Now it does not look new because that’s the one thing Tata Motors did not have to fiddle around with. Styling always looked great on the Tata Harrier & look great. But it gets those two things it should have got right at the start. Now it has the higher
horsepower engine.
170horsepower and finally it gets an automatic gearbox. How does it drive? Well hang on. Subscribe to the channel. Click the bell icon. Done that? Now lets find out. So this is what is new. The 6-speed automatic gearbox. Now the gearbox has been sourced from Hyundai. It's the same gearbox that was there inthe
Hyundai Tucson. It is a 6-speed automatic gearbox. Obviously the new Tucson now gets an
8-speed automatic. But we love that gearbox in the Tucson and I’m sure it will do well here. What else is new? The seat, it’s now got electric adjust for the driver. The steering always had rake, reach, so the driving position is excellent.
The USB is better sited so you can plug into car Play without doing gymnastics. It gets ESP on all variants. Manual, auto, base, top end, all get ESP.and it continues with this aircraft style handbrake which is the one thing that I donot like. It also gets better profiled wing mirrors so now the blind spots have been reduced so you can see the bikes swarming around you. This is something they should have sorted out. Anyway, lets hit the road. The Tata Harrier is not an off-roader. It is only front wheel drive even though it hasthis terrain mode button over here which is purely for the engine mapping so it can’t do real off-roading. But what it can take is rough roads and it really takes it in its stride. It is one of those few vehicles that is completely unfazed by
bad roads. So you see a
bad patch of road and you canjust drive it flat out over that and I think that is one of the key attributes of the Harrier. Key selling point because of the Indian highways you never know when a pothole, when a speed breaker is going to come up and with the Harrier you can be safe in the knowledge that nothing is going to happen either to your car or to your passengers. So how does the 170 horsepower engine drive? Well, you step on it and it goes quite well. Honestly for a vehicle of this size and positioning you don’t really need nor would you ask for more. The gearbox is not as quick as a twin clutch,obviously, but in terms of the responses it is again well suited to the car and the best part is it does not squeeze in a lot of power from the engine so even with the automatic gearbox this feels like a proper 170 horsepower engine, it feels powerful enough. You even get a bit of torque steer from thesteering wheel. Handling? It has been a strong point and it continuesto be. Now there is body roll and there isn’t somuch in the way of feel or feedback from the steering but overall it is well balanced. So the ability to take corners on smooth roadsplus the ability to hammer down bad roads, the Harrier it can do both and the balance is what hits the sweet spot. You will find SUVs that go faster round cornerson a smooth road. You will find SUVs that go faster on bad roads. But you won’t really find an SUV that cando both. And that is the strength of the Harrier. Tata Motors also say they’ve worked a loton the refinement of the engine and that is a fact. I remember when we did the comparison test with the Hector and the earlier Harrier and we were surprised that the Hector was so much quieter. But now listen to the engine.
I am flat on the throttle and you can hear the beep, that 80kmph buzzer, but you can’t really hear the engine all that much. What you can hear is a bit of wind noise from these reprofiled mirrors but thank god they have reprofiled the mirrors. Because earlier the blind spots that you used to get were insane. Now there’s no danger of you not looking at the bike and going into something on the road. You can actually see traffic around you. It has got thick A-pillars but then for safetyyou do need thick A-pillars. Those days when we used to road test carsand talk about slim A-pillars all those days are thankfully gone. You have strong cars and
Tata Motors focuses lot on safety as we know. And for that they’ve given ESP standard across all variants though you can disable ESP completely if you are going off-road and you want little bit wheels pin to get out of sticky situations. The Harrier has a great driving position. The seats are wide, comfortable, and now you get this
panoramic sunroof so that brings so much more air and light into the cabin. This sunroof has anti-pinch so if you put your fingers popping out of the sunroof it won’t pinch your fingers. If you lock the car and forget to shut the sunroof it will shut on its own. And if it senses rain the
sunroof closes on its own. It does not have voice assist or voice activation like the other cars in its class but this is enough I think. The Harrier defaults into
City mode when you start off. It has an Eco mode. “Economy drive mode activated.” But you don’t really want to drive it in mode Most Harrier owners are not really that worried about fuel efficiency either. You have a Sport mode. “
Sport drive mode activated.” And that makes the gearbox more urgent. More responsive. Make the throttle more responsive. And makes the Harrier itself more responsive. And make it actually great fun to drive. I really like the Harrier on the highways. Because you can take these corners with confidence speed. You see a bad road you don’t have to slowdown too much for it. The driving position is nice. Visibility is great. It actually is a great car for driving around in India. Tata Motors always made great cars to touring. The Safari, the
Hexa, they were cumbersomein the city but great on the highway. With the Harrier they have sorted out the city cumbersomeness part but they’ve retained that great aspect on the highway. And I really like it. This is one of those cars that I would love to live with for a year. My next long term car, I think is going tobe a
Harrier. Imagine me saying that, next long term car Tata Motors. Just shows how much Tata Motors have progressed. Well done Tata Motors. I’ve always been a fan of the Tata Harrier. That ride and handling, courtesy the
LandRover platform has always given it excellent dynamics. And now with more power under that hood and the 6-speed automatic gearbox this is a great SUV to do long distances in. Plus in the city it is actually very easy to drive courtesy those wing mirrors that have been reprofiled so it does not have those huge blind spots. Ultimately the Harrier will sell because it looks
super cool.
Tata Motors and their styling team have donea really cool job on this and it is a good thing they haven’t touched and fiddled around with it. The only real stumbling block is going tobe the pricing. 20 lakh rupees for this top end version is pushing the envelope of affordability for a Harrier owner. But apart from that, the Harrier, it is spot-on.
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