Review Tata Aria oleh AutoCar India

[Turboman]

Design & Engineering

The Aria’s crossover design is an attempt to combine the attributes of a car, MPV and SUV into one package. The styling was done by I.DE.A of Italy with inputs from Tata Motors’ in-house design team, so have they succeeded?

The Aria gets a new all-wheel-drive (AWD) system from DivgiWarner that acts ‘on demand’ like in most soft-roaders and automatically switches from two-wheel drive to four-wheel drive when it senses slippery conditions. However, in two-wheel drive, it is the rear wheels that are driven and not the front ones as is the case with soft-roaders like the Captiva, CR-V and Santa Fe. Traction and control and ESP are standard on the top-end Aria to add to the car’s surefootedness.

On roads where traction or the lack of it is not an issue, you can completely completely disconnect the front axle from the wheels with a simple press of a switch to reduce the load of the drivetrain. Tata has tried to make it lighter but at 2220kg the Aria is still heavy. All that equipment and the 4x4 hardware add to the scales

Performance & Economy

Don’t let the transverse engine cover fool you. The Aria gets the same longitudinally mounted 2.2-litre 138bhp Dicor motor as in the Safari. It shares the same G76 gearbox too. However, the minute you fire the engine, you know that lots of work has been done to make the powertrain even better. It’s significantly smoother than before, thanks to a dual mass flywheel which damps vibrations and good sound deadening keeps the cabin quite hushed at most speeds. It’s only at idle that you sense a little bit of shake because of the soft engine mounts. The clutch is quite light and the gearshift too has been improved – it has a nice short throw, feels accurate but isn’t exactly slick and still needs an extra bit of a push.

The broad torque spread of this 16-valve engine with a variable geometry turbo is quite impressive. Unlike most turbo-diesels which are peaky and have a narrow rev band, this Dicor unit has a nice and linear power delivery and can rev quite happily to 4600rpm though it’s best to shift up well before then. What the Aria lacks is a bit of low-end punch but that’s more to do with the tall gearing than a lack of flexibility. Hence, you do need to drop down a gear when revs dip below 2000rpm and in traffic you can get bogged down with turbo-lag, which means more gearshifts than you want

The highway is where the Aria can stretch its legs and come into its own. The punchy mid-range makes overtaking effortless and the Aria can be deceptively quick on open roads.

Flat-out acceleration is quite impressive and 100kph comes up in 15.6 seconds, making the Aria easily quicker than competitors like the Innova. The Aria is pretty good when it comes to in-gear acceleration too. Despite the slight lag and tall gearing, the rush in power is so strong that it makes the Aria quicker than even â—Š
∆ the Innova in both the third and fourth gear slogs. So overtaking on the highway is never a problem, even if you feel lazy to execute a downshift.

The Aria is a happy cruiser and at 100kph, the motor is turning over lazily at 2100rpm, which makes this big crossover well suited for long- distance journeys.

http://www.autocarindia.com/roadtest/tata-aria

IDEA Institute : http://www.idea.institute.it/eng/sito.html

Catatan :

Innova yg dimaksud tentunya D4 D M/T krn itulah variant terpopuler di India

Dgn bobot 2,2 Ton si Aria ini jauh lebih berat drpd Ipah D4 D yg 1,7 - 1,8 Ton.

IMHO:

Terlepas dari unsur "iklan terselubung", bagaimanapun juga ini merupakan PR yg cukup berat bagi Toyota Kihrloskar India


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