My Safari AT Dark Edition: Observations at just over a month & 3000 kms

I was not a big fan of the sunroof initially. But now that I have got it, I must say it does enhance the drive experience during trips in monsoon times.

BHPian negi15 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hi All,

I used contimobility tyre repair kit recently for the  first time. Here is the experience:

After a trip to nearby Bhuleshwar temple, rear left tyre was found deflated completely next morning. Took out the puncture kit that came with vehicle and used the tyre sealant solution as per steps specified on kit. Tyre was inflated to normal pressure and driven for 10 kms. Again checked the pressure after drive and there was no pressure drop. So carried over for next full week and covered 400 km till now. I was apprehensive about using it for a long trip as the kit mentions to use tyre for maximum of 200 km after fix. I took the tyre to nearest puncture shop, but could not find any nail/sharp objects and leakages. Raised official query to Tata Motors and finally got below confirmation from two people in SC.

If there is no drop in air pressure for few days, minor puncture has been fixed by tyre sealant solution and nothing to be done for tyre in question. It can be used normally.

I have asked Tata Motors to provide the tyre sealant refill as I could not find it online. SC mentioned it is not provided to them by Tata Motors. So, they will check about its availability and get back to me.

Will update soon, once there are more updates.

Also, I now have 3K on ODO in 1.5 month of ownership. So wanted to share more experience. Please bear with me.

More updates about Wanderer's long trips:

Last weekend, we made a two day trip to Bandardara with the above tyre fix. Covered around 450 km in two days. Onward journey was through Google suggested route, which was shorter, but roads were in shambles and we went through secluded ghat areas. First near to off-road kind of thing for Wanderer with full load. I must say as the days are passing, I am getting more confident with it. Ride on rough patches is comfortable. On narrow ghat roads, where there is space for one and half car on road, I did not need to think twice before putting left side wheels out of their comfort zone.

About FE: I did not use this trip for checking FE. After first service, there has been improvement in FE in city limits too and it has gone up from 10kmpl to 12kmpl now. For onward journey, I tracked FE on MID and it gave 15kmpl.

About drivability:

I have used the manual transmission couple of times for daily 50km run to office. ECU gave several warnings about denying early shift initially and scored my driving as poor on IRA. However, on second day I adjusted to the shift limits as per my first day experience and same route gave me FE of around 13-14kmpl, which come s to around 11-12 in automatic City drive mode. Please note, manual mode is always sports mode, you cannot select drive modes. From my experience in manual mode if acceleration is uniform, 2nd shift can be done at 10kmph, 3rd shift at 30kmph, 4th shift can be done at 40kmph, 5th shift around 55kmph. Could never reach 6th shift in city. However, I found that if I do quick acceleration, ECU allows shifts at lower limits than specified above, but it does have impact on FE then. Also, you just have to do upshifts. On slowing down, downshifts are done automatically.

Terrain Modes usability:

I used to think that these modes are just there to add to the feature list. But I must say the modes (at least wet mode) are usable and you can feel the difference. I have used wet mode extensively now. You can feel confidence boost on wet roads as soon as you switch to it from normal mode. Please note again, once you select rough/wet terrain mode, Eco and Sports mode are not available and cannot be selected. Have not yet faced rough roads to try out rough terrain response mode till now.

Hill Descent Control:

This again has turned out to be a very useful feature for ghat trips. It can be switched ON through HDC switch and will be highlighted on MID. When HDC engages, its symbol on MID will blink and descent will be automatically controlled at the existing speed. However, please note HDC will be active only if you keep speed below 30kmph. If you go above 30kmph, HDC will not get activated even when there is sufficient inclination angle for it to be active. Beauty of this feature is you can descent at speed at per your choice, but once you press the brakes to reach speed at which you want to descend, you can take off your foot from brakes and vehicle will have controlled descent at same speed.

Rear wiper practicability:

Rear wiper does almost 180 degree sweep and therefore is very helpful in existing rains where rear glass gets clogged by slush on wet roads. Water jet comes out through the spoiler and 180 degrees sweep clears the rear glass for safe driving. I have seen that the Scorpio N rear wiper only does little more than 90 degrees and driver side glass is not cleaned up. Initially, I didn't think these small things matter. But, it surely matter s for Pune, where quarter of the year has good amount of rain

Sunroof practicability:

I was not a big fan of the sunroof initially. But now that I have got it, I must say it does enhance the drive experience during trips in monsoon times. For a city like Pune, I think sunroof is manageable. Kids have really enjoyed it. They have slept on 2nd and third row looking at cloudy skies with rain drops rolling off the roof. This provides one extra thing to keep them busy during long rides. Not to forget the experience the sunroof provides in misty ghats. The kid in me really missed the experience as I am only driver in the family as of now.

The bad rear view camera:

Position is not good. It sits in the open and easily gets covered by rain drops and road slush. Also, camera quality is not up to the mark. It would have been good if integrated front parking sensors are provided for the top end model. Initially, it was a must have for me. But as the days are passing by, I am getting good hold of the vehicle size and now it is not much of issue to me. Wipers screeching sound is random. In heavy rains they don't make any sound. However, in light drizzle, the screeching sound is very irritating. So, for light drizzle, I used manual mode instead of auto rain sensing mode. I will get this checked in SC soon.

Add-ons After a long thought-process, I finally got two after-markets for Wanderer. Side-steps and dash-cam. Below are thoughts about their usefulness till now:

Side-steps: They do add visually to Wanderer's stance on top of ingress/egress convenience. On top of that as someone mentioned in another thread on the forum, it is really useful in monsoons, when you want to stand on it and jump over to dry land after parking. However, it does carry lot of slush on it, which you have to clean up with bucket of water after the trip.

Dash-cam: I installed ROAV C1 dashcam by Anker. Resolution and night clarity is amazing. On top of safety reasons, it is also helpful in case you want to capture a specific scenic drive and watch it later or share with someone.

Attached are some pics from my trip. Enjoy:

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