My Tata Harrier's fuel pump replaced at 75K km: Paid 1.5 lakh in repair

I was having a chat with the service advisor and he told me that mine must be at least the 20th Harrier that he's repaired for the same problem.

BHPian pkulkarni.2106 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

I came back from a long road trip a couple of days back. Halfway into the trip, I could smell diesel in the Harrier. Since it was raining & there were traffic jams everywhere, I could not trace the source of the smell that day.

I tried to find it today, and it seems it's coming from the engine bay. But unfortunately, there are no visible traces anywhere in the engine bay.

Update 1

I opened the bonnet today & the source of the smell was the engine bay. But as I said earlier, I didn't find any visible trace.

Moreover, removing the engine cover in the Harrier isn't a straightforward task. So, I couldn't check if there was any leakage around the injector area.

Update 2

So, I did get an appointment to service the car on 7th September.

But on 5th September, I started seeing diesel drops on the parking floor, accompanied by a strange "tick-tick-tick" sound whenever I tried to accelerate the car.

Sensing that something was not right, I requested the TASS to pull in the appointment by one day. On 6th, when I was driving to the service center, the car started losing power. I pulled it aside immediately - the diesel was leaking like the water from a tap.

Called the flatbed & got the car towed to the authorized service center.

The inevitable happened - the SA told me that the high-pressure injection pump (fuel pump) had failed. Specifically the bearing in the pump gave up. And as expected, the repair is not an option - typical for authorized service centers. They say that a new pump costs around INR 70K. Along with it, the injectors and the fuel lines need cleaning too, which costs another 40K.

All in all, the total damage to the pocket is 1.5L including the routine service.

The car has done 75K KMs so far.

I just wanted to know if it's normal for the pump to give up so early.

Upadate 3

It's been 10 days and the car's still sitting at the service center. They changed the FIP, timing belt (it was due anyway), high-pressure rail and the other stuff as usual.

Since the FIP is a bit costly part, they called me to the workshop & installed it in my presence. The same day, they brought the fuel tank down for cleaning. As they opened the tank, it smelled like kerosene - the mechanic too acknowledged the smell. Along with that, it had metallic dust, which, as per the SA, is from the crushed bearing of the FIP.

TBH, I've never seen diesel in a bottle before - so, I don't know what a good quality diesel looks like. But the one in the tank had a greenish tinge to it. Attaching the pics for reference. Can someone please confirm if this is how diesel should look like?

The injector cleaning/repair took the longest. They arrived yesterday & were fitted today. They did some "regeneration" today, but as per them, it kept failing. Now, the SA says that the pump in the tank doesn't have enough pressure - hence the regen is failing & needs to be replaced. Needless to say, it's going to take a few more days to arrive

Update 4

The SA seemed to give superficial answers whenever I asked for details about the diagnosis. So, I visited the service center without informing him & thought of interacting with the service staff directly.

They had called the Bosch engineer (who had serviced the injectors) to look into the issues.

First of all, the pressure isn't low. It's the opposite - there's a check engine light, which says the fuel pressure is too high.

Secondly, they did everything they could - changed the fuel rail with the one from another vehicle, re-checked the injectors, and checked the pressure at various points as suggested by the Tata engineering team - but the error won't go away.

I'm told that the engineering team is going to visit the service center tomorrow & have a look at the issue.

By any chance, has anyone had this issue before (in any other vehicle)? If yes, are there any clues as to what could be wrong? What could they be looking at?

Update 5

So finally I got the car back on Saturday.

The technical team from Tata Motors had inspected the car & they'd advised to change the lift pump in the tank. After replacing the pump, the pressure dropped from 1800 to 1200 as per the SA (I'm presuming these are PSI numbers). The ideal pressure for Harrier is 800.

No matter what they did, the pressure wouldn't drop & the car continued to throw the CEL. After this point, they were asked to check the wiring harness & they found a "problem" in one of the relays. After correcting it (probably they cleaned and re-seated it), the CEL was gone & the car was ready to be delivered. Total damage to the pocket was upwards of 1.5L INR.

Here are some observations after I got the car:

1. The FE reported on the MID is too high. I'm getting anywhere between 16-23 KMPL in the city, which is unbelievable. I used to get somewhere between 11-13 KMPL based on traffic conditions.
2. The car feels a bit powerful than before. Rather, much more powerful. Even the city mode feels like the sports mode to me.
3. When this problem with the fuel leak surfaced, it was accompanied by tick-tick-tick sound while accelerating. I'm still hearing that sound post repairs.

I'll get in touch with the SA again & share these observations with him & see what he's to say about those.

I don't want to scare anyone, but while having a chat with the SA, he said that mine must be at least the 20th Harrier he's repaired for the same problem.

So, the FIP failure seems to be a bit common issue.

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