Completed 3rd Service - 10000 KMs

Completed 10K KM service yesterday. Gave the vehicle to my regular service advisor. Following work was done:

- Oil Change (first time since buying the car)
- Clutch Bleeding to address clutch play. The clutch play is as good as before now.
- The plastic on the dashboard has been "pasted" back to the dashboard with some kind of glue. Not sure about the longevity. Looks like a substandard job :)
- Routine maintenance activity like air filter cleaning, lights checking etc etc.
- Wheel balancing and oil filter change
- Cost me 700 Rs as I am covered under AMC.

Overall impression, the service was great.

Have two long drives in the pipeline for the next month. One will be around 700 KMs and another one will be 1700 KMs

- Aravind

High Beam issue is resolved!!

Tuesday 3rd July, night 11:03 PM, i put in a query @  customercare.tatamotors.com.  I ask if this long pending high beam issue is something that I need to live with or is it something that can be fixed. 11:04 PM I get an sms with a complaint number for tracking purpose stating someone will get in touch with me soon.

Wed'day 4th July morning 10:00 AM I get a call from Concorde motors bangalore. My service advisor requests me to come down there at 4 PM. I show up at 4 PM. A senior mechanic from electricals dept is engaged. he brings in a screw driver and a set of hex bolts. Fixes the issue in 5 mins.

The high beam is really working as it should now! More importantly, I am really happy the way this whole thing was handled by tata. I got very good response and follow up too! Thumbs UP!

- Aravind

8500 KMs Update

Inddie is holding up well. have clocked 8500 KMs so far. The only thing i noticed was that the engine oil looks really dirty. As per TATA service schedule, the engine oil change is due at 10000 KM. Not sure if all diesel engine oil will look so dark/charred after 8000+ KM running, but in petrol it never used to look charred. No issues though - NO black smoke (except during hard acceleration - which is normal of any diesel engine), no engine overheating. But the oil has turned black. The long drives have dried up. So I think it will take another month to reach 10000 KM.

1600 KM Round Trip, Second Service Update

Gave the car for second service on 17th May 2012. The darn full beam is still not fixed. On the verge of giving up on the full beam. Very very very disappointed with that. The problem with H1 and H7 bulb assembly is i cannot go for 100/90W setup. The best i can do is 80W each and that would be slight tricky.

Anyways, over the last week end, completed a 1600KM round trip on my inddie.. The ride was supremely comfortable for my parents in the rear bench and was truly sedan class. The car behaved very well on the highways.. With 100% AC, keeping inddie between 80 and 100 KMPH returned a FE of 18.75 KMPL. With 100% AC, pushing inddie upto 120 KMPH, sudden acceleration and deceleration to accommodate the two lane NH 17 from mangalore to goa yielded a healthy 17.5 KMPH.

Cracked Bumper, Shattered Tail Light - Fixed

Got the second service done. Along with that showed the cracked bumper and shattered tail light. I was given an estimate of 2500/- for replacement of the tail light (right lower) and rear fender refit with brackets etc replaced and bumper touch up. The split was something like 1100 for tail light assembly including labour and 1300 for bumper work. Gave the car at 9:30 AM and got the car back at 7 PM. But, a job very well done. Will post pics later. Sad part is that the high beam is still not aligned to my satisfaction.

Two and half months into the ownership, I think I can say that so far, the car has been fantastic. I dont regret having made the choice. The small "niggles" I have listed before were not something that I lost my sleep over or not something that made me mad. Most importantly, none of those niggles were on the critical path of the car's basic function - moving from point a to point b.

Let me continue to share my experiences as we go along. For now, 1700 KMs trip is just round the corner. Will update soon.

-Aravind

Cracked Bumper, Shattered Tail Light and Tint Removal

Today, I wanted to remove the tint as the cops have set May 19th as the deadline to remove the same. Instead of giving it to Service Center to remove the tint, I decided to do it myself. I successfully pulled out the sun film but the glue residue was still present on the glass. The easiest way of cleaning the glue from the glass is to use some paint thinner which is available in any hardware shop and use a old toothbrush to clean the glue. Dip the brush in the thinner and just rub over the glue stuck to the glass and it works like magic.

However, after this was done, i wanted to start to office and was backing my car and lo, it crashed against the pillar. Inddie's rear bumper got cracked and the RHS tail light glass was shattered.

Will have to get this fixed during the second free service next week. Btw, May 24th, Inddie will start on 1800 KM journey to Goa and back. Will update post second service.

- Aravind

The Elusive Full Beam

OK, I have news and not a great one. I am frustrated. Simply, the 4 headlamps of Vista dont necessarily translate to better night vision of the road ahead. The headlamps suck, and bigtime. Yesterday was my 4th Visit for the same issue. Instead, now, the low beam alignment is also gone and high beam continues to focus on tree tops. I feel the previous alignment was better!

Very frustrating. Night time, i dont think i can cross 40-50 KMPH safely. The other problem is, headlight alignment switch only applies to low beam and not to high beam.

Next service, I will give it another shot. If these guys (Concorde) are not able to do it, I will take it to AutoMatrix and give it a shot.

My experience yesterday was sub standard too! I go to concorde and the security tells me to pull into the workshop. Cars are parked so hapizardly, that to reach the workshop I lost 20 mins from the entry gate. When I reach workshop, they just ask me to drive to QRS (Quick Repair Service) bay for which I did not have to drive through all this mess. Finally once I am in QRS, the guy tries to adjust beams and screws up low beam as well. I was able to realize only when i drove in the night that it was messed up. He claimed that it was perfect now.

Whoa.. I think following are the options in front of me:

1. Give two more tries to have the headlights focused and aligned properly - one at concorde and one at AutoMatrix.
2. If that fails, I have two options:
2a.Go for some really powerful foglamps (is that what you call them? the ones installed on the bull bar like Hella etc)
2b. Go for a mod on the original and get a pair of projector headlamps.

- Aravind