Team-BHP - Tata Nano AMT (Automatic) : Official Review

Quote:

Originally Posted by comfortablynumb (Post 3712940)

Have dealers in Pune started charging handling charges too now??? :Shockked: If you can negotiate to drop that and get insurance from outside, you might save another 3-5K.

Cheers,
Vikram

Quote:

Originally Posted by a4anurag (Post 3712947)

I am on a fight with Maruti too as they are charging me 6000 as handling.

Any pointers?

So after a long (nit-picking) conversation, I only managed to get zero-dep insurance without any additional cost. Handling charges are charged by every dealer, its not only this dealer, this is what SA said.

Dropped in at a Tata showroom to see if I could get a TD of the Nano AMT. Unfortunately, although the TD car was available, it had not yet been registered. So had to be content with looking at the display car. Some observations.

Liked the looks. The changes to the exterior works well.
First time I was actually sitting inside a nano. Quite impressive. The tall boy design ensures it feels spacious and airy. After setting the driver seat as per my convenience, I could still sit comfortably behind (I am 5.11)
The steering seemed a little too low for my liking. Need to see how it is when driving.
The doors and rear hatch did not feel as tinny as expected. Felt pretty solid.
While the boot space is minimal. As a city car, it should be good enough
Impressive feature set. The MID Info, Audio system with Bluetooth, fog lamps etc.. Quite well loaded considering the price
The glove box behind the steering is a nice feature.
The steering and the steering stalks felt good to hold.
Definitely looks to be a value for money proposition. I don't have too much expectations on the drivability. Hope to be surprised.

Attached is the Bangalore Price list if anyone needs for reference.

Tata Nano AMT (Automatic) : Official Review-nanoprice.jpg

Test Drove Alto AMT, Celerio AMT and Nano AMT back to back in a period of 2 hours today morning.

Alto and Celerio
Pratham Motors, HSR Layout, helped us with the test drives

Nano
Prerana motors BTM layout bought the Tata nano to HSR layout where we did our test drives. The following are my observations

Alto AMT
- Very peppy. Runs smooth as silk
- Overall felt that the AMT is smooth and easy to learn. Loved the manual part of the AMT especially the auto down shifts.
- You can feel the upshifts in the beginning (especially the switch from 1st to 2nd gear). But if push the throttle slightly harder from gears 2 and above you don't notice the upshifts. As time passes (in a day or two) you will get used to it and will not feel the shifts.
- No push button windows for the rear seat (not a deal breaker)
- Horrible head room and pathetic passenger seat leg room (deal breaker for me as I am 6.0 feet)

Celerio AMT
- No disadvantages (except for the price) when compared to Alto and Nano

Nano AMT
- Liked the inside leg room, head room, A/C, glove boxes, basic information display
- Liked the exterior looks. Nano always looked good for us except the look of the backside engine which reminded me of an auto.
- Pick up and Power - Way less than Alto/Celerio in normal mode. You can feel the lag and lack of power.
- Sport mode adds some power and boosts it up a notch. Me and my wife liked the sports mode and we have decided we would be driving in that mode as a way of our life
- Note that Sports mode power of Nano is still less than that of Alto/Celerio
- Breaks!! hmm... now this has been a point of concern and it is a true concern. Both of us felt breaks need improvement and are not confidence infusing. With these breaks I would not be driving more than 70 km/h. But it works out for us as we will hardly touch that speed in our daily office and super market commutes. Press the breaks harder than your regular car and you will be fine. (finding excuses to pick Nano :) )
- Noisier than Alto and Celerio (but I can bear with it). Much better than the old phad-phad sound
- Doors close like tachh/phatachh (sound as swachh as in swachh bharath) rather than a regular "Thud".
- No push button windows for the rear seat (Dealer said I can get them installed on additional cost) - Is that true ?
- Can feel the knees (legs) of a tall passenger if I push the seat far back (I can live with it)
- Absolutely love its price and its affordability
- Wife always wanted a Nano :) for its cuteness. Decent colours available.

Well done by Tata. This model is now almost complete car like other cars. It has lots of features, its very spacious, decent power, looks quite cool, VFM & some more. Hope it will sell now in better numbers. Nano should have been like this 2-3 years back only. You just have to remember one thing that its a city car only & not made for highways. Still i see lots of Nano's on highway whenever i go and they cruise really fast ;)

For me still 2 things are missing -
1 Engine is not smooth as it should be, should be like Maruti cars. This car requires smooth engine without any sound and vibrations. Its a must for me.
2 For petrol filling, you still need to open bonnet. Come on Tata, you should have done that at least now. Filling petrol by opening bonnet is really worst experience.

Still i like the car and one day want to own one as well. Best of luck Tata :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan (Post 3712858)

Yes but the location seems to have changed. I noticed this on comparing the engine bay area to the Twist. On the Twist, the radiator is visible. The coolant reservoir takes a different design too. While there is a exhaust sort of system (To take out heat) by means of a fan, I wonder if the radiator is also supplemented with one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller (Post 3712877)

Yes, the radiator has been shifted a little ahead within the rear engine bay itself, as compared to the older model, and not to the front of the car.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aditya (Post 3712954)

@ SS-Traveller and Sutripta

The radiator of the car has indeed been moved to the front and is now in the bonnet - not in the engine bay at the rear. Tata Motors clearly mentioned this. That is one of the reasons why the grille at the front is enlarged. It is also the reason the car has gained length (along with a crumple zone). :)

Seeing is believing! Where are the pictures!

Regards
Sutripta

Quote:

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller (Post 3712503)

The picture shows the AC condenser, installed up front, which is one of the secrets for the Nano's terrific AC performance (no interference of heat exchange due to condenser being overlapped with the radiator, as in front-engined cars).

The radiator is in its usual place in the rear engine bay, and coolant is not flowing from the rear to the front of the car. The air intake openings behind the rear doors feed that radiator.

That's exactly what we thought too! It sounded rather weird. We reconfirmed with a Tata Motors tech person at the venue, and he insisted that the radiator has been moved to the front.

Also:

1. Compare the engine pics of the new & old Nano. See how it's so visible in the older one (and not in the 2015 Nano):

2. See the image of the cooling fan in this (2015) review. It's not bolted onto the radiator (as is usually the case).

3. In the new Nano's engine bay, there are no visible hose pipes (they are very visible in the older one).

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 3713804)

1. Compare the engine pics of the new & old Nano. See how it's so visible in the older one (and not in the 2015 Nano):
2. See the image of the cooling fan in this (2015) review. It's not bolted onto the radiator (as is usually the case).
3. In the new Nano's engine bay, there are no visible hose pipes (they are very visible in the older one).

This is a dilemma - seems someone now needs to get under the car for pics! Guess I'll do it sometime next week, if no one has done it till then. :)

My observations:
1. The front end has only one fan, behind the so-called radiator/condenser. It runs continuously when the AC is switched on, and not if the AC is off. I don't see how a radiator fan can switch on/off with the AC going on/off, and not on its own. It is another thing that I tested that fan only because it makes a weird noise inside the cabin when it's running. There is no other fan there.

2. I did not notice any radiator filler cap up front. There are 3 filler points there - the windscreen washer fluid, the brake fluid, and petrol.

3. Despite my best efforts, I did not see any hoses thick enough to carry coolant into / out of the front radiator, if it is there.

4. The coolant overflow tank is inside the engine bay at the rear, and not in the front of the car. Overflow tanks need to be installed as close to the radiator as possible, not at the other end of the car.

5. The cooling fan at the back is electric, and runs for a short while after the hot engine is switched off (audible in the cabin). If the radiator is in the front, the fan at the front needs to run to cool off things - which it does not.

6. The old Nano had its radiator within the rear engine bay, but behind the engine (and prone to damage by mild rear-ending). The GenX has it in a forward / anterior location with respect to the engine block.

What the TML technical specialist perhaps meant when mentioning the radiator has been moved to the front, is that the radiator is now ahead of the engine, but within the same engine compartment at the rear of the car.

Will confirm all this with a jack and a camera in the next few days. As Sutripta said, someone has to own responsibility for an epic failure! :)

One additional engineering bit that I would remark upon here, is about the brakes. The GenX Nano runs on drum brakes, operated hydraulically by a dual circuit tandem master cylinder. Now, what is a brake booster doing there? Drum brakes on small cars are efficient enough not to need brake boosters (remember the old Fiats/Premiers?).

Yet, even with a vacuum booster, our test drive report includes a mention of poor brakes (though personally I thought the brakes were adequate, but not excellent). A switchover to discs with the same hydraulic set-up may not be an advantage at all - I'd suspect it'll make braking worse. OTOH, modifying the hydraulics / booster system should make braking better than what it is now.