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-   -   Tata Indica eV2/Indigo eCS CR4 Reviews (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-drives-initial-ownership-reports/102712-tata-indica-ev2-indigo-ecs-cr4-reviews.html)

Though its been a while since these cars have been launched, I don't recall having seen a single long term report on either of these cars on team bhp. I'm genuinely curious if tata has managed to iron out the bugs in the DiCOR/CR4 engine. Please do post your ownership reports in the ownership reviews section, and if anyone has any reports from friends/relatives etc, please post here, thanks!

Hi greenhorn,

I was almost thinking on these lines, and had just sat down to do it- and I saw your thread ! Thanks for the start.

I purchased a Sterling Gold Indigo eCS on 24 Aug 2010 from Tayal Motors, Faridabad (the only CSD dealer in Delhi area). I have since driven the car about 13000 kms and would like to share my experience with others through this forum.

1. Exterior - The paint quality is top class, the colour is soothing (and great to hide dust and scratches ). The car has body coloured bumpers, ORVMs with side indicators (electrically controlled), central locking (with key). My car came with Good Year GT3 tubeless radials. The front fog lamps are a neat touch, and the overall fit and finish is good. The headlights are a delight - twin beams, for low and high, BOTH coming on for high beam (highly required in "blind driver's paradise - Delhi). The windscreen and all other glasses are SAINT GOBAIN SECURIT make, wipers Syndicate. The Horn is pleasing, yet loud enough (again , a mandatory requirement in Delhi).

2. Interior - The dash and side panels are beige plastic, the central console is matt beige with fake wood interior, housing the familiar ac vents, switches and the 1-DIN TATA CLARION CD/Radio unit. It glows blue during operation and the LCD display is white. The car comes with two rear mounted and two dash mounted speakers, with above average audio quality, though no boom-boom bass effects (common in Delhi). The radio has an internal antenna, quite sufficient for Delhi and surroundings. Seats are fabric, well padded and comfortable. (My one day drive from Mount Abu to Delhi , 849 kms without a broken back speaks miles of the comfortable seats and driving position). The AC is fantastic - it cools the interior fast and I have not yet used the blower beyond position 2 and the temp control - one notch less than max cool. The leather wrapped steering feels nice, as is the gearshift, although the steering wheel gets pretty hot when left out in the sun. Panel gaps - are there, but do not merit crying hoarse about them, they are functionally OK. The IC is typical safari borrowed - there are two trip meters, a boon when you have to calculate trip dist and fuel avg both. Driver door seat belt warning, warning lamp on the IC avl. The power window controls are on the lower console, near the gear shift, requires getting used to. There is a 12 V lighted output on the console too. The glove box is spacious and the pockets on the doors (front) can hold all the maps, magazines, wiping cloth, gear shift lock handle, etc. The rear bench is comfortable (same as in the Indica / Indigo) and flips forward to access the boot. The boot is spacious, a BIG 30 " soft suitcase goes in length-wise with two big duffel bags. Smaller handbags, carry bags can then be stuffed in too. IMO, enough for a car. The disadvantage wrt my Indica - the hatch with flipped down seats can take in voluminous luggage (an air cooler or an AC), whereas the sedan cannot. The tail lights are bright and well integrated with the body, again, the fit and finish is comparable to any other in the segment.

3. Engine - I simply love the CR4 ! Having driven my Indica DLE of 2002, the performance of this engine simply blows you away ! It does not feel strained, there is NO ac drop in performance, although with a full load of passengers and the ac at full blast, you may feel a drop in the throttle response. Most of the sensors used are of BOSCH, Germany, the ECU is a Delphi unit. The engine is silent, and the ggzzzz... noise is music to my ears ! It has a very linear power delivery, accelerates well in all gears, although 1 is only for starts - low gearing. gear shifting is miles ahead of the Indica I have, is precise and I have never missed a gear, maybe because I am used to it. There is no dead pedal - felt the need when i did 849 kms in a day ! The lever positioning is OK, i had only a dull pain in my right heel (in keeping the throttle pressed on that drive). The engine compartment is not messy and the reach of most electronic components is good / visible. The CR unit has necessitated a change of engine oil lever tube shape and the oil and diesel filters that were so easily visible in the Indica are not visible now, obscured by the CR unit. The engine has a neat black plastic cover, though no DiCOR or CR4 monograms on it - pure functionality, eh ? TATA have ensured adequacy of plastic / metal engine components covers, which are missing TOTALLY even in the Etios V version - NO under engine, sump, belt / pulley covers at all ! I have found these covers to be useful, especially when driving on dusty roads and during monsoons. The drive assist feature is useful in Delhi, to cruise along without having to downshift (especially when on the phone - not recommended for safety reasons, though). It works like this - leave the throttle, the engine slows down the car and just when you thought it would stall, it increases the rpm slightly and keeps going, without throttle inputs - till you de-clutch.

4. I have done 3 free services till date, covered 13XXX kms till now, with oil change at 10000 kms (3rd service). TATA dealers now use Mobil EXXON 15W40 instead of HP Milcy / Castrol GTX used earlier.

5. Fuel Efficiency - The car returned about 18.5-19.5 kpl in winter (normal diesel, TATA does NOT recommend diesel with additives) and was hoping that the efficiency would fall in summers (full time ac usage). However, I was wrong, the car returns about a kpl less in summers, 17.5-18 kpl). The idle speed with clutch depressed (in gear or neutral) hovers around 900 rpm, leave the clutch (in neutral), the rpm drops to 850, ac or no ac - wonder how ? The fuel guage is very accurate - I can predict to a litre the amount it would fill in now !

6. Long trips - One to Mount Abu in rajasthan (760 kms onward via Ajmer) and 849 kms on return (via Udaipur), both stretches done in one day each. The engine is simply fantastic - it cruises at 110-120 kmph with 5 adults and a boot full of luggage, including cola bottles, washer fluid, etc. The return stretch via udaipur was simply great, it returned 18.98 kpl, with the ac on all the time and a 30 min traffic jam near Jaipur. The second trip was to Lansdowne in Uttarakhand, 280 kms from Delhi vis Bijnor, Najibabad, Kotdwar. similar fuel averafes - 18.5-19.5 kpl. The engine has enough low end grunt, climbs slopes easily, does not require much throttle in lower gears. The brakes are good and provide good stopping. The car is well poised and does not tend to skid even on hard braking (maybe that was because I had a full load of passengers ?)

6. Problems faced - There was a brake shudder during the Abu trip, which was rectified (wheel were balanced) during 3rd service. En-route ABU, the orange Engine check lamp came ON - I checked everything I could, the lamp just remained ON, without any change in engine running or performance - this got self rectified on the 3rd day. The dealer rep told me it was probably due to ingress of moisture in some sensor / fuel sensor. Believed him, maybe due to moisture in fuel - the HP bunks en route seemed shady. The problem has not re-occurred since (I fill only at IOC pumps in Delhi). I have tried at the BP COCO at Vasant Vihar too - the IOC ones give good mileage - can't explain why - maybe just a mindset ?

I will upload photos, will take more of the interior, engine bay, etc and post subsequently. The existing ones are too big - will have to downsize them.

Hope it is useful to forum readers. IMO, NO CAR PROVIDES THE FEATURES, FUNCTIONALITY AND EFFICIENCY THIS ONE DOES - with an On Road price of Rs 4.89 Lakhs, regd in Gurgaon.

Sandy

This is surprising, Delphi EMS ECU with Bosch sensors. Any idea if other Tata cars also come with this setup?

Spike

Recently I have been using Indigo CS as taxi almost every alternate day for a travel of 200 Kms to and fro. One is Tdi Ls and other is CR4. Although I only sit in back but there is huge, i mean huge difference in engine in both cars as well as AC efficiency. Both cars are relatively new with Tdi having 16k and Cr4 having 10k on Odo. but the quality is still a suspect. even in CR4 there was a constant wind leakage sound near the rear window. The speed masking capability is not much, in this aspect Punto seemed to be much better, my other taxi! between both Tdi and Cr4 the latter is atleast a generation ahead on engine part, but till the confirmed reports of reliability of CR4 do not come across I will be hesitant to buy CR4 and would go for Punto/Vista in same cost, but thats purely my opinion

PS even I am among the potential buyer of a diesel car in near future, waiting for beat D and Liva D

To every body who owns the Indigo eCS. The car is fine but there is a problem with the availbility of Diesel Filter of this car and subsequently the cost involved. Th efilter change interval is 30k kms and the filter is still not easily available with all the dealers may not be the case in the metros but be prepared to shell out Rs 7k for the replacement of the two Diesel filters. One of them is same as the old Indigo but the other one is a new model which has a inbuild sensor and cannot be swapped with other filter of same size it is so crucial filter that if not changed in time the car will stall and even repeated attempts to remove air from the pump will be a waste after a ride of just few kms. There have been multiple cases where the dealers have not changed the filter and the break downs have happened due to lack of availability of the filter.

Hi.
had a Indigo TDI for 2.8 years and i used it for 66K KM before i sold it.
It was a decent performer but with very poor breaking abilities (i had wider tyres).Once engine heated up the pick up is affected and with A/c again it goes down. It is good as a chauffer driven economical car.
I met with accident when the car turned 180 degrees as the break was applied suddenly.

My friend's brother has a Cr4 Indigo and he seems fine with it.

When i wanted go for a SUV i approached Concorde and they offered low resale value compared to Maruti dealer RNS motors in Bangalore, this really hurt me. TATA is not at all doing anything to retain its resale value. They have to learn it from Maruti true value set up.

I am bit skeptical about CR4's long term ownership. In addition to Innova, i wanted a small car for city , i simply discarded indica & went for a Palio 1.9D.

In malayalam there is a saying " the cat which had fallen into hot water will be scared by seeing even the cold water".

Let us wait for some of our TBHP mates to put a long term ownership review.

Regards
Denny

Tata has added another trim in the Indigo eCS model called eCS-VX claiming it to be the most fuel efficient car in India. The mileage claimed is around 25kmpl/ltr. Priced at 5.8L INR for diesel CR4 engine and 4.97L INR for petrol versions. The new trims come with ABS, alloy wheels, centre armrest, Bluetooth and keyless entry as additional equipments.

Tata Motors launches Indigo e-CS VX - Money - DNA

Indigo e-CS

Nice write up Sandy! Enjoy the drive!

Will they launch a similar version of the Indica eV2?

Thanks to greenhorn for starting this thread.

Thanks also to lifebuoy for submitting his ownership report.

I am surprised that given that this is an all new platform, engine wise, the Indica EV2 and the Indigo ECS has not received the expected amount of coverage on team-bhp.com. Is it because its not "cool" enough or is it not a high profile enough car ?

Driveabilty, refinement and reliability reports are yet to come by, which is rather sad, given its claim to be the most fuel efficient car in the country. Given how many FE related threads we have here on this site, it seems ironic that the most fuel efficient platform in the country does not merit a review here on team-bhp.com.

Request all EV2 and ECS owners to submit their short term and long term ownership reports, so that some authentic first hand information is available.

Lifebuoy,
May I request you to include your report as a new ownership thread in the appropriate section of this forum.

Now thats something I heard for the first time! I had no idea that the CR4 was a new engine altogether from TATA. Can the experts please explain in layman's language what improvements have been carried out on the engine in comparison with the earlier TDi engines?

Thanks also to lifebuoy for submitting his ownership report.

My pleasure. I am continuing to use the car on a daily basis in Delhi and am quite happy with its performance. It returns a constant 17-18 kpl, with the AC on full time, I do not roll down the windows at all !

I am surprised that given that this is an all new platform, engine wise, the Indica EV2 and the Indigo ECS has not received the expected amount of coverage on team-bhp.com. Is it because its not "cool" enough or is it not a high profile enough car ?

Well, I guess it is not a new engine altogether, but a CRDi version of the earlier TDi engine. It has increased performance and FE very much.

Driveabilty, refinement and reliability reports are yet to come by, which is rather sad, given its claim to be the most fuel efficient car in the country. Given how many FE related threads we have here on this site, it seems ironic that the most fuel efficient platform in the country does not merit a review here on team-bhp.com.

Yes, the car is a decent performer, not an F1 scorcher by any standards. I guess the TATA name is synonymous with cheap and "poor" man's cars and the dull response in this forum.

Request all EV2 and ECS owners to submit their short term and long term ownership reports, so that some authentic first hand information is available.

Lifebuoy,
May I request you to include your report as a new ownership thread in the appropriate section of this forum.

Can someone guide me how to do this ? Maybe one of the Mods could do it for me ?

Excellent post Lifebuoy, this was something I was very curious about the CR4's performance, and I am eagerly awaiting the long term review. I must say one thing though, I really don't understand the braking issues people keep talking about, I have been using an Indigo LS since 2004 and while I admit that braking isn't phenomenal it certainly is adequate, and most certainly not something that would overtly concern me. @Tornado, could you please clarify what speed you were at when you had your accident?

lifebuoy, here you go,
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/newthr...newthread&f=25
type away :)

Really, I'm looking forward to it too. Please do post a thread on your ownership of the eCS, Lifebuoy. Please also include honest pics of the good, bad and ugly :)

The braking of the 2006 Indigo my father had was pretty decent. Not scary, IMHO. But now with the VX version of the eCS, that should be much better since it has ABS as well.

I have completed 20,000 Km in my Indica eV2 LX and am now looking to replace the tyres. Strange as it may sound, this model sells with "tubetype" tyres and not tubeless ones.

The problem is - no manufacturer seem to make Bridgestone S322- 165/65-R14 tyres that come as the stock size in ev2 LX. I did not want to buy another size, since I would have to buy 5 in that case !!!

Can anyone help with inputs on any maker who makes 165/65 R14 tubeless tyres?