Gearbox replaced under warranty on my brand new Tata Tiago

Subsequent calls revealed that this was now taken up at the Tata Motors factory level itself.

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I bought a Tiago Petrol, and the car was delivered on 24th Jun 2021. Had driven only short distances due to lockdown and used to have a burning smell at times once we got out of the car. I did not observe anything unusual and thought it might be the brakes bedding in even though the car was never driven hard.

After an extensive week of lockdown during which, the car was completely stationary, to my horror, I saw a pool of oil. This was on 21st July, and the car had covered only 242 km by then. The oil level seemed fine and there were no flashing indicators.

I called up the dealer (Derik Motors), and they promptly picked up the car. I knew the SA since he was handling my older Nano and had a good rapport with him for a couple of years. The fault seemed to be due to a drive shaft oil seal, which was replaced and the car given back a couple of days later. His opinion was that the burning smell could have been due to the oil getting in contact with the silencer.

The very next morning, I noticed a couple of drops of oil. I was advised to drive around for 50 km since it could be due to the residual oil that was not cleaned up properly. But unfortunately, the issue persisted the next day. Once again, back to the workshop floor.

I got the car back on 28th Jul, this time with drive shaft oil seals once again replaced. But if I remember correctly, this time both seals were replaced whilst last time only a single seal was replaced.

The ordeal continued the very next day! The vehicle was given back to me on 6th Aug with the input shaft seal replaced. Drove for another day, hardly 10 km more and once again, I see drops of oil.

Now, this had me quite upset and angry. It was the 3rd time the issue was repeating. My SA friend was also taken aback. They had been test-driving extensively each time, and my odo stood at 700km with 90% of that done as test drives.

A close friend who used to be an automobile engineer suggested that the gearbox milling may have a minute error. This could be causing the leaks. I contacted Tata Motors Kerala CRM directly since this was beyond a 1 in 3 lakh odds of having an oil seal leak 3-times in a brand new vehicle, and I didn't want this to be taken lightly anymore. Subsequent calls revealed that this was now taken up at the Tata Motors factory level itself after the leak was observed the second time. The input shaft oil seal replacement was also done under the direct guidance of Tata Motors engineers.

The SA called me a couple of days later and informed me that they had received authorization to replace the entire gearbox assembly which would take about 2 weeks to arrive from Pune. Though I had not put forward any suggestions on replacing the gearbox assembly, it came as a pleasant surprise that Tata Motors was not playing around with the situation. Even though the leak was not observable by now since they changed the input oil seal once again, they wanted to ensure that there was absolutely no chance of it occurring in the future.

It's been a couple of weeks now since the vehicle is back after the gearbox replacement. So far looks okay, and no leaks till now. It might be a psychological effect, but I don’t feel the butter smooth slotting of gears. Anything to watch for?

I received a 1-year extended warranty as goodwill and an additional one more year warranty for a nominal amount. So now I presume it’s a peaceful ride for the next 4 years at least.

Overall though, I was paying EMIs for a car which spent most of the time in the dealer yard (during a booking fiasco related to own insurance v/s dealer insurance) and workshop, what I appreciated the most was how professionally Tata Motors and Derik Motors came together to resolve the issue without me having to escalate or make a louder noise. 

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