11.10Indica V2 India, Indica V2 Review
The Indica looked good and has managed to age gracefully in the past two years. The interior of our V2 (DLS version with power steering and body-coloured bumpers) remained the same - spacious, with great seats and negligible instrumentation. One improvement is the roof liner that fits properly - the earlier ones had a tendency to come loose. Turn the key and the 1400 CC diesel wakes up to the familiar clatter but what is now missing are aching noises made by the alternator pulley. A larger pulley with bigger grooves meant the belt sat more comfortably, thus eradicating noise. Tata claims the NVH (noise, vibration, harshness) characteristics of the engine has been improved. The gear linkage has been slightly redesigned to give a better shift-feel to the driver.
To perceive the improvements made in the power train, you have to go through the gears with the air-con switched on. First and second gears launch you to 35 and 72 kph and that too with the engine sounding harsh and unrefined. But all that stabilises as you go into third, and from here on there is less noise and vibration eating into the cabin. The third cog takes you to the century mark and top speed - 125 kph is achieved in the fifth gear.
The most important improvement that Tata R&D has done is to rework the suspension set-up - both front and back. While the suspension set-up was almost perfect as far as vehicle dynamics were concerned, Indica owners have been complaining of uneven tyre wear in their cars. Now, that is one problem that has been troubling all Tata passenger cars. Instead of waiting for another five years before they rectified the problem, Tata gave priority to the issue.
The result is a revised front wishbone set-up with a tie-rod which prevents the driven wheels from going out of alignment. At the rear end, a beefier lower arm bracket was added to the existing set-up of struts and coil springs, again with the intention to eliminate tyre wear. On top of that, fatter 165/65 radials were mounted on the 13 inch rim in place of 155/70s that the car was wearing.
The air-con system which blew hot and cold (literally) in the initial batch of cars has been rectified and a new heat shield over the exhaust routing prevents heat from being conducted into the passenger cabin.