Indica Dicor DLG - perfect city car

Indica Dicor- It is now doing duty in our Call centre in Chennai. When we went in search of a car, we had Indica in our mind for space and practicality. We got a discount of 30k(+8k worth accessory) in Dicor, which was just 16k more than Indica turbo. So we went for it. I just drove it after taking delivery and after that within a week, it went to Chennai. It has clocked about 22600km. Let's get to the review part.

Pics are taken from k810i, i forgot to get good pics of exterior in day time. So please bear the pics taken at night.



Exterior and Interior:
Well, I quite like Indica's styling. It looks good to me, even after 10 years. I prefer it over Vista as far as styling goes. IMO Vista's looks are spoiled by various parts put together and doesn't gel together. Indica looks more decent and has no-nonsense looks.
When it comes to interiors, it is not the same like Exteriors. Ergonomics are very poor in Indica. You need to stretch down, just to operate power windows, a pure nuisance. AC controls are placed above music system, it confuses a lot. The worst thing to me is the position of all pedals. They are placed high and gives a lot of pain, especially the right foot. One benefit of it is you can place your legs very comfortably under the pedals, while parked and i did once for a an hour :lol!: . And also the steering is pretty big in dia and placed high. The meter console looks like an aftermarket job, especially when we see it from outside, it just looks like fitted on to the dash.


AC controls placed above music player. Quite confusing and annoying. Note Logan's Balupunkt CD player.

Note the high set pedals. Hope it is visible.

Very big steering wheel(in dia). It is set high too. Note: It has cover bought from Tata and look at its condition.


Engine and Performance:
To start with, it has a Common rail injection system. But i couldn't find the refinement of a CRDi engine in this. It is very unrefined and growls a lot. Well, i could feel a unique engine beat in all vehicles, but couldn't find one in this. This 1.4 Dicor is found in Indigo, XL and CS. Other than the refinement, this engine is better in all aspects of any Tata engine.
This engine has got good amount of performance. It is very responsive, thanks to VGT, a great feature in a car in this category. It just jumped forward, when i got the delivery. Now there has been a problem with clutch, and the first gear pic up is bad on most starts. Though it is responsive, you have to make sure that it is not on the lower part of powerband, as it knocks badly and hesitates to pull. But once you gear it right, it is a spirited performer in city.
One thing i couldn't understand, being powerful and having an idle RPM of 1000, it got turned off a couple of time on an incline, may be due to clutch. I found Indica's clutch to be lighter than Swift at the time of delivery, but now it is tighter than Logan. And also i noticed that impact of hydraulic PS is more on engine, when we turn the wheel, the RPM comes down more noticeable than any car i've driven.

Looks cool at night



Ride, Handling and Braking:
When it comes to ride, i had big hopes for Indica, from the reviews and user experiences. But i was surprised to find it not good. I agree, it is good on at slow speeds. But as speed increases, it becomes bumpy. I had a trip to a place 20kms away from Chennai. The roads weren't nice, at 80-100kph, i had to be careful on bumps, if any arises, as it just puts the car out of line. And bigger craters throws the passengers. What i found is, Indica shakes with its body on bad roads. I fear what it would be drive at 120kph.
When it comes to Handling, Indica is pretty good on city roads. But on Highways, it rolls a lot. If you hit a bump, while turning, it jumps off its line. And Chennai has many fly overs and have curves in it. Whenever i went on them, Indica leaned and rolled a lot, you couldn't even steer it precisely at speeds.
Indica has adequate stopping power in city speeds. It stops with no problems. But as speeds increase, you start to feel like you need better brakes. This might be due to lack of stability of Indica.


Fuel Economy:
Indica satisfied me a lot in this aspect. It returned a shade less than 16kms. It is a great mileage for a city like Chennai. I found out that normally it returns in the region of 15-16 kpl.

Way to park in Chennai



Tata service:
The worst part in any Tata car, i guess. The service has never been satisfactory. It had a failure of right driveshaft and they agreed to replace it under warranty. After delivery, they found the problem still persists. After 3 more visits, it was not sorted out(it was replaced on all visits). Frustrated with this, they asked the Tata person hardly and on investigation, they found that the left drive shaft was replaced thrice :frustration: . Now they replaced the right one and it is fine now.


Perfect City car:
I would rate Indica as a perfect city car for the following reasons
- Compact dimensions
- responsive engine
- decent driveability
- Space for 5 with comfort
- good low-speed ride
- Good turning radius
- Fantastic Fuel economy

nice review buddy. all the points are well covered in this.

Thanks raj. :)

good review CC, without any doubts you covered almost all the things to be said, it would be intresting to see some details of your maintenance, services by TASS, also to say there's huge gaps on the tyre walls which i feel are they giving this small tyres which arent so comfortable on high speeds, though provides loads of space,comfort but whenu say easy for city car, yes in petrol rightly but diesel always lacked that grunt and easy to pickup which for me in stop and start traffic is headache to drive, having said that what i believe is that this new V2 indica was launched wth new lights front and tail, side fenders, new grille and with the price of 3.5/- for its Di engine was the cheapest hatchback with diesel engine available in country which is why it did sold in that huge numbers.

good job cc. well written and well defined.

thackervijay wrote:good review CC, without any doubts you covered almost all the things to be said, it would be intresting to see some details of your maintenance, services by TASS, also to say there's huge gaps on the tyre walls which i feel are they giving this small tyres which arent so comfortable on high speeds, though provides loads of space,comfort but whenu say easy for city car, yes in petrol rightly but diesel always lacked that grunt and easy to pickup which for me in stop and start traffic is headache to drive, having said that what i believe is that this new V2 indica was launched wth new lights front and tail, side fenders, new grille and with the price of 3.5/- for its Di engine was the cheapest hatchback with diesel engine available in country which is why it did sold in that huge numbers.

Thanks vijay. I have mentioned about Tata's service in the review itself. Yeah small tyres could be a reason for poor high speed manners. This diesel(Dicor) is good with lots of grunt, unlike other Indica diesels. Price has always been the USP of all Tata vehicles along with Space and comfort.

im_hummer_freak wrote:good job cc. well written and well defined.

Thanks a lot Bharat :)

Hey cc a job well done. This review is well drafted and solves all queries that anyone would have. Its true that the driving position of Indica is very awkward but as far as high speed stability goes, I think upsizing to 185/65 tyres might help.

Another thing i would like to add is the acceleration along with A/c being on, just doesnt let the engine rev up specially on hot summers.Also what i have felt till now is its plastic quality of dash and panels which gets soo much hot on summers that it feels like it would melt down and some smell keeps coming from that dash when its parked outside in summers, is that same felt in your indica too, i have noticed this in quite few indica's so far.

dcargod wrote:Hey cc a job well done. This review is well drafted and solves all queries that anyone would have. Its true that the driving position of Indica is very awkward but as far as high speed stability goes, I think upsizing to 185/65 tyres might help.

Thanks. I'm not going to upsize the tyres, as they are driven only in City limits and driven by drivers only. I just drove it after a long time and my next drive on it is not known.

thackervijay wrote:Another thing i would like to add is the acceleration along with A/c being on, just doesnt let the engine rev up specially on hot summers.Also what i have felt till now is its plastic quality of dash and panels which gets soo much hot on summers that it feels like it would melt down and some smell keeps coming from that dash when its parked outside in summers, is that same felt in your indica too, i have noticed this in quite few indica's so far.

I've not noticed about the plastics heating. But loss in pick up with AC is more than many cars. I got an article on plastics heating. Will post them soon. Check it, i was shocked to read it.

Crazy cat wrote:
Tata service:
The worst part in any Tata car, i guess. The service has never been satisfactory. It had a failure of right driveshaft and they agreed to replace it under warranty. After delivery, they found the problem still persists. After 3 more visits, it was not sorted out(it was replaced on all visits). Frustrated with this, they asked the Tata person hardly and on investigation, they found that the left drive shaft was replaced thrice :frustration: . Now they replaced the right one and it is fine now.

Did you all notice this?

yeah no matter how good the cars TATA make, they always are worst in their ASS department which now adding Fiat along with has make things worsen then before adding more plea to tata car owners, i remember have never got satisfactory results from my tata dealer infact all tata dealers service department and finally had to shift to private service centre.