[alphahere]

The GenX has now covered 1200km in 20 days of ownership. The experience has been largely niggle free which is really good for a nano. The car has certainly come a long way. And it is an attention puller on the road! Finally got the mud flaps installed. They are a genuine accessory with the T logo embossed and look good too. Its made of plastic and not rubber. Interesting to note that the inside of the rear bumper has inbuilt slots to slide in the mud flaps and screw and clips to hold it in place. First free service was done at Concorde. No issues were reported and got the car back in half a day. The only grouses that I have with the car are:

1. Comparatively lower FE in the region on 14.5 to 15kpl in the city. It does go up if you do not use the ac but then why is the ac installed if not to use?

2. Between full tank and half tank of fuel you can hear the fuel slapping around in the tank. Really feels like somebody kicking the car.

3. The erratic idle happens at times while creep in engaged and I'm still at loss as to why or how. But it does not happen if the ac is running.

3. The AMT has a strange behaviour when the car is unable to move as on a steep slope. It took me quite some days to figure out how to get out of sticky situations without using rolling momentum. I had to practically unlearn and relearn driving to understand this.

Once I decided to back up the car into my porch which has a particularly steep slope. This slope has a bit of broken concrete that has become a rut now. The rear wheels passed over easily but the front tyre was caught by the rut. Tried increasing the throttle bit by bit but it was not moving even at full throttle. Afraid of ruining the clutch I let go of the throttle. The moment I let go of the throttle the rear wheels did a loud wheelspin on the cement before returning to idle! Tried this stunt once more and the wheelspin happened again. The car did not come out of the rut because power transfer was happening in a short burst and it was being wasted in the wheelspin. And I could not modulate the delivery due to the absence of a clutch pedal. But it freaked me out why this sudden power transfer was happening when I let go of the throttle after the engine reaches a high rpm. It was evident that the clutch was fully biting when the throttle is left. I gave up and let the car roll forward and powered back up. After a few other situations like this (minus the wheelspin) and after a lot of pondering on this logic I decided to use it in another style. Got the car purposely stuck again same place. This time round I pressed the throttle fully. The car was not moving even though the engine was kind of racing. Then instead of just letting go of the throttle I began to release it slowly. I could not believe my eyes. I could feel the clutch biting slowly and the car gracefully pulled up without any drama just like any normal MT car does! This was a whole new revelation to me on the AMT that the clutch action could be modulated through the accelerator pedal if required.

[ashis89]

Originally Posted by alphahere

3. The AMT has a strange behaviour when the car is unable to move as on a steep slope. It took me quite some days to figure out how to get out of sticky situations without using rolling momentum. I had to practically unlearn and relearn driving to understand this.

Once I decided to back up the car into my porch which has a particularly steep slope. This slope has a bit of broken concrete that has become a rut now. The rear wheels passed over easily but the front tyre was caught by the rut. Tried increasing the throttle bit by bit but it was not moving even at full throttle. Afraid of ruining the clutch I let go of the throttle. The moment I let go of the throttle the rear wheels did a loud wheelspin on the cement before returning to idle! Tried this stunt once more and the wheelspin happened again. The car did not come out of the rut because power transfer was happening in a short burst and it was being wasted in the wheelspin. And I could not modulate the delivery due to the absence of a clutch pedal. But it freaked me out why this sudden power transfer was happening when I let go of the throttle after the engine reaches a high rpm. It was evident that the clutch was fully biting when the throttle is left. I gave up and let the car roll forward and powered back up. After a few other situations like this (minus the wheelspin) and after a lot of pondering on this logic I decided to use it in another style. Got the car purposely stuck again same place. This time round I pressed the throttle fully. The car was not moving even though the engine was kind of racing. Then instead of just letting go of the throttle I began to release it slowly. I could not believe my eyes. I could feel the clutch biting slowly and the car gracefully pulled up without any drama just like any normal MT car does! This was a whole new revelation to me on the AMT that the clutch action could be modulated through the accelerator pedal if required.

That's an interesting find. I have few doubts here. While you were reversing, the car was moving fine until the front wheel fell into the rut i.e. the clutch was engaged properly or biting fully until then. The moment the wheel got stuck, the car started "idle-revving". Did I understand correctly? If so, then how can the clutch disengage or lose its bite so suddenly? Also did the car roll back down at that moment (might turn out to be risky in tight spots or hilly areas)?

[smiddela]

Originally Posted by vharihar

Test drove the AMT Tata Nano yesterday. Its pretty good. The auto transmission is fairly good. Slight lag upon pressing the accelerator, but not much different than the conventional automatics (that have torque converter) in terms of driving experience.

Power steering and AC is absolutely fantastic.

One downside was that it was quite noisy.

On road price in Bangalore is 3.6L. For an AMT, that's a good deal, isn't it?

Yep. Nothing comes close for the value you get at this price.

Alto AMT is 1 lakh more
Celerio AMT is 2 lakh more

Of course they have a better engine and are far more peppier than Nano but overall I found Nano to be more value for money than the above two considering leg room, head room, cost and overall build.

We got our Nano AMT this Sunday July 5 and we are absolutely satisfied with our purchase. We have driven 200 km which might not be much but I can share a few of my observations.

- First of all we don't drive Nano in non-sports mode. Having owned a swift for the last 6 years we find Non-Sports mode of Nano to be a bit too much lacking in power. So me and my wife both drive the Nano AMT in sports mode only.

- As we are driving only in sports mode we are observing our fuel economy to be around 12.5 km/l. It is a new vehicle so we are hoping it will improve over time. Anything above 14 km/l and we would be satisfied.

- One more observation regarding Sports mode is that the AMT rarely puts the vehicle in 4th gear. It shifts from 3rd to 4th gear only if the vehicle is cruising above 65+ km/h only. In the last four days I have observed this behavior more than five times and also found the behavior is consistent. Ideally I would want the vehicle to shift to 4th above 50 km/h. Not sure if others owners share similar observation.

- Also the Sports mode is deactivated if the ignition is turned off. So every time I start the ignition, I have to put the vehicle back in Sports mode (again) by pressing the button. This is one irritating (not that much) niggle I have. Not sure if there is a easier way to keep the vehicle always in sports mode. I haven't read the manual yet on how to get over it but if there is anyone with any tips or tricks at their disposal, I would be grateful if you could share it with me.

- It has two glove boxes in the front but they are not spacious enough. Having said that, they will fit any large sized phone, tissue papers or chargers or adapters but if you want to put a decent size bottle or book, I would say you are out of luck. There are others options on the doors and near the hand brake but I found them not very useful.

- The car comes with only one remote. So it is getting difficult to share the remote between me and my wife. The sales person has said that we can purchase the second remote at the service center when we get the vehicle for its first free servicing. But I am thinking I will go to the service center over the weekend and get the new remote immediately.

- We can unlock the car with the keys manually but the car will continuously honk for a period of 30 seconds (one honk every one second) and the indicator lights will glow continuously for more than 1 min and then they stop. Whenever you open the door next time, the vehicle again honks with the indicator lights. I have no issues with this as this is a good security system. I am only trying to say that if there are two drivers at home who want to maintain their own set of keys, having a single remote could be cumbersome.

- At inclines and at ramps at my Office and my Apartment and Mall parkings I brake the car and ensure that it downshifts to 1st gear and only then I climb the incline. The car does not give you confidence to take on decent inclines by leaving it to the AMT. The Nano AMT should always be in 1st gear for the ramps and inclines. This is not that much of a disadvantage as even my swift required 1st gear to take on an incline. The reason I am bringing this up is - because it is an AMT we tend to forget about the gear the vehicle is in take on the inclines (in second or third gear) and land ourselves in trouble. At inclines and ramps we should ensure to be in 1st gear consciously.

- I observed something strange regarding the reverse gear. For the car to reverse the way I want, I found that I have to press the throttle harder (twice as hard) than what I do for the forward gears. Not sure if I am doing anything wrong here.

- I found the suspension to be better than my 2006 Swift . It is nice and soft for the city.

I am planning to upgrade the ICE of my Nano and will share the feedback on the sound and installation. Bye for now

[Fx14]

Originally Posted by smiddela

- One more observation regarding Sports mode is that the AMT rarely puts the vehicle in 4th gear. It shifts from 3rd to 4th gear only if the vehicle is cruising above 65+ km/h only.

Trust the AMT variant has a 5 speed set up, as advertised. Any observation on when it shifts to 5th ?

Maximum usage upto 3rd gear only, could also partly be responsible for your lower Fuel Efficiency figures.

[smiddela]

Originally Posted by Fx14

Trust the AMT variant has a 5 speed set up, as advertised. Any observation on when it shifts to 5th ?

Maximum usage upto 3rd gear only, could also partly be responsible for your lower Fuel Efficiency figures.

As far as I know, the 5 speed setup is including the reverse gear. So, totally it has 4 forward gears plus 1 reverse gear. If it has a 5th forward gear that would be a revelation for me

I agree on your second point that driving primarily in 3rd gear could be the reason for low Fuel economy.

By the way, in Sports mode when cruising at 50+ km/h, I tried letting off the throttle once or twice to force it to upshift - but it refuses. So, I continue to push it to 60+ km/h and release the throttle again once or twice hoping it would upshift but it does not. Only at above 65+ km/h it finally upshifts to 4th gear. Having said the above it is fun driving in 3rd gear

[S2!!!]

20 lucky customers, winners of The Chosen Ones campaign, along with their families, witnessed their GenX Nano roll off the assembly line at Tata Motors' Sanand facility in Gujarat. Customers also received birth certificates of their cars at the plant and got an opportunity to name their cars.

[Fx14]

Originally Posted by smiddela

As far as I know, the 5 speed setup is including the reverse gear. So, totally it has 4 forward gears plus 1 reverse gear. If it has a 5th forward gear that would be a revelation for me

The XMA and XTA have 5 forward + 1 reverse, whereas the manual variants have 4 forward + 1 reverse. Appending the link below for your reference - see Engine & Transmission.

http://www.tatanano.com/genx-nano-te...fications.html


You may also want to refer to the FAQs, which has a specific point on the kick down feature :

• There is a feature called kick down in your vehicle
• From constant speed or coasting if the accelerator pedal is quickly floored in less than 1 sec, the AMT downshifts if required, and ensures best acceleration so that you can complete overtaking in the quickest possible time.

Link :
http://www.tatanano.com/faqs-nano-genx.html

[Poseidon]

Originally Posted by smiddela

As far as I know, the 5 speed setup is including the reverse gear. So, totally it has 4 forward gears plus 1 reverse gear. If it has a 5th forward gear that would be a revelation for me

Travelled on the Mumbai Eastern Freeway and Bandra-Worli Sealink. The AMT effortlessly upshifts to 5th gear at around 80kmph.

Good steep-reverse and steep-forward gyan, Alphahere & Smiddela

Indeed the car has a good road presence. Enjoys EQUAL if not superior status alongside the Mercs and BMWs - esp when it comes to squeezing out of a tight spot.

And the AMT does city crawling with elan. Confident of finding parking in the crowdedest of Mumbai areas with this one - whether its at the busy market or the drive-in night pavbhaji I've quit citycab riding altogether - this one's more fun!

[smiddela]

Originally Posted by Fx14

The XMA and XTA have 5 forward + 1 reverse, whereas the manual variants have 4 forward + 1 reverse. Appending the link below for your reference - see Engine & Transmission.

http://www.tatanano.com/genx-nano-te...fications.html


You may also want to refer to the FAQs, which has a specific point on the kick down feature :

• There is a feature called kick down in your vehicle
• From constant speed or coasting if the accelerator pedal is quickly floored in less than 1 sec, the AMT downshifts if required, and ensures best acceleration so that you can complete overtaking in the quickest possible time.

Link :
http://www.tatanano.com/faqs-nano-genx.html

Thanks!!

Some how I always thought Nano would have 4 gears only. I am surprised that Nano AMT has 5 forward gears. Given I was wondering when would it shift to 5th gear in Sports mode - over 80+ km/h ?

Probably I should take the vehicle out for a late night dash and see when it will shift to 5th gear in both Normal and Sports Mode. Will update the thread after I do that

[shashanka]

Originally Posted by alphahere

The GenX has ......

Once I decided to back up the car into........This was a whole new revelation to me on the AMT that the clutch action could be modulated through the accelerator pedal if required.

Thank you alphahere,
That was a truly interesting revelation! Why should this be happenning - straight logic would dictate the exact reverse : increase throttle gradually to increase torque and appropriate clutch bite. The explanation would be really welcome. While I am not in the market for a Nano just now, the AMT is certainly in the radar.

[alphahere]

Originally Posted by shashanka

Thank you alphahere,
That was a truly interesting revelation! Why should this be happenning - straight logic would dictate the exact reverse : increase throttle gradually to increase torque and appropriate clutch bite. The explanation would be really welcome. While I am not in the market for a Nano just now, the AMT is certainly in the radar.

Originally Posted by ashis89

If so, then how can the clutch disengage or lose its bite so suddenly? Also did the car roll back down at that moment (might turn out to be risky in tight spots or hilly areas)?

I understand that this can be hard to make sense of without really experiencing it but I can still try to explain. When the car starts moving on pressing the accelerator the clutch seems to be partially engaged till the engine output and gearbox input reaches the same speed. Before this if the car is stopped by an obstruction it still remains half engaged. Naturally the driver will input more throttle to make it move. If it is still not able to move after the throttle is more than about half pressed, what it does is release the clutch slightly to reduce the resistance on the engine and let the revvs build up. If on a slope you can feel the car release slightly when this happens. But it does not release the clutch fully so that the car goes rolling the other way. Now after the revvs build up (which you can hear) slowly start releasing the throttle and the clutch will start biting stronger and stronger and will mostly pull you out. If it still cannot move even after you have released more than half of the pedal the revvs will come down and the clutch goes back to being partially engaged. But there is enough power to even do a wheelspin here. All this logic seems to be controlled in a very narrow band within the accelerator pedal travel somewhere between half to full. So for this to work correctly the driver has to press the pedal fully to the floor and release it slowly like releasing the clutch pedal in a manual vehicle. What I understand is since the revvs are limited to about 3000 rpm or so when the vehicle is not moving the rest of the pedal travel could have been programmed to control the clutch action to get more control over a sticky situation. I'm sure this is not good for the clutch plate and would use it only when really forced to.

Before I got a hang of this I even managed to stall the engine once like in a MT. Was trying to park really close to another car on a steep slope which would have been a piece of cake with a clutch. When it did not move even at full throttle I just lifted my foot off suddenly. The car gave an unnerving jump almost lifting the front wheels and equally fast I jumped on the brake pedal which caused it to stall there. Happy to note my reaction time betters a machine's!

[shashanka]

Originally Posted by alphahere

I understand that this can be hard to make sense of without really experiencing it but I can still try to explain. When the car starts moving on pressing the accelerator the clutch ...........The car gave an unnerving jump almost lifting the front wheels and equally fast I jumped on the brake pedal which caused it to stall there. Happy to note my reaction time betters a machine's!

Thanks alphahere for the prompt reply. I'll take bit of time too unravel the sequence of events! - but thank you for taking the trouble to try & explain.
Absolutely - the reaction time's spot on!

[mail2sekh]

Has anyone got a blue or silver AMT delivered yet in bangalore ? It is 2 months and 10 days since I booked in Concorde motors , dairy circle and no news or updates yet.
Whenever I ask they say only the reds and purples have been allocated from the plant and the first blue that arrives will be delivered to me ! Looks like he is saying that to everyone.

[alphahere]

Originally Posted by mail2sekh

Whenever I ask they say only the reds and purples have been allocated from the plant and the first blue that arrives will be delivered to me ! Looks like he is saying that to everyone.

For AMT I have personally seen white also in their yard along with red and purple. Most of the other colours were present too but in the non AMT version. I decided to go ahead with purple because this is the only colour apart from Persian Rose (I wouldn't want to turn up at office in a pink car!!) that is exclusive to the top end XT(A) variants. All other colours including red are available in lower variants too.

@other XTA owners - It would be great if someone could confirm if the unstable idle in normal Auto mode disappears in Sport mode. The steps that I use to bring up the unstable idle are:

1. Switch off the AC first
2. Put the selector in A mode (Do not enable Sport mode)
3. Lift off the brake and start creeping
4. Stop suddenly
5. May need to repeat steps 3 and 4 few times as it happens only randomly.

Then the engine starts cycling between normal idle speed and below idle speed. This shows up as a notable cyclic vibration like old tata buses. While it vibrates if I press the S button it settles down to an extremely smooth idle at once. If the S mode is already in the ON state, the vibration does not even happen. At 1st service I asked for an ECU flash with the latest version but as per the SA my vehicle already runs the presently available latest version. Seems waiting for an update is the only option as of now.

[ashis89]

Originally Posted by alphahere

Happy to note my reaction time betters a machine's!

Thanks for the detailed explanation. That is quite some learning experience (active learning for you, passive for us). I could imagine a Nano doing a wheelie while reading your experience (a la-Fast & the Furious) .

While I thought it to be a simple electro-mechanical unit, the AMT is turning out to be quite complex and an adept piece of machinery. Your explanations suggest a lower clutch life of AMT vehicles. Users of Celerio AMT and ZEST XMA can share their experience though none has reported changing their clutch till now.