[the VTEC guy]

Originally Posted by pranav_mankad

Thanks Houston! I too found it quite weird that LHS is not available even as an adidtional accessory! Cant understand what is the logic ?

Read recently somewhere that a new design of the rear view mirror is on the way for Nano and awaiting ARAI approval. Next in line is going to be the LHS mirror and a openable rear door(apparently the design suggested earlier was rejected by Ratan Tata and engineers are still working on it)

Congrats on your beauty. The side graphics and allows are a nice way to customize a nano. very good.

[Dippy]

The Nano population on Team BHP is increasing. Congratulations on getting the car well before the stipulated time. The alloys changed the looks of the car completely. Great choice. She is a fantastic city car. Why not add the left side mirror? I think its available as an option. Waiting to read about your buying experience and initial review.

Enjoy the attention you will get everywhere you go. Drive safe and Happy Motoring.

[pranav_mankad]

The Saga Begins!

Here comes my thousand words about 'journey of getting delivery of Nano'.
For the convenience of readers; I will break the complete narration into multiple parts. Each part will have header. This will enable reader to choose area of his/her interest and he/she will not have to necessarily read thru all my blabber!

1. Context - why Nano?
2. Booking Nano - Process, Dealership Experience
3. Waiting for Nano - status updates
4. Pre-Delivery - Dealership Experience
5. Delivery of Nano - Accessories, Dealership Experience
6. First 'Nano' Experience - Journey so far. Stuff that I like, Stuff that I don't etc.


But first of all; let me do the most important thing - Pass on credit to T-BHP and TBhpians -
Thanks to GTO for fantastic Nano review, to all the Nano owners of TBhp who helped me in understanding this car deeply, to "jasher26" for answering my queries related to ICE in Nano, to "Normally_Crazy" for PDI checklist. Thank you all -I found all the information on TBHP very helpful and insightful.

1. Context - why Nano?

As family, we own a Maruti Omni (1997) and Tata Indigo Dicor LX (2007). Omni has been fantastic in its services to us. I learned my driving by driving Omni. It has served us well for multiple years. But now its reliablity is in question. Due to age; it has become 'non dependable'. Indigo is running fantastic and is taking us places.

I wanted to have a second car for Parents, wife etc. The main intended job of the car was to be able to move around easily within city. Required attributes were ease of driving, parking, FE, comfort, cost of ownership etc. We did not have huge budget as well. We were willing to spend max around 2 LPA as On road price. That had left us with one of the two choices:

1. Used cars ( Alto,Santro etc.)
2. Tata Nano.

Choice was simple. After seeing Nano in person - there was no second thought. We decided to go for Nano LX. Chosen colour was Lunar Silver.

2.Booking Nano - Process, Dealership Experience

The decision to go for Nano came a bit too late for us. We made up our mind when it was last day of booking Nano! Suddenly we were into a big hustle of filling forms, arranging for cash, etc. We chose to book our Nano with Pandit Automotive; as we had earlier purchased Indigo from them. Not that we had any extraordinary experience; but we knew few people there. As it was last day, there was no point in taking chance with B. U. Bhandari - the other Tata dealer in Pune. We were informed that for 'Self' finance car bookings; only DD is accepted. We arranged for all those stuff in rush and finaly made it to Pandit Automotive by around late afternoon.

Well, the scene at the dealership was amazing! It was appearing almost like the way those "Fire Crackers" selling temporary outfits are created during Diwali by Municiple Corporation! An extention was created on the outside of delership and various tables were laid out - creating small multiple stalls. Each stall had one tired, fatuiged individual seating on one side and multiple people howering on him from other side! On close inspection; I came to know that each stall belonged to one Finance institute. There was SBI, ICICI, Tata Motor Finance and multiple others. There was heavy rush and they were going to continue booking till late night!

Hmm..I thought I was lucky that I did not have to take any loan and struggle with that wild crowd! But my relief was short lived! To my surprise; I was told that if I had to take a loan to pay for my Nano- it would get served faster! This was because; these stalls were managed and manned by the financers. If I had to pay by Draft, it has to be a dealership person who has to handle that transaction. No one from dealership had any time to do that! For some time, the scenerio was that I was there; waiting with my cash ( Draft ) in hand but no one appeared interested in selling me a Nano!!

After a lot of escalations; verbal discussions - finally one lady was made available who took draft from us and gave us photocopy of the booking form. Each booking form contained a Unique ID number that would be used in future.

Sweating, Tired, Frustreted but thrilled that I could finally book my Nano - I went back home.

[aman9393]

Good writeup.
The booking Nano part was was a good read!
Eagerly waiting for rest of the parts!

[Latheesh]

Congrats on your new babe :-). She looks very nice. Alloy looks cool, how about some interior pics?

I remember seeing LHS rear view mirror in one of the Nano I spotted in Bangalore. Check it with your dealer or write to Tata customer care.

[CARDEEP]

Originally Posted by pranav_mankad

Long wait was over on Monday - 15th March 2010 when our Lunar Silver Tata Nano LX was delivered to us. Pretty much ahead of the scheduled delivery period of July - october 2010. I took delivery from Pandit Automotive Ltd in Pune.

It is said that a picture is worth thousand words!
Hence, let me put some pictures first! I will write thousand words soon !!
I will cover my experiences related to booking Nano, Pre-Delivery,Delivery, Driving Experience etc in future posts..

Congratulation on the acquisition.

The alloys look specially ordered OEM rather than TATA supplied ones, simply beautiful.

Your colour choice is good & the stickers look good on this colour.

[longhorn]

Originally Posted by CARDEEP

The alloys look specially ordered OEM rather than TATA supplied ones, simply beautiful.

You are right. Its picked up from the Tata genuine accessories list. The Nano does not come with even a left side mirror on the top end version, let alone alloy wheels !

[pranav_mankad]

3. Waiting for Nano - status updates

Once booking was thru; the waiting game started. The feeling of 'Will I be amongst those lucky 1,00,000 chosen ones?' was prevailing all thru. I must mention here that TATA had done a good job of having a good web site which had status updates on Booking.
I came to know that I was lucky when I was actually out of country for some official work. This is where clever use of technology helps. Nano website declared my being lucky and also delivered a nice Confirmation letter. It indicated time line of delivery and announced that I was part of the first 1 Lac customers who were price protected.

I liked :

1. Website for Nano. Putting up the status updates and confirmation letter on the same.
2. I got SMS saying that I was 'lucky' and
3. I got call to confirm the same.

I really appreciated this level of communication. Good move from TATA. Step in the right direction.

My allocation was in June-August 2010. I kept checking on the status updates from time to time to see if there were any changes. I got a bad news once when I was told that now the allocation has been moved back and that I will get my Nano only in October 2010! Anyway, I was always ready to wait for Nano.

TATA kept using technology to keep in touch with me. I received SMS that post budget; prices may go up etc.

Then on one wonderful day, I got an SMS from TATA MOTORS that my Nano is now ready and is already dispatched! I was asked to contact my dealer. It was a very pleasent surprise. I never expected it to get delivered this fast! I called up dealership and then confirmed the update. They already had a Nano with my chosen colour available and they asked me to come over to make final payment.

I could not have asked for more!

[aman9393]

Ah! You are one lucky man!
Good to see Tata making full use of technology to keep their customers abreast with their car status

[longhorn]

Is the boot of your Nano openable from outside the car or do you have to access from the rear seat. I heard somewhere that they are planning to make the Nano's boot openable externally as in other hatchbacks.

[Lalvaz]

Congrats, your car looks really nice. Do post a more detailed review when you've clocked some miles on her.

Safe motoring!

[Monaro]

Awesome alloys. I think I'll get the same for my 'ello' color Nano too . How much did they cost?, and could you share more details about the ICE?

Thanks.

[Mpower]

Originally Posted by pranav_mankad

It is said that a picture is worth thousand words!
Hence, let me put some pictures first! I will write thousand words soon !!
I will cover my experiences related ..

Hi, Could you put up some pics of the engine bay. I am still confused as to how and where exactly the engine is placed.

[pranav_mankad]

4. Pre-Delivery - Dealership Experience

The transaction to pay balance amount ( On Road amount - Booking amount ) was smooth. Here are the financial details:

Nano LX BS III price On Road in Pune with Octroi : 2,02,000/-
Booking Amount Paid : 140000/-
Balance : 62,000/-

I also demanded following :

1. I would want to know VIN number before my vehicle is alloted to me. I wanted to ensure that the alloted vehicle is manufactured in 2010. At first, the response of the sales lady was "What is VIN? We cant provide it". But on insisting;she followed up with the senior manager who called me up and shared with me that "We are completely transparent in our dealings. You will of course be getting chasis number of your vehicle shared with you; before it is allocated to you." Sales manager of the showroom immediately took photocopy of the Form 22 of the vehicle and handed over to me.
2. I would want to do a complete PDI before the vehicle is registered on my name. This too was initialy rejected by sales lady but later was accepted by her senior manager.
3. I would want to get special additional rider added into my TATA- AIG policy. This rider is actually known as "Zero Depriciation" rider. I will share a bit more details about this soon. Sales lady pointed me to the insurance guy. He was not aware about this facility. Hence, he asked me to call his boss. Ultimately, his boss could confirm that there is such a rider. It would cost me 1000/- INR more. I went for it.
4. I would want to check if I can subscribe to "TATA GOLD CLUB" or "Value Care" program for my Nano. Sales lady had no clue of what I was talking about. She asked me to get in touch with service manager at the time of taking delivery.

Let me give some more details about point #3.
I came to know about this Rider thru an advertisement. I found it very useful due to following claim settlement stretegy that TATA-AIG has. As part of your comprehensive coverage, any accidental damage to the metal parts of your vehicle are fully paid by insurance. However, that is not the case for the rubber/plastic parts. Insurance pays only 50% of the amount and you have to pay rest of the amount. I had faced an accident with my Indigo and had experienced that this amount could be quite high.
A "Zero Depreciation" cover saves you from this. Under this cover, you only pay 1000/- Rs. additionaly for your Nano and for first 2 claims of the year, you dont have to pay 50% of the cost of rubber/plastic parts damanged.
I would highly recommend this rider to all the fellow T-Bhpians. In the case of accidents, it really saves big money for us.

Form 22 that was handed over to me had details about year and month of manufacturing of the vehicle. It also had chasis/engine numbers. However, to be doubly sure; I posed the VIN to WilDon of T-BHP ( Finding VIN Thread ). He immediately replied and confirmed that my vehicle was manufactured in January 2010. Special thanks to Wildon!

3 days prior to the delivery date; I was called for the PDI check. I went to the showroom. I was given opportunity to check the vehicle fully. I used TBHP checklist and checked every part of the vehicle. Found 3 small issues:
1. RHS rubber bedding on the window of Driver side was loose.
2. LHS rubber bedding on Passenger door had come out a bit.
3. There was no cover on one of the battery terminals.
The sales manager immediately noted down all the points. He shared that in Nano, only one battery terminal gets rubber cover! He proved his point by showing me 3 more parked Nanos. He assured that first two points will be taken care of before delivery.

Over all, a very good experience with PDI for me. Delership was very supportive. Sales Manger was eager to help.

[pranav_mankad]

Originally Posted by longhorn

Is the boot of your Nano openable from outside the car or do you have to access from the rear seat. I heard somewhere that they are planning to make the Nano's boot openable externally as in other hatchbacks.

Nop. the boot of my Nano is not openable from outside. I have to access it from rear seat. I believe that they are planning to make boot 'openable' from outside in Nano V2.