Tata Indigo Marina TDi

Estates cost more than their hatchback brothers and sisters

Published on Dec 08, 2009 08:00:00 AM

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The Marina shares the Indigo's thoroughly revised and reworked TD motor, and the 62bhp diesel was strengthened in many ways to help it deal with the additional stresses of turbo-charging. An inter-cooled version had been planned for the Marina, but the said heat-exchanger seems to have been deleted from the list.
Spin the engine faster than idle and the mildly gravelly idle turns smooth. But you have to wait till just after 2000rpm to extract the full benefit of the motor's torque. This is particularly frustrating when in city traffic or trying to pass someone on the highway with a full load.
The effect of this turbo lag is made worse by the difficult gearbox linkage that often baulks when you need to shift from third to second in a hurry, something that happens with annoying regularity. You need to keep the diesel in a low gear to enable it to pull strongly, but performance post-2000rpm is refreshing for this small, 1.4-litre motor. Once the turbo hits, punch and boost are generous, and these carry the Marina forward with a great deal of enthusiasm and zest.
Straight-line acceleration is pretty impressive with the ton coming up in a spirited 17.66 seconds. Because of its clever gearing, the Marina is also a very accomplished cruiser, maintaining a steady 120kph being no big deal, and performance, importantly, remains unaffected by even full loads.
The petrol motor is less impressive. Utilising essentially the same block and many common parts, this motor has a lot of inertia and is noisy too. Induction noise is heard and it gets raucous, although in a sporty way, towards the top of its powerband. A strong bottom end however means that it is very driveable, the Marina moving forward well under light throttle, even when loaded. The midrange of this 85bhp motor is also strong — its head has been worked on by Janspeed of the UK — and it reaches 100kph in a useful 13.34 seconds.
The diesel has the same gear ratios as the Indigo diesel, but the less torquey petrol has shorter ratios than the petrol Indigo in second and third gear, to cope with the extra loads it can haul.

As expected, with similar weights, motors and gearing, the Marina is approximately as efficient as the Indigo. The thirstier petrol swallowed one litre for every 8.8km in the city, with the diesel giving a more acceptable 11.9kpl in urban traffic.
The latter also managed to travel 15.6 kilometres on a litre of diesel on the highway, ideal if what you want is a highway car to roam the country.