Tata GenX Nano: 7,000km Final Long Term Report

The Nano continues to impress us with the sheer amount of space it has, especially when you take its tiny proportions into consideration. Heading over to Cyrus' place for a big team dinner gave us the chance to put the Nano through its paces one more time. What was different this time round, was that the little Tata had half of our team packed in it, that included someone who is 6.5ft and me, who is, let's say horizontally challenged. What's more, we couldn't even use the air-conditioning at its lowest temperature, because it'd get a bit too cold a bit too quickly. 

The boot managed to accommodate two laptop bags and one open face helmet. Everything else had to be either stored in the two gloveboxes on top of the dash or placed on the floor. Well past midnight, after the team had wolfed down questionable amounts of dhansak and rice, I volunteered to drop four of my colleagues home. This, inevitably saw the Nano do a little Tour de Mumbai — in the dark. 

With five well-fed guys in the car and with the air-conditioning running, the motor felt like it's running out of breath. Switching the AC off does make things momentarily better, but, I'd rather be slow than sweaty - so I promptly turned it back on. You can sense it begin to struggle on inclines, and the Nano is not something we'd recommend for a trip around the ghats with the family. The AMT gearbox selects gears pretty well when driven with a light foot. The shifts are still slightly jerky, but one does get used to it. We resorted to lifting our foot off the accelerator when we want the gearbox to upshift, which makes the cog-swapping smoother. If you are in a hurry, be sure to use the Sports mode. The shifts happen at the redline, the throttle response is a tad sharper, but the downside, of course, is fuel efficiency. Speaking of which, that particular trip yielded 14kmpl, with a majority of the distance being covered in the city. 

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Rainy Mumbai roads at 2:00 am meant the headlamps and the wiper were put to the test as well. The lighting is just about adequate, but we did find ourselves switching to high beam in areas where streetlights weren't functioning. The single wiper covers a fair amount of windscreen real estate. No complaints there, but we wish the Nano had a rear wiper too. The near upright rear windscreen gets mucky a bit too easily and hampers visibility (which is already limited, thanks to the tiny mirrors) as well. 

We've liked the ride, space and the sheer convenience of having a tiny automatic hatch in a congested city like Mumbai. The odometer stands at a little over 7,000km as of now, and it is time for the little Nano to go back to Tata. It's a hatch that's easy to like and easy to live with, especially in bustling metros with crazy traffic. Now that Tata is going about developing the new Nano, we hope these two aspects are left untouched.

Date Acquired: January 2016 

Total km till Date: 7,080 km

Fuel Efficiency: 14.0kmpl

Cheers: Space, ride quality and light steering 

Sneers: Poor brakes, poor headlights and rough engine