I purchased a Tata Indigo diesel LX in Nov 2004 and now after having used it for over 7000 km I am in a position to write a review on it.
The car has ample space inside and well sound proofed when the windows are rolled up. You never hear or feel the diesel which is quite noisy from outside. The AC is powerful and keeps the interior cool on long road trips (such as on my Chennai-Trivandrum trip two times). The interior is quite comfortable for long trips, but the finish is very inferior compared foreign car like Hyundai or Ford. The plastics are cheap looking and large gaps in the panels. Also the carpets and rubber mats are paper thin.
On the other hand there is ample space (almost like a table top) on the top of the instrument panel. Also the total price (Rs 5.5 lakhs) is much cheaper than a similar sized diesel from some foreign makes like hyundai and ford and fiat. The boot is huge and the cabin has some extras like seperate cabin lights for front and back seats.
The suspension is also good/comfortable and comparable to some foreign models I tried out as alternatives (i.e Fiat and Ford). The gear box dont seem to have any problems in gear change as some other reviewers have said. Maybe they refer to an earlier version of Indigo which was ironed out in time.
The engine performance needs something to get used to. Because of turbocharger, one must wait about 20-30 sec after starting the engine before moving it otherwise it can stall. It has a 62 bhp engine (9 hp more than Indica) and feels slow and sluggish with the AC on. But once you get used to the feel and response of the accelerator (there is a slight delay in pickup after pressing the pedal, but then the full power comes surging in) one can manage along with this car.
During these six months I had no major problems or repairs. There was a coolant leak because the coolant hose clip came loose and it was fixed up by the dealer and so far not occured again. I was quite worried by the alleged frequency of minor repairs in Tata vehicles (warned by my friends ) like stuck windows, malfunctioning headlights etc. But so far these have not happened to my car but I need to keep it my mind.
Mileage is quite poor with only 10kmpl in the city with AC on. I expected better than this.
Overall I would recommend this car to persons who want a reasonable large sized diesel car with a price around 5 lakhs. If I wanted a petrol car I would never even have considered an Indigo or Indica in the first place.