Starter Motors of all existing Nanos being replaced free of cost

To give a boost to its sales as well as the Nano’s performance, Tata Motor’s have issued a notice to replace all starter motor of its existing Nano cars with the starter motor that is standard fitment on the 2012 Nano. The company has sold a total of 145,000 units of the Nano till now and the replacement drive would cover all the units.

However, Tata Motors has stated their move to replace the starter motor has nothing to do with the incidents of fire that had been reported on some of the Nano. Yet the company is going about replacing the item as a mark to boost customer confidence in the company as a whole, rather than the car specific.

In an email response, Tata motors confirm: “In old Tata Nano’s, we are upgrading the starter motor to enhance performance, because we have now devised a better starter motor. This better starter motor is already installed in the Tata Nano 2012, introduced in November 2012.”

The role of the starter motor is just at the initial stages of the engine start up before the combustion of the engine takes on further running of the engine. The company would have to bear a cost of Rs 110 crore for this replacement drive amongst the 145,000 Nano’s, as each replacement would cost Rs 7600 to the company which includes labor cost as cost of the starter motor of Rs 3,000.

When the cases of Nano catching fire had started to occur in November of 2010, the company had to replace the electrical systems and exhaust of the car, which was the suspect. The company had however not accepted the attributability of these parts and had mentioned the replacement as just one more consumer confidence building measure. The reason for the fire incidents had been termed as freak cases by the company.

In 2010 for the period of April to November, Tata Motors had sold 40,976 units of its Nano. For the current year and the same period the company have had a fall by 3 percent in their sales with the total units sold being 39,646.