help me source interior parts for the Tata Estate, in Bombay,I would like to do a "pimp my ride"with it. I do have access to a TCIC Safari engine & gearbox, but dont want to modify anything yet on dog van just becoz i cannot find interior parts.

@Sridhar.s.i >> Very poorly maintained ride. No offence but my dog van(Estate) is in better condition. The T on the steering is upside down too.
Please clean it up, get a custom made carpet, and clean up the plastics and then use a dashboard polish on all the plastics liberally.

Are you running 205/70 R15 tires ?
I could not find the stock size, so my Estate runs 205's with similar tread like yours. I think Goodyear'Wranglers, if im not mistaken.
Whats that holder near the steering?

Cheers,

Jay

[Foxbat]

Originally Posted by PAVAN KADAM

Wow...Too big a post to quote

Its a wonderful write up, i can understand your sentiments on your First Car.

And even more nicer to see that you have painstakingly restored it. Wish you a loooong term fruitful ownership of this car.

As per my info goes, the Estate design is from Mercedes Benz, though the TATA's could not emulate what Mercedes did, but this car sold well and is supposed to have oodles of space and great in comfort.

Please do post some pics of your car, We are all waiting.

The design itself is not from Mercedes Benz, but is inspired from the Mercedes of the 1980s. I had the privilege of meeting the designer of the Tata Estate in 2006, when he was working at GM India. I told him that the car bore a resemblance to the E-Class Mercedes and he confirmed design cues were taken from Ratan Tata's personal Mercedes cars.

[hirajan]

I am an admirer of Tata Estate and Tata Sierra.

I still remember the Tata Estate AD. Driver of the car will keep the hat/cap on top of the Estate and he will start driving the car forgetting the hat. When he stops the car and gets out to open the door for his boss.. he sees the cap and give a fond look at the Estate.

Does anyone remember that AD? Am i right with what i narrated as an Estate AD?

I am just thinking, if TATA did not stop Sierra production ..do you think it would have put tough competition to presnt day SUV's?

I dont understand why Estate model (body shape) is not doing well in India.

[shridhar.s.i]

Originally Posted by jaysmokesleaves

If someone here has the relevant contacts to help me source interior parts for the Tata Estate, in Bombay,I would like to do a "pimp my ride"with it. I do have access to a TCIC Safari engine & gearbox, but dont want to modify anything yet on dog van just becoz i cannot find interior parts.

@Sridhar.s.i >> Very poorly maintained ride. No offence but my dog van(Estate) is in better condition. The T on the steering is upside down too.
Please clean it up, get a custom made carpet, and clean up the plastics and then use a dashboard polish on all the plastics liberally.

Are you running 205/70 R15 tires ?
I could not find the stock size, so my Estate runs 205's with similar tread like yours. I think Goodyear'Wranglers, if im not mistaken.
Whats that holder near the steering?

Cheers,

Jay

No offense Jay (jaysmokesleaves) as i am not here to argue, but what difference does it make to a DOG if your dogvan (Though i dont like it when you call an estate that way) runs an old tata engine or a Safari engine with a better gearbox and i also beleive your DOGS are anyways not going to make use of the interior parts either, oh and to answer your questions
1. Yes i will get the steering fixed
2. The holder is a cellphone holder (actually older ericckson cell phone were quite bulky)

[keenan_bachoog]

My Dad had this car during the 90's and I have loads of memories of long trips from Bombay to Mangalore in it.

I remember my sis and i used to treat the rear as our own personal mini room.

Overall a fun, comfortable car, which my Dad believed had a lot of character!

[Aravindpn]

Originally Posted by pramodpk

Nice review. This car was very popular in Kerala when it was launched. Malayalam superstar Mammootty owned this car. In fact he met with an accident while driving this car. The car overturned and he escaped unscathed. In fact, I was a fan of this car back then.

Please put some pictures of the car.

I was thinking about Mamooty when I saw this thread and you were on point to mention the incident. I heard that the accident was near Alwaye in NH47 and he sold the car after the accident. Not sure though.

[Axe77]

What a beautifully written review. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and your love for the car is so evident. And I agree - its the difficult times that actually make the memory fond and stick in when you own a car for so many years.

I can relate to the evident passion for your first car. Our family's first car was the original maruti 800 first lot purchased in 1983 / 84 I think (I was about 7 yrs old then). The image of that car being driven into our street below my house is still vivid. We owned that car all the way till 2003 and I used it to commute occassionally through college (had a bike as primary ride) and also through my first two years of working. I was so sad the day we let it go. It was literally like a part of our family going away.

Have fun with her. I'm sure she'll serve you well for many years to come given the passion with which you maintain her.

[amitwlele]

This post has taken me down memory lane many many years ago wherein we had a freak accident while going around in the Estate with freinds. We had just left our apartment very late in the night with my freind driving and me next to him...Suddenly after 100 metres or so what do i see - 1 tyre going in front of the car. It took us some seconds to realise its our cars front tyre that has come off and we came to a halt.

Luckily we were not speeding and there were no injuries....

Thanks for starting this thread.....Estate was one of the most comfortable vehicles of its time and congrats to you for this long ownership.

Cheers,
Amit

[shridhar.s.i]

Hello,
I know that most of you folks already know the car well enough, but as my duty here is me highlighting some of the features that made this indian car way ahead of its time
1. Power Steering (Hydraulic Rack &Pinion)
2. Tilt Steering
3. Door Lamps for better visibility during ingress / egress
4. Reading lamp on passenger side
5. Boot Lamp
6. Leaf Spring Rear Suspension
7. Rear A/C vents
8. Rear Wash and wipe
9. Foldable rear seats
10. Power Windows
11. Door Lock buttons
And i can proudly say in my car all of the above items are still doing duty

[siddheshb]

I didn't have the honour of driving an Estate, but when I got married and shifted to Pune from Goa way back in 1998, I borrowed a friend's Tatamobile (2 row cabin plus goods carrier version), loaded it with all my "new home" stuff including a mini fridge, and gas cylinder and shegdi, and drove all the way - landing bang in the middle of Pune's thick rush hour traffic. I even managed to haul it all the way into Laxmi Road's gullies! Awesome vehicle, awesome handling!

[jaguar.runs]

Originally Posted by Aravindpn

I was thinking about Mamooty when I saw this thread and you were on point to mention the incident. I heard that the accident was near Alwaye in NH47 and he sold the car after the accident. Not sure though.

Tata Estate was always associated with Mamooty for Keralites as he was one of the first customers to buy the car. He is famous for his high speed driving style and his driver always sits in the back. The duty of the driver is to take car of the car when Mamooty is not driving. The car overturned as he was trying to recover the car from the deep shoulder as he was forced off the road by an oncoming vehicle. The front wheel recovered, but the rear wheel did not. That resulted in a sideways skid and the car overturned eventually ending up in the ditch. The height difference between the road and the shoulder was too high and accidents were too high until NH authorities took care of the shoulder height.

The accident was right next to my old house in Muringoor (Falls on NH47 between Koratty & Chalakudy). The dealer took the car back on goodwill and he was given a new car. The best part was the recovery of the car from the overturned position in the night. The car was bought on wheels with help of an elephant! The TATA team from EKM checked the fluids and started the car. They drove it back to the dealership as the only major damage was on the roof. One solid built car, may be a bit too much!

Sorry for the Long OT!

@shridhar.s.i. - Nice report!

[noelravin]

The Tata Estate was a great concept as far as builiding a car for an Indian family is concerned. It was large with great seats and a truck that no car even today can compete with. I would drive 700kms in one stretch and feel absolutely no fatigue. We bought our white Tata Estate in 1994 and sold it in 2002 - 18 years and 1.3 lakh kilometers later. It was the popular car for the full extended family for any wedding, beach trip or picnic. Above all this it was built like a vault and would devour the worst roads with ease. It handled well, would do a top speed of 130kmph and had great brakes. The headlamps were a generation ahead of anything on the road and with its glass enclosures upgrading to 90/100 bulbs was no problem. The car came with 195/70/15 tires supplied either from Ceat or JK tyre.

This car was like a small child that needed attention everyday. I think the problem was that this car had many 'firsts' for India and the component manufacturers did not meet the specifications needed for a reliable car. The first batch of cars would have timing belt failures and therefore seized engines at 8000kms, Fan belt failures sometimes every 500 kms because of idler pulley issues, Broken rear suspensions at 12000kms and worn our front tires were common at 20000kms. Oil consumption of 1 litre / 1000kms was also found on some brand new cars from the 1st batch. It was a highly flawed product with visits to the workshop for one glitch or the other being a daily affair. A major electrical problem was the 75Amp rectifier in the Alternator housing which would fail and create extreme voltage surges - this would burn out the headlamp bulbs and often the AC blower. Tata later changed this to an 85 amp unit which was relatively trouble free. These parts would burn out also because the car had miles of electrical wiring and the harnesses were not of good quality - there would be loose contacts and frequent resultant part failures. The fuses were the old glass kind. Our car never had a power window / power lock failure which seemed to be a common problem among most owners. The AC had its first problem at 85000kms due to a blown O ring. We changed the power steering pump at 100000kms because of a leak. We had to replace the piston rings and valves at 1.1lakh because of heavy oil consumption.

After the first two years of ownership we found that the replacement spares were of much better quality and the car then became a joy to own. The suspension would run about 35000kms without a bush replacement and if the alignment was done every 4000kms - the tires ran 40000kms.

I agree that this car would be great if re-introduced with the same body style but completely new tech like in the Storme/Aria and new interiors.

[shridhar.s.i]

Yes After almost 16 years the car has shown aging factors, today morning ew found out that the welding which connected the exhaust system to engine went kaput and hence the car started sounding like a Truck for real, on further inspection the mechanic has found out that the Steering rod and its link to tie rods has started to Rust and will be replace
Cost estimated - total 7K

[nijelj]

NoelRavin, is that a pic of your estate? It looks so pristine!

Sridhar.S.I ,So two years down the line,you are still hung on the estate. Nice

My family has gone through 3 tata estates. We bought the first one in 92 , a bright red, which my NRI dad would never allow his BILs to drive! He and Mom had an head-on with a truck in 1999, and ended up with a shattered wrist and broken leg.My diminutive Mom got stuck in the foot well (Because Seatbelts were not worn). Since he was so grateful to the estate for saving their lives, he promptly bought a 96' estate on getting discharged from the hospital. So while the 92' estate was getting repaired, we used this as our royal savari!. They botched the repair job, so the first estate was our cement and lifestock carrier (Goats,young buffalos). Now we have a 98' estate, which dad enjoys driving to and from his construction sites.
I too wish that they'd launch with a fuel efficient,powerful roomy car in the original estate avatar.

Tata Motors ,