| Advantages | With the 2025 model year update, the Tiago has become quite interesting with its feature distribution. It retains the simple variant lineup which makes it easy to select a variant. However, earlier, the feature distribution wasn’t the best. You had to stretch for the higher variant with a bunch of good-to-have features just to get a couple of must-have features. This time, it’s much nicer.
For instance, alloy wheels, which are easy to install post purchase and don’t add much value to the functionality are available in top variant. Meanwhile, some must-have features such as rear defogger, ESC, power mirrors, steering-mounted controls are available in the mid-spec XT variant. Higher, XZ also adds some meaningful and useful features such as auto AC, auto headlamps, auto wipers, LED headlamps, larger touchscreen and DRLs before moving up to XZ Plus. Even the lower XM variant gets height-adjustable driver seat, all power windows, day/night inside mirror and a music system.
So, no matter which variant you pick you will get a good feature distribution for a car of its price and segment.
With the 2025 model year updates, the Tiago now brings LED headlamps, wireless Android Auto and Apple Carplay and a larger touchscreen with smoother and responsive interface. These changes, along with some cosmetic updates such as the new steering wheel with backlit Tata logo, its leather wrapping and the larger touchscreen next it make the car feel much more premium from the driver’s seat.
The top model comes quite loaded with features like auto AC, auto LED headlamps, auto wipers, TPMS, cruise control, large touchscreen, with wireless Android and Apple connectivity, keyless entry and go and a cooled glovebox.
While the Tiago is no SUV, it has a better ground clearance than a typical hatchback. 170mm on the standard variants is quite respectable. Moreover, if you do need the high ground clearance for the terrains you have to tackle, there’s the NRG variant, which is available with petrol-manual, petrol-auto, CNG-manual as well as CNG-auto powertrain options. What’s great about this NRG variant is that you don't have to pay a lot for the SUV styling like you do when buying bigger cars like the Exter, Punch, Kiger etc. The Tiago NRG is quite reasonably priced for what it offers.
Unlike some of the other non-turbo petrol cars, the Tiago’s petrol engine delivers its torque a little sooner at 3300 - 3500rpm. The rivals offer peak torque at 4000rpm or higher. This feature gives the Tiago a marginally-better drivability.
The Tiago, of course, offers the usual petrol-manual and petrol-AMT automatic options. Additionally, it also brings the CNG-manual powertrain. But it doesn’t stop there. The Tiago is one of the rare cars in India to offer a CNG-automatic powertrain option. Tata Motors don’t just have the CNG-AMT. The CNG variants of the Tiago also have a usable boot space. With 2 cylinders to hold the gas under the boot floor, there’s quite a usable cargo volume of more than 100 litres even in the CNG variants. This is another rare feature of Tiago CNG variants. Although, Hyundai have also started offering this with the Nios and Exter. No longer applicable as BNCAP/GNCAP crash test procedure has changed significantly since the Tiago was tested back in January 2020.
| - The Maruti Nexa Ignis comes with a 180mm of ground clearance. Coupled with a short wheelbase and small form factor, the Ignis can handle broken roads and tall speed breakers without scraping its underbelly. Flared wheel arches and body cladding also add to its crossover appeal.
- The Ignis offers a high-seating position, high ground clearance and compact dimensions make it a perfect car for city driving. You can navigate through city traffic more easily, squeeze it into a tight parking spot and have great all-around visibility to improve your city driving ownership.
- Maruti Nexa Ignis comes with a class-leading fuel efficiency of almost 21kmpl. The fuel efficiency is impressive by segment standards, even without the new Dual-jet engine, which is available with the Baleno and Dzire. Additionally, the Ignis also offers great refinement as it’s the only car in its segment of compact, affordable crossovers with a 4-cylinder engine. The 4-cylinder construction makes it inherently balanced and smooth.
- After-sales service is the backbone of Maruti Suzuki in India. The Ignis enjoys a reassuring after-sales network and its very easy to find a qualified technician for Maruti Suzuki cars even in remote locations. While it’s not as popular as the Swift, Baleno or Dzire, it still manages to hold a good percentage of its value and is reasonably affordable to begin with.In addition to that, the Ignis, being a popular model, also enjoys higher resale value with minimal depreciation.
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| Disadvantages | Compared to the Nios and Ignis, the 3-cylinder engine of the Tiago doesn’t feel as refined. Pushing it up the rev band, even just around 3000rpm, which is only 50% of the redline, the engine feels like it’s protesting.
Maruti Suzuki beating Tata Tigor with their 5-star Dzire is one thing. But the Alto K10 offering 6 airbags as standard in variants which don’t even get power steering and air conditioning while the Tiago continues with 2; now that is gonna hurt the Tiago and Tata fanbois.
Even in the top model of the Tiago, you may still miss features such as split-folding rear seat backs, rear AC vents, front centre armrest, front side thorax airbags and curtain airbags.
You won’t just miss out on some features with the Tiago top model. You also won’t get the option of buying it with an automatic transmission. It’s the same story whether you choose the petrol or the CNG engine option.
The base model of the Tiago carries an aggressive price tag, it does miss out on several features we have come to expect from any modern day car. For instance, it doesn’t get day/night inside mirror, height-adjustable driver seat, power mirrors, power windows, wheel covers and more. It also gets 13-inch wheels with skinny 155-section tyres. Even the cheaper Renault Kwid gets 165-section tyres on 14-inch rims.
The Tiago first went on sale early in 2016 with Zica badging on its boot and the legendary Messi promoting the car. It is now 9 years old, and for 2025, it’s again getting mild updates. 9 years is an awfully long time in the auto industry for a car to continue without a major overhaul. The 2025 model year update should prolong its life for another couple of years making it at least 11 years old before people really start hating the old design and stop buying it altogether.
That is not the saddest part though. What’s worse is that there’s no generation update in Tata’s pipeline for the Tiago and its sedan twin. Unless the customers’ buying power severely deteriorates in the coming years with a horrific economic slowdown, we don’t see Tata keeping the Tiago in their portfolio for too long. That means, even if you buy the car today, you may run into problems such as lower resale value because of model discontinuation and difficulty securing slow-moving parts for maintenance.
While every other carmaker out there has managed to figure out how to make vehicles that are reliable enough to only need yearly service, Tata appear to be stuck in the past. Or perhaps they are not! Perhaps, this is a strategy to extract more money out of their customers’ pockets.
While they will only replace consumables during every alternate visit, they will make you pay for labour even on visits where they only claim to have done some checks on the car. This adds to the hassle during the ownership and the overall cost of maintenance.
If you’re not assertive enough, then rest assured that at every service centre visit, the advisor will “advise” you to get some or the other preventive maintenance done even if they are absolutely unnecessary. Denying these optional services is going to be tricky because they are going to spend a whole lot of time with your vehicle. You don’t wanna make enemies with the service advisor because it’s fairly easy to sabotage your vehicle in a way that it will work fine for a few months and break down later during the ownership. Then, they might claim that they told you so. After all, they are the experts.
Thus, this might add to your maintenance costs. And if you don’t maintain a cordial relationship with your service centre reps, then you also run the risk of getting some warranty claims denied in future. The rest of the auto industry recommends yearly service centre visits. In such cases, you only have to see the service centre once every 12 months. So, it’s much less riskier to fight your way through their "recommendations". They probably won’t even remember you 12 months later.
| - The Maruti Nexa Ignis comes with only a 1.2L normal petrol engine. While the diesel engine was taken off the shelves once the BS6 norms came into effect, Maruti Suzuki are yet to offer a CNG option with the Ignis.
Given the increasing demand for turbo petrol engines due to improving awareness among car buyers, it’s also natural for us to miss a turbo petrol in the Ignis. Turbocharged engines offer a lot of torque at low and mid RPMs making them very easy to drive in the city as well as on the highway. Since you don’t need to rev them very hard to extract meaningful performance out of a turbocharged engine, they also tend to deliver good mileage along with fantastic drivability.
- The Ignis misses out on a few features, which we’ve come to expect from a car at this price point. We wish at least the top variant offered features like front and rear armrests, rear AC vents, cruise control, wireless phone charger and drive modes.
- The Ignis is exclusively available at Maruti’s premium Nexa dealerships. The presence of Nexa dealerships falls short in front of the larger Arena network. So a large portion of tier 2, tier 3 and village population never even considers buying the Ignis.
- Maruti Suzuki addressed this problem with a price revision. Now, the Delta variant is suitable for budget buyers and offers reasonable value for money with a decent number of must-have features. Although, the Zeta offers even better value with some good-to-have features.
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