Ever since the JTP took its prime spot in the garage, I had had a strong itch to take the car out for a long drive. The opportunity presented itself on the Republic Day weekend.
The Plan
Original plan was go to Parli (home to one of 12 Jyotirling and 350 kms away from Pune) on Saturday, stay overnight and return back on Sunday. However, I felt adventurous and suggested wife that we start early in the morning and return back the same day. While she felt this might be a bit too tiring, the convenience of being at home on Sunday prevailed.
Next, the challenge was to decide the route. I was aware that Pune-Latur route was not in great shape post Tembhurni/Yedshi. Further, Latur-Parli route was a mystery. Hence, decided to take Pune-Ahmednagar-Beed-Parli route.
While in hindsight, this turned out to be a great decision, I had a specific reason for selecting this route. Given the plan was to start at 4 AM and return back by around 10 PM, I wanted to drive in dark conditions on roads I knew. Having done Pune-Aurangabad countless times, I was confident doing this stretch in dark hence the preference.
The Drive
Helped by a good night’s sleep, we drove out at 4:15 AM. Living with KTM which does duty very rarely, I have developed a habit of maintaining about 25% fuel in tank and topping up fully at the start of ride so as to start with fresh fuel in tank. Same habit kicked in and I was at Shell pump in Mundhwa at 4:45 AM.
Hitting the highway, first thing which struck me was the supreme cruising ability. Maintaining 90-100 kph is no problem at all. JTP seems to be at ease here and a gentle input to throttle is enough for any overtake. Compact dimensions and the mid-range surge of power makes it a highly potent tool.
However, now that I was keeping highway speeds, the issue with headlights’ adequacy manifested. I can’t imagine who decided that the high and low beams' alignment was fine. Both beams are never useful together. No amount of fidgeting with headlight level control works. When low beam is right, high beam points to the sky and when high beam is right, low beam shines no further than a few feet. I have lived with this same issue in Zest so either the problem is common with Tata cars or may be it is just me. Any which way, this is difficult to live with, if maintaining highway speeds at night.
Out on highway though, the suspension setup really shines. While other small cars and even few sedans were visibly bouncing around due to undulations, stiffer springs on JTP made things a breeze. There was not a single instance of car exhibiting bounciness and this led to wife’s observation that the ride quality on highways is totally unlike a hatchback. While the ride quality suffers at crawling speeds on bad roads, up the pace and car manages to glide over broken patches of roads. The suspension, thus, played an important role in reducing the fatigue and helped ensure I was fresh even after spending 14 hours driving.
Post Ahmednagar, highway made way for single carriageway twisty road, which to our utter surprise were very well-paved. Take well-paved twisty road, put a fast hatchback with stiff suspension on it and take away all the traffic. What you get is loads and loads of fun!
Driving through these ghat roads, I had so much fun while making most of the opportunity to sample sharp steering and controlled body roll. But try being adventurous and lack of bolstering in seats becomes evident. It’s not that there is no bolstering but high amount of grip and reduced body roll means it is much easier to throw the car around corners and seats then appear a weak link.
As for the fuel efficiency, MID showed 17.5 kpl at the end of 700 kms. I had tanked up at Parli (lucky to have found a Reliance pump there) on the way back and tank to tank calculations gave 16.5 kpl (for the onward journey). This included nearly all sorts of driving conditions plus crazy traffic in Ahmednagar and Pune during return. I am being greedy here but a Tiago would probably have returned 19-20 kpl for same journey so JTP is down by about 3-4 kpl from Tiago.
It is important to spend extended amount of time behind steering wheel to understand any car and I was lucky to have got this opportunity so early in the ownership. If I have to summarize, Tiago JTP offers all the practicality of a hatchback without showing weakness normally associated with a small car.
Special mention of turbo whistle and blow-off valve noise
I had read about the blow-off valve noise in JTPs but did not get a chance to experience it, simply because engine noise is loud enough to douse everything else. During this drive then, I finally had my
Eureka moment! I was doing around 80 kph in 5th gear and gently pressed the throttle. First there was a very mild hiss and lifting off gave out the
woosh!
Excited like a child having just learnt how to blow bubble-gum, I spent the next 10 minutes spooling up the turbo and lifting off. After trying many permutations, I finally found revving up from around 1700 rpm to 2500 rpm in fifth gear as the best spot to hear the turbo spooling up and then the blow off valve in action. If engine noise was better controlled, this would have sounded so much sweeter. Nevertheless, this is a nice party trick that JTP has up its sleeve!
P.S: An issue which I faced a lot was the lack of respect hatchbacks get on the highway. Please don’t be misled by my garage, I am a fairly sedate driver and prefer driving peacefully away from fast lane. However, impatience from other cars who would flash their beams incessantly expecting me to give way got on my nerves more than once and I activated Sport mode, dropped a gear and let things loose. The lights in rear-view mirrors started dimming away pretty fast and were nowhere to be seen few seconds later. I don’t think people expect a Tiago to be sprinting around on highway so I’ll probably have to get used to this.