When we were scanning through the choice of cars in our budget, Manza came across as a value for money product. It had loads of features, was spacious and had a sizable trunk for outstation trips. The dealer was responsive too. The story begins after we took the delivery of the car. When we took its delivery, there were a bunch of wires hanging down below the glove box. This looked quite normal to the sales guys though. In the first service, I had a list of 7-8 things which needed to be rectified like misfit rubbers, poor alignment, poor focus of the headlight. As usual the service guys were quite responsive and replaced everything free of cost so I didn’t bother much.
After the service I took my car to Nandi hill with my family and on the way the car broke down and had to be towed. After two days, the service guys realized, they didn’t fix the battery connections properly after installing new headlights during servicing. I was mighty pissed off.
These are the standard list of problem on a Manza:
- On sudden accelerations, the car banks to the right
- the high beam is aligned to low beam so even though the intensity of light will increase, the focus will still be near the car and not on the highway
- The ac is ineffective in bumper to bumper traffic.
I was still managing but a trip to ooty changed my mind completely. On the way to Ooty, the car got overheated and we had to wait for more than 30 mins for it to cool down. I mean its not expected of a car which is less than 2 years old and being regularly serviced. When we started again, the ac stopped working. This was the end of it. I made I mind that I will sell it as soon as I reach Bangalore. And I did! I sold a car which was less than 2 years old because it wasn’t reliable enough - not in the city and not on the highway!
**Word of advice for Tata Motors** - please don’t waste your time developing new products. Instead send your team to Hyundai and Honda’s of the world to learn what build quality is.
**Word of advice for potential buyers -** Please stay away from Tata motors unless you are really pressed on budget and don’t mind regular(read monthly) trips to the service station and share the waiting lounge with cab drivers.