4th April 2009, 23:53 | #1 |
BHPian | Mountain Green Tata Safari VX 4x4 Booked. EDIT : Now driving it! Hi Everyone, I have booked a Mountain Green Safari VX 4x4. This is a car I wanted to purchase since its launch. Coincidentally that year I bough me a cycle. A decade passed and now I am actually going to realize my dream. Great feeling! Isn't it? First the details of my purchase process - On-road price in Mumbai - Rs. 13,32,000/- Dealer - Wasan Motors, Chembur Finance - Corporation Bank, Powai @ 11.25% Waiting Period - Estimated 4 weeks Now the queries - 1. My wife feels the glove compartment is small. Can I fix some drawer kind of things under the driver and front passenger seats - to keep car papers and stuff. The glove compartments will be entirely taken up by my wife's beauty gear! 2. I am planning to do 30% City, 50% Highway, 15% dirt roads and 5% tough off roads (Sand, Rock and Mud). The stock tyres are Bridgestone H/T (as told by salesman). What does H/T stand for - highway tyres? The sales guy doesn't know this. Another person (looked like an office assistant or peon) told me H/T stands for "Heavy Tight"- Meaning tyres for "Heavy" duty vehicles which offer "Tight handling". I think this is a tea time trivia they came up with! How good are these on the highways? Let us consider an example -(I am putting this example as I have driven this stretch many times and its kind of a benchmark for me). On the Mumbai - Goa route, there is a fairly large ghat section right after Mahad (about 170km from Mumbai). It has many sloping twists. If its raining heavily, up to what kmph will these tyres maintain 100% grip in this section? My Santro (with stock tyres - non alloy wheels) looses grip above 65-70 kmph. In the forum I read about A/T tyres which are suitable for "All Terrain". People advise Yokohama, Michellin, Goodrich etc. Meanwhile, I saw ads by MRF tyres in car mags and newspapers about "Wanderer" series of tyres for premium SUV. (They included Sumo in premium SUV list!). This tyre is available for safari. Has anyone experienced these tyres? Is it worthwhile considering these as an upgrade? What could be the best upgrade given my estimated usage pattern? I don't want to change the alloys to 7J from the stock 6.5J as that can bring about mysterious terms like PCD etc. into the picture. What is the broadest tyre I can fit on the 6.5J which will not interfere with the turning radius or create any other problems? 3. After lots of reading around, I have decided to adhere to owners' manual for run-in of my car. Is there anything special one needs to do for the Safari? 4. Performance Tuning Box - a) Is there any reliable one available for Safari? b) The stock ECU (By Delphi, I suppose) - is it not the same thing as a Performance Tuning Box? c) When should one fix it? At the begining or after the Run -in? d) Anyone who has used it on the 2.2 VTT, please let me know your take on it. 5. In Car Entertainment - As such I shall not invest into it right away due to shortage of funds. However, I have been told by someone (Outside the Team Bhp) that the default system is not very good. The Salesperson said it is from some company called Alpine which is as good as Sony, JBL, Blapunkt etc. The system will rock if I invest in Component Speakers, Amplifiers (one two channel and one four channel) and a large subwoofer. My ears are trained on a Sony Xplod with four coaxial speakers in a santro. I did not find this system to be mch better or worse than that during my test drive. Please advise me on this. Is this alpine this really as good as the known leading brands in India. Normally how much one spends for the components as mentioned above. The accessory guy attached to the showroom gave me a quote of around 35K. If we assume that this guy is not cheating me outright, what kind of quality should I expect from such an ICE - Poor, Average, Excellent or Audiophile? I know that this is a very broad question and pin point advise will be impossible. But still provide me a drift so that I can plan a budget. (I have gone through the advanced car audio thread and have not understood a thing!) 6. Bull Bars - The sales guy tells that a rear bull bar will prevent the car from many scratches. But it may render the reversing camera useless. My question here is - How good is the reversing camera? Does it really helps or just a gimmick worth compromising for preventing scratches. Someone in this forum said that Front Bull Bars are a great danger to the pedestrians. They also interfere with the crumple zones of the car. So having a bull bar will actually reduce the safety quotient of the car? Is this really true? ( I see so many cars, especially Scorpios with bull bars). If the safety compromise is really not this big, is it worth compromising in favour of scratch prevention? Guys, please help me out here. The only sources of information outside Team-Bhp for me are my sales guy and my sisters driver. For some reason the driver guy keeps his intuition above all technical logic. And, the sales guy has his main focus on reducing my expenses and hence disapproves of all add-ons and accessories. |
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5th April 2009, 07:52 | #2 |
BHPian Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Gurgaon
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| @ sen2009 good going buddy congrats for the beast!!!!! regarding the VX ICE let me tell u that the sales guy is right . for that matter ALPINE is actually the godfather of all music system. if i call sony excellent then ALPINE is pure magic. compare the two on frequency response and believe me u might hear some details in ALPINE that u never would have heard in sony. for the record i have both...... components and a woofer or a baas tube with amps will send ur music quotient flying high... |
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5th April 2009, 11:30 | #3 | ||||||||||||||
Distinguished - BHPian Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Bangalore
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| Fantastic purchase. Read on. Quote:
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5th April 2009, 12:33 | #4 | |||||||
Senior - BHPian Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Bangalore
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I am sure the Safari owners will be able to give you more info. Especially Hrag and Suman who have recently gone for a tire change. Quote:
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Do not think that Pete's has a box for Safari. There is a another Italian box, I think. But then, seriously, do you want a box for the Safari? Quote:
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Personal preference. Safety wise, not good. But if you want a extra lamp, then will be a good idea. Check out some of the garage of the existing Safari's to have a idea. | |||||||
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5th April 2009, 12:46 | #5 | ||||
Senior - BHPian Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Dubai/Mumbai
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first od all, avoid such a mod. Quote:
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Guys, please help me out here. | ||||
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5th April 2009, 13:25 | #6 |
Senior - BHPian | First of all many congrats for buying a 4x4 Safari. below is my opinion on your queries. 1) Use the pockets on the back of front seats for storing your documents (its part of seat covers you will buy) 2) For your needs H/T's are fines.Most upgrades will interfere with the turning radius and you will have to cut the inneer bumper and/ or the underbody stone guards. Although in 6.5J you can fit a 255 Vs the stock 235 tyre without worrying. 3) Just drive as per mentioned in the manual dont strain the engine. 4) Dont mess with the 2.2l engine. 5) Stock ICE will do till you upgrade later, post your query in the ICE section then. 6) Bull bars negate the crumple zones although helpful in city traffic but dangerous during a highway crash. Even the bumper is part of the crumple zone for safety of pedestrians thats why you no longer see steel bumpers. |
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5th April 2009, 13:47 | #7 |
Distinguished - BHPian Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Bangalore
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5th April 2009, 15:09 | #8 |
BHPian | Congrats on your new 4x4, I agree with dadu , DON'T MESS WITH 2.2L ENGINE. Reverse camera has a very good video quality even if its dark outside . but has a very wide angle, so you cannot depend on it to park your vehicle. |
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5th April 2009, 16:36 | #9 |
BHPian | Hey congrats on your new 2.2. Welcome to the safari club. Like you even i wanted to own a safari from the day it was launched and i was in autoexpo 1998 too. Happy that you too realised a dream. Please dont do any mods to the 2.2. Its very good in its original avatar itself. ICE mods are always there and you can take your time as the vehicle settles. |
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5th April 2009, 17:54 | #10 |
Senior - BHPian Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Dubai/Mumbai
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5th April 2009, 19:16 | #11 |
BHPian | |
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5th April 2009, 22:32 | #12 | |
Senior - BHPian | Quote:
Just a suggestion- since, you already own a Santro- how old is it? What is your NCB on it? For my VX 4x4, I was able to bring down the insurance cost from ~38k to ~16k by just negotiating with the dealer and transfering the 50% NCB on my ~7 years old Wagon-R to my Safari. Bargain for insurance. You do NOT have to sell your Santro to transfer NCB. Refer insurance thread for more. I was able to bring down OTR price for my vx 4x4 in Pune from ~13L to ~12.7L. Waiting period is OK for 4x4. Mine was delivered in 1month. Cheers, -BJ | |
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6th April 2009, 06:13 | #13 |
BHPian Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: New York
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| Congrats!!! Congratulations dude! I totally understand how you feel. I have the same feelings for safari. Have not bought one yet but am planning to buy one soon I am not in a position to suggest anything that you have asked but I would say one thing, "Listen to everyone they all are your friends and wish you the best but do what makes you feel great about your passion about Safari". No one understands your feelings at this moment better than you yourself. Go out and have fun! Enjoy! My best wishes for a great and fun ownership experience. |
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6th April 2009, 16:20 | #14 |
BHPian | Wow! So many replies! Guys.. you are one hell of of a lot of mental support! Do you know that? As suggested by Redliner, happywheels, Raj, Dadu, I will refrain from adding under seat drawers. However, wife is continuing her fuss about this. I'll check out if I can fit a box ( Similar to the shape and size of the refrigerator) in the trunk. That should be able to hold car papers and some other stuff which is not regularly used. "The glove compartment will not be used as anything apart from as a dressing table drawer" - condition set by wife for the purchase. So hafta figure something out! Bull bar idea is cancelled. I am ready to take as many scratches as it takes to reduce even one percent risk to a pedestrians life. And ofcourse not to forget the cases of head-on collision and crumple zone! @bh96 - The santro is registered in my sisters name. So I guess I wont be able to get the ncb from there. although I have driven it for the most part! However, you surely came up with a brilliant idea. I have already suggested this to one of my friends who is upgrading from an Indica to a Corrola. Performance Tuning Box - As suggested, I am keeping the idea on hold for at least a couple of years. As such I found the 2.2 Vtt engine to be quite agile, especially in 3rd gear around the 2000 RPM mark. Also, I checked out Pete's website. It seems they don't have one for Safari. Same is mentioned by Happywheels. Given that I am not at all unsatisfied with the performance of the engine (that too on a demo car which has been driven very roughly for more than 60-70K kilometers), I don't think I would need a box either. Tyres - This is something I want to upgrade. I have listed down 7/8 tyre dealers from yellow pages. I am planning to do a tele calling today evening asking them about the price of Goodrich and Geolander A/T (235/70 or 245/65) R16 tyres and the buy back they would offer on the stock Bridgestone H/T. I really hate that confidence hampering slippery feeling when it rains and I am driving on twisting roads. I am not considering 255 as some poeple on the forum said that one faces turning radius, heavier steering and scraping issues with those. Max I'll go upto 245. But more than the size, I will look for something which will increase wet road stability. @ Redliner - I have completely cut off the sales guy and the driver guy from their "friendly philosphical guidence" giving roles. Plus I have also compiled, printed and spiral bound the four part PDI on this forum. It really is worth in gold. I never knew there were so many things one could have in a car, let alone testing and checking. I really thank you all for all the trouble you are taking up to provide me with these inputs. I am sure, with this I shall leave little unturned in the way of becoming a truly informed customer. And, my special thanks to Aman (for the exceptional photos of your night time snow riding) and Tsk (for your travelogue of Rajasthan Trip). Had it not for your threads, I wouldn't have been able to convince my decision making authorities (Wife, Mother, Sister, Office Colleagues and many more) that 4x4 is indeed worth the extra money. |
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6th April 2009, 18:03 | #15 | ||
Senior - BHPian Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Bangalore
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Maybe someone else can confirm or correct me, please. Amen to that! | ||
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