I still remember looking out of my bedroom window to see a Blue Tata Sierra standing outside with all its charm and I always thought my uncle had the coolest car. It was India’s first lifestyle SUV and it has been reincarnated in a new avatar with eye-catching design that won the prestigious Red Dot Award.
There is an attempt to capture the essence of original Sierra with new model, while retaining the 5-door practicality and modern tech. Tata Motors launched the new Sierra for a starting price of Rs 11.49 lakh (Ex-sh) and it is probably the most anticipated launch of this decade. At the media drive in Chandigarh, Sierra attracted more audience towards it than any other vehicle we reviewed.
People of all ages including kids were excited to see Sierra roll down the roads with its immense aura. Tata Motors promises segment-best desirability, space, features, creature comforts, technology and safety. Is it all show and no substance or has Tata nailed it with the new Sierra? Let’s take a closer look.
New Tata Sierra First Drive Review
All 4.2m to 4.4m SUVs (monocoque) in India look like they are extruded out of a smaller car, but the new Tata Sierra looks like it is a bigger SUV squished into this size bracket. The longest wheelbase, largest 19-inch alloy wheels, widest 225-section tyres and highest internal volume makes it sort of a Jeep Compass rival rather than being Hyundai Creta rival. But it is priced closer to a 4.2m to 4.4m C Segment SUV.
Where design is concerned, we don’t have to say anything as you might already have seen a lot of content of new Sierra and admired it. The Andaman Adventure (Yellow) and Bengal Rouge (Red) are the most eyecandy, while Pristine White is the safest bet. The most underrated colour is Munnar Mist (Green), which radiates different hues depending on the way light hits it.
There is no Black as it would defeat the purpose of showing the Alpine window effect. Lack of Blue was a slight disappointment for my nostalgic self. The Alpine window effect of original Sierra is offered as standard across all trims – Smart+, Pure, Pure+, Adventure, Adventure+, Accomplished and Accomplished+.
LED headlights are the slimmest, LED connected DRLs and LED rear tail light signature are widest among any Indian cars and both bonnet and tailgate are of single-piece clamshell type which lend it a unique design. The rubber window beading is hidden, which lends it Defender and Range Rover vibes and even the rear washer and wiper are neatly hidden.
Front slim fog lights have a cornering function with them. Other notable elements of Sierra include the secondary lights for safety beneath the tail gate once it goes up and its massive sunroof, which is the largest among any Indian cars.
New Dashboard and Cavernous Interior Volume
Hopping inside the new Sierra, we can see the new interior design language Tata Motors is employing. It features a multi-layered dashboard which is populated by a vast soft-touch element along with a triple-screen implementation, a first for the brand. Central infotainment and co-driver entertainment screens are 12.3-inch touchscreens, while driver’s instrumentation is a 10.2-inch unit, all laid-out in one housing.
The UI is powered by Snapdragon computing and the overall experience was slick and intuitive without any unexpected lags or glitches. Tata has added a Sonic sound bar below these screens as part of its 12-speaker JBL audio system with Dolby Atmos for a cinematic surround-sound experience, which none of its competitors can probably match. The third co-driver screen also supports games, video streaming apps and even social media apps to keep them entertained with game controller support as well.
Dual-zone AC is quite effective and the touch-and-toggle panel is shared with other Tata products. New Sierra gets an electronic parking brake as standard and all variants get a clean centre console populated with a few cubbies. Both front seats are ventilated, but only the driver’s seat gets electric adjustability along with 3 memory settings.
Upholstery is made of premium leatherette and all door pads get vast soft touch areas for the premium-car vibe. Rear passengers can enjoy one-step seatback recline, sun shades, rear AC vents, 65W USB Type-C ports, centre armrest and intelligent storage in seat-back pockets. Boot space is 622L if you load it till the roof and there is a powered tailgate with anti-pinch feature. The boot is squarish and all the tool kit is neatly hidden, like a luxury car.
Comfort & Ride Quality
Because of its boxy silhouette and its long 2,730 mm wheelbase, new Tata Sierra has segment’s best internal space. While most of its rivals are only wide on the outside, new Sierra has proper internal width and full grown adults sitting side by side is no issue with Sierra and even three people side-by-side on rear seats is perfectly doable with segment-best shoulder room.
There is a welcome and goodbye function with driver’s powered seat where it automatically moves to make ingress and egress more comfortable. Sunvisors for front occupants get an extender that extends downwards. Both front seats also get one-step adjustable under-thigh support, which none of the rivals offer in this segment. Rear left occupant also gets manual Boss Mode if you want to make Sierra a chauffeur-driven vehicle.
New Sierra gets fancy passive frequency dependent dampers in its suspension, which is carefully set up to offer the right balance between comfort and handling. Driving it around Chandigarh, we felt that Tata has upheld its reputation of getting the suspension setup right for Indian road conditions.
The overall suspension experience is on the softer side, which is great for bump absorption across most speeds. Very less road undulance actually intrudes into the cabin and suspension noises are pretty minimal and we didn’t see any unexpected thuds or strange characteristics. With soft suspension comes body roll on corners, which is inevitable in vehicles set up for Indian roads.
We don’t complain though as the overall experience is quite positive. Even braking is quite impressive for this segment and new Tata Sierra gets all-wheel disc brakes as standard. We would have liked it if Tata had worked on better insulating the surroundings from new Sierra. But none of these sounds were intrusive in any way and it was on par with this segment and price bracket.
Performance & Safety
The new Sierra was quite an important launch for Tata Motors to establish a better presence in the highly lucrative 4.2m to 4.4m SUV space. Also, it was important because it debuted Tata’s new 1.5L 4-cylinder Petrol engines. One is in naturally aspirated state, named Revotron, mated to manual or DCA gearbox options and then we have the Hyperion Turbo Petrol
, mated to a 6-speed torque converter only.
Then we have Kryojet Diesel with segment’s highest torque at 280 Nm. In Chandigarh, we drove the Turbo Petrol and then Turbo Diesel and returned impressed. That is because the new Turbo Petrol engine is smooth, refined and packs a punch when you give it the beans. Same could be said about Diesel as well, which packs 280 Nm of pulling power with the 6-speed torque converter.
One can easily achieve a 0-100 km/h sprint in around 10 seconds with Sierra Turbo Petrol which is packing 160 PS of peak power and 255 Nm of peak torque. This engine is eager to pull and the acceleration feels kinda addictive. The new ARGOS platform in the Sierra is AWD ready and Sierra AWD is expected to launch in the future. Even a Sierra 7-seater and Sierra CNG might launch as well.
Fuel efficiency figures are not revealed yet, but the suggested fuel efficiency figures on the instrument cluster was quite low. Maybe the later production models might show accurate figures. Like any other Tata Motors vehicles, new Sierra will leave no stones unturned where safety is concerned. Tata did internal car-to-car crash testing with two Sierras as well, for real-world results.
There’s Level-2 ADAS with a plethora of autonomous driving features, 6-airbags, auto headlights and rain-sensing wipers, all-four disc brakes, ESP, TCS, ABS, electronic parking brake with auto hold and other features. New Sierra has an interesting safety feature where the parking brake will not be disengaged if driver has not buckled up their seatbelt. We also have a 360-degree camera with crisp camera resolution along with blindspot monitoring and alert systems and more.
Some Reservations
The new Tata Sierra is full of glitter and quite a bit of credibility. That said, there are areas for significant improvement with new Sierra. Most of them can be fixed if the company implies better quality control with the newer batches unlike the initial production units we experienced in Chandigarh as there were quite a few uneven panel gaps and a fair bit of exposed wiring with new Sierra.
Some of the rubber beadings had come off and there were even some paint peeling which could be observed. The Alpine window effect is done by Black paint which was not finished properly. It had different paint thickness accumulation than the body colour which made it feel like a wrap even though it wasn’t. In between spot welded sheet metal, there are usually fillers which looked like they were cracking up.
Even my non-tech-savvy mother managed to spot mis-aligned front and rear doors in the official Sierra TVC which was also seen on quite a few media fleet samples we experienced in Chandigarh. The rear sunshades do not cover the entire window and let the sun glare inside. Front sunvisor extenders would have made more sense if they extended sideways like we saw in the discontinued Tata Hexa.
Should you buy a Tata Sierra?
While the Tata Sierra is not perfect, it has more than delivered what our initial expectations with this vehicle were. Apart from the quality control aspects we saw in these initial production batches and a few niggles here and there, Sierra comes off as a strong package with many best-in-segment aspects working in its favour.
The main strengths are its desirability of Sierra nameplate, the sensational design, un-matched road presence, funky design details, largest wheels, widest tyres, longest wheelbase, dominating boxy silhouette, largest boot, highest internal volume, segment-first triple-screen setup, plush and premium cabin, segment-best audio system with Dolby Atmos, un-matched comfort, impressive powertrain choices, best-in-segment entertainment and many more.
Considering the response Tata Sierra has garnered, it is likely to be a sales blockbuster. Even before the sales have commenced, you don’t have to be a genius to see that Sierra has all the ingredients to be the segment disruptor. New Sierra is unlike any other Tata Motors product we have experienced before and the company has outdone themselves. New Tata Sierra is the next big thing in Indian SUV space and we recommend every prospective 4.2m to 4.4m SUV buyer to test drive one.
