Tata Nano cars catching fire?

Since September 2009, it has been reported, that three Tata Nano cars have caught fire according to reports in the media. Company blamed it on localised meltdowns. Right or wrong, the doubts are definitely not good news for Tata Motors.

The three incidents of Tata Nano cars catching fire have been deported from Ahmedabad, New Delhi and Lucknow.

A Tata Motors spokesperson told Business Standard newspaper that the company did not accept that there was any fire in their cars.  However, he admitted that there was an incident of short around the Combination switch near the steering wheel, which led to those areas melting.

The Tata spokesman said that the company has not had access to the Tata Nano in New Delhi, but the company has repaid the car from Ahmedabad and returned it to the owner.  He said that some TV channels had reported that there was the recall of the cars, but this was not true and the company was not considering a recall.

However, he added that Tata might go in for a preemptive audit check of the nano cars which are about to go out to customers and the ones which would come in for their normal service to make sure that there are no such problems as a precautionary measure.

Talking to moneycontrol.com, he said that this would not slowed down the direction of the Tata Nano as this did not suggest a generic trend.  He said that he would like to inform customers of the company that in case the face the problem with their Nano, the company would repair the problem without delay.

Tata Motors has sold around 7500 Nano cars since the company started deliveries in July 2009.

The Tata Nano customer in New Delhi told Times of India that caught fire when it was parked.  He blamed it on a manufacturing fault and said that he has filed a police complaint about the incident.