Tatas whose had one?

**dazzler** · 17th January 2008, 12:04 PM

Actually to be fair (and to echo graham a little) they are made for a market where the vehicle needs to be simple and easily repaired. In ET we had a TATA and a Land Rover Discovery.

The TATA had bits falling off of it, handled poorly and was rough as guts. The Landy was very smooth, handled well and was a bit better built.

BUT, when the Landy stopped it stopped. Red light would tell you to get a technician and that was that. The TATA would stumble along and you could get it fixed in the field a lot easier.

Ours was like a series one land rover, only assembled by the UN after a big drinking session

.

I had heard that the TATA big trucks are very tough and well built.

Just digressing, while in mission a Sri Lankin Inspector (very much a desk jockey) was over the moon at being promoted to the next rank and he was to get a new TATA and a driver as well.... very chuffed.

The other Sri Lankins thought it most funny because;

"They will be sending him to the Tamil area and the Tamils will eat him and then drive around in his new car....." much laughter........

**Wood Borer** · 17th January 2008, 12:44 PM

I too like the idea of a basic but tough vehicle. I would like to see such a vehicle in a 4WD made by someone like Toyota.

The number of vehicles I have seen on the back of trucks heading out of the centre because the local mechanics have not got access to proprietry software to get these expensive pieces of junk going again.

For example, if you do a sump in a BMW, repair it and fill it up with oil it still won't start until it is connected to the special software only available to the dealers.

Mazdas and other vehicles will fail to start if the brakes get down to when the senson touches the disc. Even though the pads might still have 10,000 Kms left in them and you bend the sensor out the way or ignore the light, you can't start them until they have been reset by the PC only available to an authorised dealer.

Air bags in Rovers also have the same problem - can't just cut the bags out and start them. You can trip an airbag negotiating the lips of sandhills early in the season.

Some Merc 4WDs with their expensive traction control and half a dozen other useless features have been known to stop 1/3 of the way up a Sandhill because the on board computer sulks when it has done everything it can to make your vehicle operate as if it is on a bitumen road. You have to wait for the computer to stop sulking (normally a reset) before you reverse down and give the sandhill another shot.

So what happens if you are off the beaten track? Well your RACV/NRMA/RACQ etc won't cover you unless you are on a designated road. The French Line, Rig Road etc in the Simpson are not designated roads.

Cost to you to be towed from Dalhousie to Birdsville is $8000. Less if you are closer to Birdsville. Then the vehicle has to be trucked to Adelaide just so a nerd can hook up the computer and click the box.

A basic vehicle would not have any of these time wasting and expensive problems.

Thread: Tatas whose had one?

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