[ObsessedByFIAT]

My first issue with Nano happened on Saturday!

In the morning around 7:30 am, I washed my car and then it was there standing in open sun for around 3.5 hours.
Later I took it out for a short spin of 6 km one way.
While on one of the right turns, while I was slowing down, the car just died. The last I could see was the car was going to down shift from 4th and a speed of around 40 kmph +/- 5 km.

The ac was running before the car died. Before I could realise what had happened the car rolled to a stop at the right turn. Fortunately there wasn't much traffic behind me and I could take turn off the ignition completely, turn it back on, wait for the self check and crank again.
Once I started the car again, everything bwent back to normal for rest of the drive.

I do not know if this incident can be linked to the car wash I did in the morning or if there is something more to it.

Would request members to let me know what all can I check from my end.

Edit: forgot to add that I think there was the engine check light ( image of nano with spanner on the console) for a brief second light up. But I am not 100% sure of it as it went away on its own.
Also the car was serviced around mid of March 2018.

[swami.n]

Originally Posted by ObsessedByFIAT

Edit: forgot to add that I think there was the engine check light ( image of nano with spanner on the console) for a brief second light up. But I am not 100% sure of it as it went away on its own.
Also the car was serviced around mid of March 2018.

Kindly recall if you had mistakenly moved the gear lever position and did not hear the warning due to outside noise or the music.
Similar issue happened once in our car where the gear lever was moved and since it was very noisy outside with windows down, could not hear the warning.
The spanner image did comeup that time.
Gave some time and has not happened again. Also see if any of the fuses have gone.

[ObsessedByFIAT]

Originally Posted by swami.n

Kindly recall if you had mistakenly moved the gear lever position and did not hear the warning due to outside noise or the music.
Similar issue happened once in our car where the gear lever was moved and since it was very noisy outside with windows down, could not hear the warning.
The spanner image did comeup that time.
Gave some time and has not happened again. Also see if any of the fuses have gone.

Thank you for the pointers!

Both my hands were on the steering at the time when this happened as I was about to make a right turn.

Fuses seem to be fine as the car hasn't shown the same behaviour after that episode.
Nevertheless, will still check all the fuses to be double sure.

[arjab]

Originally Posted by swami.n

Yes upgraded all 4 tyres to 165 section Yokohama.

Couple of questions, as i'm also planning on upsizing.

1. What is the profile that you fitted? 165/60-R12 ?
2. Do the front wheels foul the wheel arches/any other area of interference, especially under load and on a full-steering lock situation?

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

[swami.n]

Originally Posted by ObsessedByFIAT

Thank you for the pointers!

Both my hands were on the steering at the time when this happened as I was about to make a right turn.

This did not happen immediately when the gear lever was moved by mistake. Had driven for some distance with the gear moved and this happened after quite some time only. Also please recall if you were trying to go reverse up or down in a very steep incline with constantly changing from A to R.
This warning light came up when I was giving practice to wife to park in forward and reverse in our house steep parking entry slope. Constant changing of A to R for close to 15 to mins and this light came on, but vehicle did not stall. I let it sometime before starting again and never had this afterwards.

Originally Posted by arjab

Couple of questions, as i'm also planning on upsizing.

1. What is the profile that you fitted? 165/60-R12 ?
2. Do the front wheels foul the wheel arches/any other area of interference, especially under load and on a full-steering lock situation?

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

I think the tyre size you have mentioned is right. I do 4 wheel rotation now as all are same spec tyres.
Couldn't fit this size in the front spare place. Else would have changed all and did 5 wheel rotation.
There is no scraping or any issues even during full U turn and heavily loaded situation. The only difficulty is mud splash as the front wheels at one place stretch out by a few mm and tedious to keep cleaning the lower side portions
Also a minor fall in the FE, but I take it gladly with the improved stability and grip provided by these tyres.

[ObsessedByFIAT]

Originally Posted by swami.n

This did not happen immediately when the gear lever was moved by mistake. Had driven for some distance with the gear moved and this happened after quite some time only. Also please recall if you were trying to go reverse up or down in a very steep incline with constantly changing from A to R.
.

No sir, wasn't doing any repeated back and forth of R to A.
I was driving at a constant speed of around 50kmph. I was reducing the speed to make the right turn.
The road is a leveled and does not have any steep incline.

[swami.n]

Originally Posted by ObsessedByFIAT

No sir, wasn't doing any repeated back and forth of R to A.
I was driving at a constant speed of around 50kmph. I was reducing the speed to make the right turn.
The road is a leveled and does not have any steep incline.

On a lighter note, this could just be a rarest of rare case of AMT stalling like a beginner would do :-)
Dont worry if you dont see this happening again.

[aajohn]

How are you guys finding the service experience? I had bought the car from Prerna Motors Bangalore in 2016 - till date i have found the service experience pathetic, lousy and just irritating.

Scenario 1 - Car gets picked up by driver at 10 AM on a Saturday to the service center which is about 15 minutes away.Till 2 PM No call from any one - I get worried and call the booking helpline- "Saar, we will call you back in 5 min" , post waiting for 30 minutes, call the help line again, they gave me the mobile no of the Service Adviser. I call him - " Saar, I'm on leave today". This blew my fuse. I called the helpline and asked for the GM Service No . Called him up and asked him what the dot was going on. He says " Saar, give me 5 min, I will Sort this out". After 5 minutes. I get a call saying that my original SA was on leave due to an "exigency" and a new adviser has been assigned.

Scenario 2 : My car is on lease and I can claim the maintenance bills. After 1st Service. I asked for the bill, they silently send ""estimation" - this is despite 2 calls asking for bill - everyone says """Saar we we are sending in 2 minutes""", it has been 2 years and i haven't got the bill till date and i have lost the window of claiming.

Scene 3 : Sir your service is due on X Date. Me : Okay, please send a driver. Service : Sir : no driver available. Me : Okay - when can you send?. Service Center: Due Date+10 Days - Me okay, please send. Service Center - Sure this is done.Post a few days - Sir - You had confirmed that you would send your car today - Me: But you had said there's no driver and can only accommodate after +10 days?? - Madam cuts the call. I call her back and giver her a ear full and ask her to confirm the date. Saar okay, will send later.

These are just a few experiences. My family owned a TATA truck in 90's, followed by a tata estate. in the mid 2000 I had told my dad that we should look at the Safari and he had told me " I will never spend money on a TATA car". He passed away many years ago and I feel like kicking myself for not listening to him.

Folks in Bangalore - is there any alternative to servicing for the Nano AMT? Cant bear the **** from Prerana anymore

[anandpadhye]

A friend bought a used Nano AMT and I test drove it over a steep uphill section (65m elevation gain over 0.5km, which is 13% grade):



It struggled a bit, but climbed.
As AMT is programmed for maximizing fuel economy, it has a tendency to upshift too early and this can be an irritant, so it's much nicer to drive in M rather than D.

Here is a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DgdYjadM_U

Note: This is an extreme case, the gradient of 13% is really STEEP. To give some idea - Sinhagad ghat road has such steep sections.
For regular usage, Nano AMT is fairly decent. The 600cc engine is a little low on power (as expected) and does sound like an auto-rickshaw under extreme stain, but otherwise it's okay. The shifts in manual mode are not that slow and turning radius is very very small - it's as maneuverable as an auto-rickshaw!

[nobetterID]

I have had my TATA NANO XTA for around 3 years now. 10K Kms done (it's not the primary car in our family).
I am struggling to find a solution to the following issues. Any pointers would be helpful.
1 - Rattling. All around. From the dash board, from speaker cages on the dash, parcel tray, engine bay at the back. Have any of you managed to resolve these? If yes, how?
2 - Loss in power. Normal mode has lost substantial power. Sport mode (talk about a misnomer!) is also not a gritty.
3 - Reverse takes some time (around 5-6 secs) to engage.

While I do have the above issues with the car, there are many other positives that I have as far as the NANO XTA is concerned. Too bad that the Nano is discontinued.

[shramik]

Originally Posted by nobetterID

I have had my TATA NANO XTA for around 3 years now. 10K Kms done (it's not the primary car in our family).
I am struggling to find a solution to the following issues. Any pointers would be helpful.
1 - Rattling. All around. From the dash board, from speaker cages on the dash, parcel tray, engine bay at the back. Have any of you managed to resolve these? If yes, how?
2 - Loss in power. Normal mode has lost substantial power. Sport mode (talk about a misnomer!) is also not a gritty.
3 - Reverse takes some time (around 5-6 secs) to engage.

While I do have the above issues with the car, there are many other positives that I have as far as the NANO XTA is concerned. Too bad that the Nano is discontinued.

I had a similar problem in my Nano AMT. A visit to Concorde and a ""refreshment"" of the settings of the EMU sorted this out remarkably well.

[ObsessedByFIAT]

Originally Posted by nobetterID

1 - Rattling. All around. From the dash board, from speaker cages on the dash, parcel tray, engine bay at the back. Have any of you managed to resolve these? If yes, how?
2 - Loss in power. Normal mode has lost substantial power. Sport mode (talk about a misnomer!) is also not a gritty.
3 - Reverse takes some time (around 5-6 secs) to engage.

While I do have the above issues with the car, there are many other positives that I have as far as the NANO XTA is concerned. Too bad that the Nano is discontinued.

1. I too hear a lot of rattles from everywhere in the car. Have just learnt to live with it. Can't expect too much from a car costing almost similar to bike prices these days. :P

2. Is this power loss felt during acceleration? I too sometime face this and it is because of a sticky clutch as far as I can analyse it. Once the car reaches its optimal temperature things get better.

3. Press the brake pedal firmly before engaging the reverse. I too initially had this slowness of gear change issue. Realised that I wasn't pressing the brake pedal enough for the gear to get engaged.

Hope this helps!

And, just as you said, the car has many positives and I love to pick the keys for Nano over my EcoSport for city runs.

[arjab]

Originally Posted by nobetterID

I have had my TATA NANO XTA for around 3 years now. 10K Kms done (it's not the primary car in our family).
I am struggling to find a solution to the following issues. Any pointers would be helpful.
1 - Rattling. All around. From the dash board, from speaker cages on the dash, parcel tray, engine bay at the back. Have any of you managed to resolve these? If yes, how?
2 - Loss in power. Normal mode has lost substantial power. Sport mode (talk about a misnomer!) is also not a gritty.
3 - Reverse takes some time (around 5-6 secs) to engage.

While I do have the above issues with the car, there are many other positives that I have as far as the NANO XTA is concerned. Too bad that the Nano is discontinued.

Owning and driving on a regular basis a Nano XTA for the last two years and 30,000 kms including a Chennai - Kolkata run. You may wish to explore the following for possible troubleshooting w.r.t the areas you have indicated:
1. For Point 1: the rear speaker plastic grill works loose. A dab of FeviKwik on the inner rim of the speaker grill has solved the problem.
Adjust the tailgate rubber stoppers down to its last travel so that the tailgate sits as close as possible to the body. Simultaneously adjust the rubber buffers on the parcel shelf outer edge; you may turn it 90degree and make it vertical. The parcel shelf gets wedged tight and usually doesn't move around when you shut the tailgate.
The speaker on the front dash and the twin glovebox's retaining fasteners can be tightened. Apply some Loctite to prevent the screws from budging.

2&3: Get the clutch adjusted . It should solve the problem.

My Nano has run absolutely trouble free till date. Originally intended to be the 3rd car in the family , its now the most used ! The elders in the family swear by it for the ease of ingress and egress, the wifey and the sisters won't let go of it for the convenience offered by the AMT+ Power steering + chilling A/C. The kids always want a ride in the "smiley cartoon car" and so on.

A 10ps increase in power output and slightly greater wheel travel and a better brake pedal feel would have made this car even better.
It's really a pity that TML has decided to euthanise it within the next few months.
With the recent display of excellent engineering, packaging and styling skills under Impact Design 2.0 , TML should seriously launch Nano 2.0 in a newer avatar.

[skyline_r34]

A quick update on my Nano. Its turned out to be a much longer post that I anticipated when I started composing. So TL;DR – Car has spent most of the first quarter of the new year at the workshop with an AMT failure and A/C compressor replacement. All under warranty, but now I am scared about future reliability.

I purchased a Nano XTA in Sep 2015.
Small, fuel efficient car that is a breeze to drive in city traffic. Only weak point is the poor ride quality. Suspension is horrible. But given the other benefits, that cost was easy to swallow. It is the perfect tool to go to any part of the city, in A/c and be able to park in the tightest of spaces. Never felt the need for an Activa for errands with a Nano at hand. Considering the price I paid for the car, it never really hurt to watch it accumulate numerous parking related dents and scratches. It served its purpose perfectly.

Within months of purchase the suspension making a loud thumping sound while going through certain bad patches of road or potholes. I could not replicate the sound on demand. I had asked for a suspension check-up during the 1st service and they didn’t find anything amiss. However soon the sound was more pronounced, and more exacerbated with passengers on rear seat.

Went back to workshop in March 2016 and had the rear LH strut and shock absorber assembly replaced. It was covered under warranty.



Other than this the car was a joy to own between Sep2015 and Jan 2019. I had subscribed to some maintenance package at the time of my car purchase and all my services were free uptill Sep 2018.

I had to pay for the Sep 2018 service out of my pocket. Total bill was 7712, which I found very high for a Nano. And my car had run just about 12k kms. The amount for parts was Rs.2650 and labour was Rs.5062. Only silver lining was they replaced my cracked fog lamps under warranty when I insisted that it was part of an official recall from Tata.



I was travelling and my car as parked for about 3 weeks as 2019 started. I was back 1st week of Jan’19. Car started on 1st self. She was low on fuel and I reached a petrol pump down the road to tank up. Post tank up car refused to start. The AMT light would glow and cut off the self-start process with a lout beep.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sreCIx5hI0

I was stuck at the petrol pump. Pushed the car to the corner. Called Tata motors helpline. Took a while to get through. But eventually RSA was on its way. Waited for over 45 minutes before RSA showed up.
RSA personnel showed up in a Maruti Omni and his t-shirt said TVS assist. Looks like Tata Motors has outsourced its RSA services to a TVS group owned company. The service guy seemed clueless about how to deal with the AMT error. He opened the engine bay and tried a bunch of things, before realizing it was futile and gave up.

I told him that as long as an AMT error light showed on the dash the ecu would not let the car start. However the RSA company had not provided him with electronic components to scan error codes. He was a pure mechanical guy and things looked hopeless.
He started fiddling with the fuse box. Took out all fuses cleant them pushed them back in and jiggled them around. In the process the AMT error light disappeared momentarily and this allowed my car to start.

I drove home gingerly with the RSA guy following me. It was a short ride. The AMT error light came back on, but since the car was already running it continued to drive. Once I reached home the car wouldn’t start again. The AMT error light showed up. Over several tries it would go off, but come back on. If the error light glowed, the car refused to start. If the light wasn’t on, it would start fine.

At this point I would like to mention that the car has never acted funny so far. It has driven just under 14k kms. Not once has the AMT error light come on, not has the gearbox acted funny nor lurched around. Infact even with the AMT error light on, it would easily shift from R to N to D. It just wouldn't start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOpPGDQqSkg

Once I was dropped home, the RSA guy bought a bottle of water, with which I had to pose as he took pictures/videos as he ticked of various duties he was supposed to perform.

However the car wasn’t fine and he didn’t know what could be done.
Asked the service center to tow the car to workshop and get this fixed. They said they couldn’t tow the care as it was starting. They could only do it if it was dead. Even as I tried to reason with them, the end result was, please drive to the service center as the car starts. If it dies on the way, they would have it towed.

Since this transpired on a Saturday and took up my whole day, I was in no mood to hazard a 20 kms trip to a service center with an unreliable car via the Eastern freeway.

So car stood around for a week. Next week early on Saturday decided to drive down. Car started fine and was driving fine. The AMT light came on and off along the drive, but reached the destination uneventfully.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbIyUIczibc

They took three weeks to return my car. The first 2 weeks were spent waiting for warranty claim to be processed and new gearbox to be shipped. End of week two I had driven down on a Sunday, when the workshop was closed. I saw my car parked in the yard. Engine bay was open and my gearbox was removed and lying on the front driver seat. The greasy, dusty part was placed on the seat directly without any newspaper or plastic layer in between.



Monday the new gearbox arrived and was fitted. But we had to wait another week as the AMT oil wasn’t in stock. Apparently, this was the first time AMT oil was needed at the workshop. So far, they haven’t had to change it for any AMT cars they have service. This means none of the Tata AMT cars serviced at my workshop had yet crossed 80k (I was told this is the service interval for AMT oil change) kms till 2019.

Anyways my car was out of commission for 4 weeks. One week parked at my place and 3 weeks at the workshop. Total replacement was covered under warranty. Total damage would have been Rs.70k if it was out of warranty. They however charged my Rs.767 as a diagnostic fee, which was for scanning the error codes. I believe that everything should have been covered under warranty, but at that time I didn’t feel like haggling for it.



When I got the car back noticed the A/c wasn’t cooling at all. Since Mumbai had quite pleasant weather manged to procrastinate for a week or two before I headed to the workshop to get it sorted.
They kept my car for a week, before returning it. Apparently, some high-pressure hose has cracked (presumably while they worked on replacing the gearbox). Again, covered under warranty.



Now the car was cooling well, but it made a very loud resonating baritone sound while stationary at a signal with A/c turned on. It seemed to be the condenser fan. Did some testing with a passenger sitting in the car. When things got hot, the condenser fan would turn out and was very audible standing outside with bonnet open. Passenger in the car confirmed at same time that the loud baritone sound was audible. It would go away when the condenser fan would cut out. The condenser fan didn’t seem to come one when the car was driven. Only when stationary.

Took it back to workshop. Spent another week there. Got it back. Was told the compressor was faulty. Was replaced under warranty.



I was like – wait . . what? The compressor was fine, car was cooling fine. The compressor was at the rear of the car. The sound was coming from the front, where the condenser fan is. And you know it’s the fan because you can observe the sound come and go as the fan turns on and off.
They insisted the problem has been solved. I didn’t complain much. Didn’t cost me anything, and I have a new compressor.

But the sound remains. It is annoying, but I have got used to it. Called my service advisor and ranted and he was more than happy to take a good look at the car again and assured me they will fix it for sure this time. But now I am too tired of going for weeks without my car.

I will eventually give it to them for rectifying the issue before my warranty runs out. If anyone else has had issued with loud noises from A/C fan and knows of a quick fix, please help me out.

I tried to get an extended warranty. Tata says speak to your dealer and my dealer says they don’t offer extended warranty on Tata Nano. If anyone has managed to get extended warranty on their Nano please do guide my how to get it done.

I was loving the car and it worked flawlessly for over 40 months. And now its acting up. Fortunately it was under warranty, else this would have cost me Rs.70k for the gearbox and Rs.16k for the compressor. Now am not sure if I should hold on to it anymore. Wondering if I should sell it. With 5 months warranty left on the car, maybe I will get a reasonable offer from the market.
But I have no clue what to replace it with. There just isn’t anything out there that’s versatile enough for the city.

[arjab]

Originally Posted by skyline_r34

A quick update on my Nano. Its turned out to be a much longer post that I anticipated when I started composing. So TL;DR – Car has spent most of the first quarter of the new year at the workshop with an AMT failure and A/C compressor replacement. All under warranty, but now I am scared about future reliability.

Facing an identical issue. As I write this, the Nano is at the authorised workshop, diagnosed with shifter-motor failure.
Age of the Nano is 2016 March. Run 13,700kms only.
Symptoms same as yours.
Work will be done under warranty.

Now I spoke to someone in the know, who says that AMT failures are unheard of, as these units are sealed for life.

There may be a a stray case , but that would be more to do with accidental / crash damage, flooding etc rather than component failure.
Certainly under normal operating conditions and the vehicle being serviced at TML authorised workshops , AMT's shouldn't fail at all. That is the minimum expectation from any AMT owner. Irrespective of model, brand or OEM.

I don't know , but I'm getting this eerie feeling that something is fishy in a particular batch of AMT's at TML.

And what is the probability of this not cropping up in future after the vehicle warranty runs out?
In my opinion, TML should offer some written warranty on the gearbox / shifter mechanism replacement at least.

Is it possible for our moderators to highlight this issue please? Under a separate thread / heading collating all AMT failures ?

This , Nano, failure pattern is too identical to be coincidental - and maybe is pointing to a deeper malaise, a component failure issue - maybe a potentially defective AMT batch from the vendor - which because of the Nano's low retail volumes never mutated into a full fledged "recall" at TML.

Would like to hear of similar experiences if any, from others.