Starting the Tiago up, she noticed that the battery light and check engine light were on;
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Hello everybody!
A close relative of mine has been facing some major issues with her 2022 Tiago XZ+ Petrol MT. It all kicked off when she noticed a pungent odor emanating from somewhere within the car. This happened just after the car had it’s 8k kms service. The guys from the service center said they would adjust some AC knobs and fix it. My relative decided not to go the SC as she felt the smell had decreased by a considerable amount and was barely noticeable. All was fine for a few months until she called me in a panic stating that the car would not turn off even after removing the key. She said that after turning the key multiple times, the car eventually turned off. I wasn’t there during the time of this incident and was informed after the car had turned off so I can’t rule out the possibility of it just being a particularly loud fan. This incident happened at a rather inconvenient time though as she was going to be out of station for around 5 days and was supposed to be driven to the airport by her driver in the Tiago (She drives it herself 95% of the time).
The day of the flight, she had decided to take her husband’s Baleno. To get the Baleno out of the garage, she had to reverse the Tiago first. Starting the Tiago up, she noticed that the Battery light and Check engine light were on; apart from this though, the car functioned as normal. No weird smells, no weird noises. After she returned, she drove the car for around 4 days without any issues, the battery light remained on and the check engine light turned on intermittently. Yesterday the check engine light made a return. I advised her to retire the car for the time being until she got it checked by the guys at the SC but, her husband’s Baleno was involved in a crash with a learner driver who erratically stopped once the light turned red in the middle of an intersection; this meant that she had to drive the Tiago all the way to airport to drop off her husband. During the drive, both complained that the AC had stopped working and was blowing warm air regardless of the temperature. Not sure if the CEL was on during this time but the battery light definitely was. This leads me to believe that the Serpentine belt which spins both the AC compressor and the alternator has conked off. Not sure if my hypothesis is correct as a failure of the serpentine belt would also disable the power steering. Car will be given to the SC tomorrow.
Update:
So far, the experience has not been the greatest. My relative handed over the car to the service center. First time, they claimed that the battery needed to be topped up. They handed the car back and after a few minutes of driving, the check engine and battery light made it’s return.
She decided to drive the car for a few more weeks. Over the course of those weeks both the battery light and CEL disappeared and reappeared intermittently. She decided to get the car checked again. The guys at the SC cleared some codes (one had something to do with the speedometer and the other two had no description). The guy clearing the codes turned the car on after clearing them and no lights returned. Curiously though, the usual suspects returned after we left the service center. The AC stopped working as well. We stopped the car by the side of the road and turned it off. Everything turned off apart from the infotainment system. This issue went after turning the car back on though. The AC started working again but the lights remained. The service deduced that this was a battery issue and that if faced problems again, we would need to replace the battery.
Armed with this new advice, my aunt made her way to the Amaron battery center the SA referred to. The folk at the battery center were extremely impolite and firmly claimed that the problem was with the car. Nevertheless, we handed over our battery to check and given a “service” battery. So far its been around a week and the battery center has not updated us about the progress with the battery. Car seems to be running perfectly on their “service” battery. Don’t really know what to say to be honest. The car turned a year old a few days ago and hit 10k around that same time. A battery should not go bad in just a year. The SC guys said nothing else is wrong with the car other than the battery and the battery center said the car is to blame. Tata might get everything else right but if they make mistakes like this in the after sales service, they shoot themselves in the foot.
Picture used is for representation purposes only.
Keyword: Tata Tiago plagued with multiple issues: ASC unclear on the cause