Tata Tiago Review: Is It Best Budget Hatchback?

Overview

When Tiago was launched, it was met with a lot of controversies before the car finally made it on to the road. The impressive fact is that in today’s market where most of the new cars are desperately trying to enter the crossover space, even if they have little or no crossover features to offer, Tiago stood true to what it aimed to be. Tata Tiago is a hatchback and there are several things about it which make Tiago an impressive offering from the Indian carmaker.

Pricelist

Tata Tiago’s base model starts with a price tag of Rs. 3.26 Lakh (ex-showroom). With twenty-two variants on offer, there are plenty of choices for customers to select their variant from. Recently, Tata also introduced an automatic variant of the little hatchback. The car is offered with an automated manual transmission which eases commuting in the city traffic whilst not compromising on the fuel economy of Tata’s 1.2-litre Revotron petrol engine. Tata has priced Tiago very competitively and with the features, it has to offer, this hatchback is a bargain.

Exterior

Tata Tiago features company’s Impact design and comes with swooped back headlamps, prominent humanity line, curvaceous bodywork, integrated three-dimensional real spoiler and rides on 13-inch wheels. This is a completely new design language which was developed with inputs of company’s design studios in Pune, Britain and Italy.

Dimension

In terms of size, Tata Tiago is the same in dimensions as one of its close competitor- the Renault Kwid. Even though Tata Tiago isn’t an SUV-esque crossover, with 165mm of ground clearance the car can offer a very comfortable ride. With 242-litres there is also ample boot space for a small family car. Lastly, as compared to Kwid, Tiago has a larger 35-litre fuel tank which gives this hatchback an impressive driving range.

Interior

Inside the cabin, we get one of the most well put together interior we’ve seen in a Tata car. The dashboard gets an all-black paint scheme with black piano finish accents. Also, offered are body coloured contrasting accents which can be found on the air-vent encasings.

Engine and Transmission

Tiago comes with company’s in-house developed range of petrol and diesel motors. These small turbocharged mills produce impressive power output stats. The 1.2-litre petrol motor develops 84bhp of peak power and the 3-cylinder unit is available with the choice of manual and automatic transmissions. The 1.05-litre diesel engine produces 69bhp which is comparable to the power output of Swift’s diesel mill.

Fuel Economy

Tiago offers very competitively claimed fuel economies for both petrol and diesel models. The petrol engine is offered with an automated manual transmission which gives the car all the comfort of an automatic gearbox without compromising on the fuel economy. The diesel variant of Tiago is the most frugal car on sale in India right now.

Features

The party-trick of Tata Tiago is the 8-speaker Harman developed sound system which comes with Navigation and Jukebox app compatibility. There are also 22 cubby holes in the cabin to tuck away knickknacks

Safety

Safety features like ABS with EBD, dual airbags, central locking, speed sensing auto door lock and immobilizer are some of the safety features which are offered with Tata Tiago.

Colours

Tata Tiago is available in 6 colour schemes, which are Berry Red, Espresso Brown, Pearlescent White, Platinum Silver, Striker Blue and Sunburst Orange.

Pros

• Harman based 8-speaker sound system
• Contrasting colour scheme and interior design
• Tata’s Impact design language
• Fuel economy and powerful engine options
• Option of AMT

Cons

• The three-cylinder engine can get a little noisy at high speeds.