40,000 km with my Tata Safari Storme Varicor 400

By the end of 2021, the Storme would have completed 55,000 km. First 2.75 years, it had clocked just 26k km.

BHPian PrasannaDhana recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

My views on the Storme from my ownership.

Positives:

• Excellent engine - refined, powerful, superb driveability & frugal nature
• Benchmark for space, comfort & ride quality
• Tough construction, very abuse-friendly
• Immense road presence
• Surprisingly small turning radius and manoeuvrability
• Excellent brakes
• Reliability- no issues so far
• AC - Superbly effective
• Strong build quality

Negatives:

• Rear jump seats are useless, they also rattle on bad roads.
• Bare bones in terms of features- no Rear cam, ACC, Auto-dimming IRVM, smart ICE etc.
• Radio reception is below average and the antenna is Spartan.
• Lack of storage spaces other than glove box and compartment on the middle of dashboard.
• Ingress and egress are challenging for old folks.
• Gearshift is rubbery, though clutch is very light and easy to use.

The 40k service has been completed. I used to do routine service every 15k km with my Safari Dicor. It looks like Tata has started to recommend service every 10k km.

My Storme had been irregular so far with the schedule. Due to very low usage, it was sent to service during 6 month / 1 year time intervals and partly because it was taken care by the driver, I did not focus much on the Storme before.

This is the first routine service after becoming my primary ride. I will be sending it for oil changes every 15k km from now.

Coming to 40k km service, the bill exceeded the estimate due to disc pad replacement at the front.

Total bill was Rs. 17,518

Work done:

• Engine Oil replacement
• Gear Oil replacement (Tata recommends first change at 45k km and every 90k km then on)
• Fuel filter replacement
• Air filter replacement
• Front disc pads replacement
• Routine checks

They did sell me this "car care kit", of course without my knowledge. Quite a nice method to make 350 rupees. I don't know how useful these are going to be.

I had told the service advisor specifically not to apply dashboard polish. I somehow hate the slimy look it always has after the application. But these guys went deaf I guess.

The wash facility at the SVC was nice too. It sprayed soap solution first and then water. Kind of nice to see your ride getting washed.

The car after the service

The engine feels smoother, or it might just be the placebo effect. Let us see how much better the fuel efficiency gets, now that the engine no more runs on old oil.

The journey continues

By the end of 2021, the Storme would have completed 55,000 km. First 2.75 years, it had clocked just 26k km. Happy to put the car back to good use, since Feb this year.

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