My pleasant experience owning a Tata Venture when it comes to service

I learned that Venture shares most of the parts with their successful mini truck Tata Ace.

BHPian Bibendum90949 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I've three cars in my garage that are no longer in production- Gypsy, Omni and a Tata Venture. There are absolutely no issues in spare parts for the Marutis, as we all know. It's just that some of Gypsy parts, the Suzuki Genuine Parts(SGP) are very expensive.

I bought the Tata Venture almost an year ago. Soon after, the car was sent to Tata authorised service, the commercial division, for hell lot of preventive maintenance and lot of spares were changed upon my behest. My experience has been surprisingly good. The mechanical parts were in stock and the ones which were not available in the dealer inventory, they placed the order and parts were received in 4-5 days.

I did some homework when I half decided to buy it. I learned that Venture shares most of the parts with their successful mini truck Tata Ace. The van itself was derived from Tata Ace. While hunting in the pre owned market, I happened to check out around 6-7 of them before zeroing in on this one. I had spent considerable time with each of those owners and they all had talked about ease of spares availability owing to parts sharing with Ace. This was a very big factor in spares availability since Aces have been sold quite huge in number and they're still serviced by Tata. Some specific parts like door trims, switches, sliding door mechanisms etc is still a concern though. Even those parts with the right contacts can still be sourced.

As many have pointed out in the posts above, Nano being a unique product in Tata stable and hence does not share parts with any of their other models. This is the sole reason coupled with other factors has led to this situation which OP finds himself in. It's very disheartening indeed. It's a bit of pain these days in maintaining the cars that are close to one's heart.

It's very valid and evident, from many ownership reviews and other posts on our forum, the below points.

• One can't have an unpopular, discontinued, flopped model as their primary car.
• Expected downtime for sourcing parts are huge and hence be prepared.
• Need to have the right and multiple contacts in the spares market.
• A trusted, experienced and a reliable FNG to take care of all the hassles above.

I eventually found one such garage, referred by my friend, for Venture maintenance. It just came couple of days back after a visit for few running repairs. Though it's 70 kms away, it's worth the hassle. I still buy parts from Tata whenever needed or the garage themselves buy the OE parts from the market. Here she is after a wash. I love the car and enjoy driving it very much. But it comes at a price - time, effort, patience etc. I've also attached few spare part lists which i've bought from Tata. Double click on the images to view in readable format.

Having said that, I know of owners who are still maintaining their Safaris, Pajeros, Hexas, Fords etc in immaculate condition. All of that takes effort and patience. Just couple of months ago, a close friend in the circle bought a well maintained 2013 Safari Storme. And two days back, a friend called in to say he wanted a 2-2.5 lakh car for purely city run abouts and we were contemplating Nano Twist AMT. We even considered the ev Nano(Tata Jayem Neo) . Now with this thread, the idea has to be nipped in the bud.

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