[fiestarry]

@Seek. Congrats on a lovely vehicle that somehow didn't set the sales charts afire.
It has classy and refined lines and none of the overdone look of an XUV. Wishing you years of great driving!

[Amazing]

Congrats for the heart throb car .....amazing color Pearl white.

I am also in process of finalizing the Storme 320NM , EX trim. Color is the only factor to close the deal.

Urban Bronze is too common. On sunday , I saw a Astern Black VX 400 NM beast in concorde , Pune. The color appeared to me , not Black at all . Its more of bluish grey tinge , under bright sunlight @2 pm.

Then the other 2 are white ...although in 2 dealerships, i saw 2 whites as per SA..one is Pearl White , other is Normal white. the SA was non chalantly mentioning that , the Normal White is the most chosen color for the Politicos and I quote him " saar, these white safaris are having big chance of being taken away from you during election campaign etc , for some days " -- this sentence has really scared me.

I have really confused now . I like pearl white, very rich quote , decent color. Astern black is uncommon :-). Or go with the normal crowd color of Urban Bronze.

Pls suggest which color I should go for , just your views.

[Seek]

Originally Posted by fiestarry

@Seek. Congrats on a lovely vehicle that somehow didn't set the sales charts afire.
It has classy and refined lines and none of the overdone look of an XUV. Wishing you years of great driving!

Thanks! Yes, I seriously wonder why Tata doesn't market it more. But the exclusivity is good. The vehicle stands out where ever it goes! Btw Feb Sales were relatively higher crossing the 800 units mark after a long time.

Originally Posted by Amazing

Congrats for the heart throb car .....amazing color Pearl white.

I am also in process of finalizing the Storme 320NM , EX trim. Color is the only factor to close the deal.

Urban Bronze is too common. On sunday , I saw a Astern Black VX 400 NM beast in concorde , Pune. The color appeared to me , not Black at all . Its more of bluish grey tinge , under bright sunlight @2 pm.

Then the other 2 are white ...although in 2 dealerships, i saw 2 whites as per SA..one is Pearl White , other is Normal white. the SA was non chalantly mentioning that , the Normal White is the most chosen color for the Politicos and I quote him " saar, these white safaris are having big chance of being taken away from you during election campaign etc , for some days " -- this sentence has really scared me.

I have really confused now . I like pearl white, very rich quote , decent color. Astern black is uncommon :-). Or go with the normal crowd color of Urban Bronze.

Pls suggest which color I should go for , just your views.

I differ a bit there. My preferred choice of colour was the urban bronze but couldn't get it. Maybe pune has a lot more stormes and hence you find it common but I am yet to see an urban bronze storme on the road in Chennai (as such seeing stormes is rare!). Mostly pearl whites. Having said that, I have now fallen in love with the pearl white. It enhances the presence and size of the beast IMO and the black roof rails and black step boards contrast well with white.

Arctic white is a politicians colour and best to stay away from it. All the best for your purchase journey. Do a strict PDI is what I can suggest.

[avinash_m]

Congrats once again on your beast!

Had a query about the positioning of the camera display unit; aren't you facing problems with glare in bright sunlight? I've also opted for the cam but not sure what is the best position for the display unit on the dash?!

[Seek]

Originally Posted by avinash_m

Congrats once again on your beast!

Had a query about the positioning of the camera display unit; aren't you facing problems with glare in bright sunlight? I've also opted for the cam but not sure what is the best position for the display unit on the dash?!

Hi Avinash, no, there is no problem with the glare. The display contrast is pretty good and it's not been a problem at all. And we have had bright sunshine in chennai last few weeks! In fact a noteworthy point I can now make mention of after 2 months of usage is the performance of the camera in the night. Very clear and bright images in the reversing light. I had to reverse out of my office parking last night and was sandwiched between two cars. Got a very clear view and got out effortlessly.

Am convinced now that the left corner is the best location. Earlier I had doubts about it and thought centre of the dash might be better but left corner is more natural a place to look at IMO.

[avinash_m]

Originally Posted by Seek

Am convinced now that the left corner is the best location. Earlier I had doubts about it and thought centre of the dash might be better but left corner is more natural a place to look at IMO.

Cool Thanks! I am in two minds whether to go left or right side; center is definitely a no no as I am somehow convinced I'll have to deal with glare there because of the big windscreen.

[Seek]

Finally, the beast had its first road trip. A long trip was only awaited in May but thanks to the Ugadi weekend, a trip to Suryalanka beach from Chennai happened on the weekend of 8-10 Apr. One way distance from Chennai to the Airforce Station in Suryalanka was about 445 Kms.

The drive was awesome with no complaints whatsoever against the beast. We left on friday morning at 5.45 AM and reached Suryalanka AF Station @ 1pm and on the return journey left on sunday @ 9 am and got home by 5 pm after a 1 hour stop over at Dominos, Nellore

Summary after the long drive:
+ves
1. Power is available on tap in any gear above 2000 rpm. Overtaking was a breeze and downshift isnt required at all.
2. Mileage returned was exactly 14 kmpl with most of the drive done at 100-110 kph
3. enough space to stowaway all types of stuff inside the cabin - we are a family of 4 with the daughter being the youngest at 2 yrs old. Her bottles, towels, spare clothes - everything was nicely placed in some door or the other.
4. After living with the honda city for 8 years, finally I didnt have to worry about getting half the vehicle off the road on some narrower stretches of NH214A
5. Road noise has been dampened very well and cabin is surprisingly pretty quiet till 115-120 or so. I somehow expected it to be noiser than what it was.
6. Drivers seat is just great. Can go on driving for ever and ever. In my city I used to develop a slight niggle in the lower back and needed a bit of stretching during stop overs, but not with the storme.

-ves
1. No place to rest my right elbow! Had written about this in the initial ownership writeup but was evident. Need to find a comfortable position on my next road trip.
2. cant think of anything else!

Other points to note:
1. The ideal speed to maintain good handling and what felt like a butter smooth engine is 110 kph @ 2400 rpm in 5th gear. Its like a magic equation. The other one on zippy stretches is doing 85 kph in 4th gear at about 2100 rpm. Very peppy if you are on a winding road where 5th gear isnt an option.

2. Unlike my honda city which used to collect a whole lot of dust on the lower half of all panels even on a clean highway, it was a pleasant sight to see no collection on the storme.

3. I went over a couple of unmarked rumble strips at over 90kph and the beast took it very well.

Some pictures to wrap up:

Somewhere on NH5


The Beast got a bed of flowers for the night


Flowers for company in the night and missiles for company in the day


Fuel efficiency of 14 kmpl


With My Dad's Zest

[Seek]

So the beast went in for its 1st free service upon completion of 3 months (exactly) on Apr 26th with the Odo at 4200 Kms. The problems reported and their resolutions are listed below:

1. The scraping/vibration sound during deceleration that I have spoken about earlier in my thread was partially addressed by replacing the gear knob a month back.

Originally Posted by Seek

Update was the TML folks have seen this and apparently cant do much about the sound (noise!). They claim it is present in different levels in all the stormes they compared against (6 vehicles). Had a long chat with the regional service manager and have been assured of a temporary resolution (some sound/vibration damper solution) in a couple of weeks followed by a permanent solution from the plant in 2-3 months. I will see how it goes else will escalate within TML.

Originally Posted by Seek

I got the gear knob changed and a large part of rattling sound is gone! The rattle in second gear is entirely gone and in 4th gear till 1800 rpm or so also it's almost gone. It's still audible at about 50% of its earlier levels while decelerating from 2000-2200 rpm or so but so much more better now! The new knob is shorter and actually makes the gear shifting a bit notchier too. Costs 1500 Rs and was replaced under warranty. Well done Tata A.S.S to narrow down the problem largely to this.

I was promised a permanent solution by the Tata motors CSM within a month and as part of this servicing the gear linkage part was replaced with a new one that came from the plant. Voila! the problem is resolved now. From what I understand there was some play in the earlier part and this one is perfect.

2. "Dag Dag" sound from the rear passenger seat behind the drivers side if there was a passenger seated. This was traced to a loose clamp that holds the seat back and was adjusted. Holds perfectly tight now

3. The front passenger side power window would slow up when it was 3-4 inches away from reaching the top. Problem traced to alignment of the channel which was adjusted and it goes up fine now.

4. Rear AC rattling / squeaking while driving over bad roads. As many on the forum have said, some squeaks and rattles in the safari/storme get self-cured! This one has got self-cured in my case. It was present till I handed over the vehicle to the SA and they couldn't trace any issue or simulate the sound in the road test. And it hasn't been there since then

5.Headlight alignment. The right lamp was pointing lower than my left and I had asked for these to be aligned. This is where the TASS messed up, now i have both of them aligned lower so much that most of the focus is falling about 30 feet ahead in low beam or high beam! They will now come home and attend to this in the evening on one of the days this week. Come to think of it, I had the exact experience with Honda for the same issue when I purchased my City back in 2007.

After having read some posts on the forum about how its best to change oil in the first service (even though TATA does not recommend), I went in for an oil change. Cost me Rs 2804 totally.

I left the beast at 9.30 AM and picked it up at 7 PM. Overall, all issues barring the headlamp were addressed to satisfaction and I was attended to promptly. In all my visits to the service center so far, the quality of service has exceeded my expectations and the attention received has been top class.

I have also picked up the 3 Yrs / 60 K Kms AMC in this visit. Peace of mind now.

Kitna deti hai? An update on the Mileage. Doing good with 12.46 Kpl as the average for the first 4300 Kms so far. 100% Front AC on, ~15% rear AC on. 75% City Driving, 25% highway driving.

[Seek]

Can't help but put this up on my ownership experience. I went to a popular mall in chennai yesterday in the storme and was immediately ushered into a VIP parking area, left the beast three for 3 hours and came back and drove off without any parking charges being asked! An Innova tailing me was not allowed to enter the parking so am not sure what triggered this..a shiny white storme during election time or they mistook the storme for a Range Rover?

[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by Seek

5.Headlight alignment. The right lamp was pointing lower than my left and I had asked for these to be aligned.

Congrats on the beast, wishing you plenty of happy miles ahead.

The right lamp will normally point lower than the left so that we don't blind the oncoming traffic. Its set from the factory like that due to government regulation.

Further screw up by the ASS is not acceptable, though.

[Seek]

Originally Posted by ecenandu

Congrats on the beast, wishing you plenty of happy miles ahead.

The right lamp will normally point lower than the left so that we don't blind the oncoming traffic. Its set from the factory like that due to government regulation.

Further screw up by the ASS is not acceptable, though.

Thanks! Yes, I was told that about the right lamp being set lower for the reason you have mentioned only after they had already tried making it level with the left !

Anyways still waiting for this to be corrected. The guy was supposed to come home last night and didn't. Hopefully Monday now.

[Seek]

Originally Posted by Seek

Thanks! Yes, I was told that about the right lamp being set lower for the reason you have mentioned only after they had already tried making it level with the left !

Anyways still waiting for this to be corrected. The guy was supposed to come home last night and didn't. Hopefully Monday now.

The Tata service folks came home last night and resolved the head light focus. Its perfect now.

All set now for my Chennai-hyderabad-chandrapur and return drive commencing this weekend!

[rosaf]

Awesome thread Seek!

Cant wait to get my Storme but budgetary constraints from every now and then are keeping me away from it , cant keep me away for long though!

Any updates? its been almost two months now.

[Seek]

Originally Posted by rosaf

Awesome thread Seek!

Cant wait to get my Storme but budgetary constraints from every now and then are keeping me away from it , cant keep me away for long though!

Any updates? its been almost two months now.

Thanks. The Beast is doing great. It's going in for the second service on 18th and I'll put up an update after that. 10k happy kms are up now

[Seek]

Time for an Update to this thread. Taking this opportunity to wrap up a second service update and some of the happenings with the beast between the last update and now

Second Service

The odo and months timing coincided and about a week / 300 kms shy of the 6 months / 10k Kms mark I gave the beast for its second service on 18 Jul. Process was as smooth as it can be. Called up the SA last week and fixed for dropping the vehicle at the ECR Concorde motors showroom on Monday. Reached there at 9 am and was attended to promptly. Also picked up my "updated" Gold AMC ( 3 yrs / 60k kms) booklet which was due since the last 3 months when I purchased the Gold AMC.

Updated Gold AMC Booklet





Complaints / niggles I had:
1. First Gear notchiness was jarring to the extent that it occasionally stressed on the panel just around the gaiter.
2. Mild creaking sound from the interior panels, roof AC on rough roads
3. Occasional squeaking from the clutch / brake pedals while depressing or releasing

All of these have been addressed. Wiper blades have also been replaced under AMC. Bill was Zero Rs (i have to expect that having shelled out 44 K for the Gold 3 Yrs / 60 K Km AMC)

How does the beast feel now @ 6 Months and 10 K Kms into the ownership?

Engine: Feels brilliant and smooth now. Took 4-5000 Kms to settle into this smooth state and now it is just perfect. Never gives a feeling that it is overworked. Has this lazy purr that makes you feel it will go on all day long. For the cricket fans - This reminds me of Inzamam ul haq.

Brakes and Suspension : Been perfect. Had a couple of hard braking situations in some of the highway trips and the vehicle never lost shape. Has handled some terrible roads very well especially in some soft roading that I did (more on this later)

Interiors: So far so good although I dont know how long the indicator stalks / wiper stalks / cabin light switches and plastic covers will last. They feel too fragile in an otherwise robust cabin. Occasional creaking from the interior roof upholstery but thats been arrested.

Kitna Deti Hai? After 10k Kms (roughly 40% Highway, 60% City) an avergae of 12.8 kpl is more than enough. I get in the range of 11.9 to 12.1 in city driving consistently and close to 14 on the highway.

Fuelio Summary since day 1



Where all has it been in the last few months

Trip 1 : Apr 2016
Chennai - Suryalanka - Chennai
3 Days ~ 1000 Kms

The first long distance trip in the beast (details covered in an earlier post) http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...ml#post3949576

Other trips: covered in the subsequent posts...