Tata Zest Review

 Hello Everyone, Siddharth Lal here with a new post on the review of deserving the Tata Zest. I somehow like Tata cars a lot because I think mostly because the emotions-connect their cars offer as its a truly Indian made brand. Tata Cars offer excellent space, comfort and are sturdy and light on pocket. Tata has set a new milestone with the launch of Tata Zest in the year 2014. Lets start with the review to find out how the car is. See the service schedule cost wise at the end of this article. 

Exterior Styling:

The Tata Zest looks stunning at the front with its big and bold elongated head lights with projector lamps. The big smiling honey-comb front grill with sculpted bonnet and fluidic design fog lights with DRL’s accentuates a bold and sporty poise. The bold thick side profile lines highlights the aerodynamically crafted sporty design. The 15” multi-spoke alloy wheels with 185 section wide tyres goes well with the overall look of the Zest. According to me, the Zest looks pathetic from the rear though i like the Bold & Big clear tail-lamps. The boot looks well integrated from the side profile but doesn't go well from behind. From a distance, the Zest looks like a Hatch-back from behind (in my opinion). 

Interiors: 

The Zest gets dual-tone Black-Beige dashboard with a combination of piano black and silver and chrome accents. The dashboard looks stunning with good fit and finish and fabric upholstery quality. Zest gets a fully automatic A/C with controls on the in-dash integrated touch-screen music system. The Music system offers a smartphone enabled GPS navigation system, bluetooth, AUX, USB, Card reader connectivity. The Music System also features advanced voice command recognition to make calls, change track and control A/C which sounds really fantastic to me as it makes the drive more convenient. The overall fit and finish of the interiors are good. 

Engine & Gearbox:

Zest get two engine options under it’s hood, first being the tried and tested 1.3L Quadrajet diesel engine which again is manufactured by Fiat under the name “1.3L Multijet diesel engine” which is also used in many other cars. It produces 75bhp at 4000RPM and 190Nm torque at 1750-3000RPM returning a claimed milage of 23 km/l. The same engine is tuned to produce 90Bhp power at 4000RPM and 200Nm torque with 200Nm torque at 1750-3000RPM. The claimed milage of 90ps manual engine is also 23km/L.

1.3L Quadrajet Diesel Engine

Second option is of a 1.2L turbocharged Revotron petrol engine generating superb 90ps power at 5000RPM and immense torque of 140Nm at stunning band of 1500-4000RPM returning a claimed milage of 17.6 Km/L. 

Both the engines are refined. 

Both the engine comes with a 5 speed manual transmission and gearshift is not one of the smoothest and does not go well with the sporty performance of this hatch.  The 90ps variant also gets 5-speed automatic transmission as a option. 

Performance and  Handling:

I will be posting a separate post on the performance of the 90ps variant along with the Auto-shift transmission model.  

The petrol mill accelerates and responds superbly, thanks to its turbocharger. The acceleration and throttle response is real quick even at high-rpm band and the car asks for more even while redlining. The petrol version is a must try for the enthusiasts and it will leave you shocked with its superb performance. You will surely feel like revving the car and will be eager to find stretched roads every time you’ll be behind the wheels. The hatch is the most fun to drive car in its segment and no other competitor comes close to Bolt in terms of performance. The top speed I could achieved was 170 Km/Hr as I felt short of roads. It reaches swiftly to a speed of 150 Km/hr and later slows down. Like the Bolt, Tata offers the Multi-drive feature as well in the Zest, this feature offers three drive modes namely SPORTS, ECO and CITY. The Sports mode is for a burst of power delivery, ECO for boosting the milage and City for a perfect balance between Performance and milage. It is all about the restriction to the RPM levels in different modes. 

The 1.3L Diesel engine has been much talked about so I will briefly  highlight the points: 

The diesel motor is a gem in terms of acceleration, it goes from 0-100 under 14 seconds and achieves a top speed of 160 km/Hr (Tested by me on DND expressway Delhi). The diesel mill is real quick from 0-140 km/hr but later on struggles a bit to reach its top speed. The top speed of the Diesel mill is 160 Km/Hr. 

The speed sensitive Steering offers excellent control and hold and is confidence inspiring but not as good as of the Maruti Swift Dzire. The steering also traits active return feature. 

Tata offers Dual-path McPherson strut suspension with coil spring and anti-roll bar at the front and a Twist beam suspension with coil spring and shock absorbers at the rear. This set of suspensions has a bit of body roll and feels smooth jerks on bad roads at low-speed. This car is stable at high speeds and around corners but the only issue here is the high wind levels on 3-digit speeds. Overall this car is packed with good acceleration supported by excellent steering control and a great suspension. 

Comfort and Convenience:

Space and Comfort is the aspect where Tata excels and is standard across all models. The body hugging rugby shoulder front seats are really comfortable and back-pain is not experienced on long drives. The driving position is good too with high seat position and the driver gets a clear view of the road. The cabin has ample head-room, knee-room and shoulder-room. The rear seat is comfortable and can seat three adults with easy, the seats are a bit hard though. Hard cushion seats are actually more comfortable for longer drives. 

Like Vista and Manza, the Bolt has a huge glovebox that can fit a 13” laptop. 

All the Tata cars have effective Air-conditioning system, it chills at 23 degrees auto even in scorching heat of Delhi summers. 

Zest has a decent 390 Litres boot space which isn’t biggest among the rivals. 

390 Litres of Boot Space

Braking and Safety:  

Tata cars had poor brakes, be it the previous generation Safari, or Indica or the Indigo. All these cars used to skid on sudden braking even at a speed of 60 Km/Hr, serious my father has previously owned all three. But now the brakes are really improved and are of the standards at par backed by the ABS with EDB and CSC (Corner Stability Control) which is present in all the models except for the base. Dual front SRS airbags are standard on the Top-end model and a model below (XMS). 

At an ex-showroom price of 4.88 lakhs (base model), The Tata Zest With the Bold and Stylish looks of the Tata Zest with alluring interiors backed by loads of features and tried and tested Diesel and Petrol mill returning good economy will surely Zest up your life.