The good & not-so-good details of my Alcazar Adventure Edition

The 7-seater SUV has completed 4000 km, between 2 road trips and daily office commutes.

BHPian harsha_bornfree recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

The car is a 7-str, Turbo DCT Petrol AT.

Done with 2 road trips to the Himalayas, daily office commute over 2.5 months and 1 servicing.

Research, considerations and buying decision

Having previously owned a Diesel Ecosport I wanted a similar punchy car (petrol this time) but loaded with modern creature comforts that I missed in the older car.

I love spirited driving whenever the roads give me the leeway so the engine performance was non-negotiable. The budget was around 20L.

Test drove the following:

• Thar (great looks but handling was too rigid for my taste)
• Seltos (nothing particularly bad but it is way too common in Delhi NCR)
• Alcazar (adventure edition looked great. Turbo was lovely but we wondered if we needed a 7-seater)
• Scorpio N (lovely engine and handling but interiors are outdated. Mileage a concern too. booked one but cancelled)
• XUV 700 (everything was great but AX7 was out of budget and AX5 is short on features. Mileage is a concern again.)
• Kushaq (nice peppy engine but small in stature for the price point)
• Taigun (same observations as Kushaq. Also DSG issues sounded scary)
• Astor (boring engine but nice interiors)

After roughly 2 months of testing endlessly reading all BHP threads and watching all YT videos we finally decided on Alcazar. It felt like a perfect balance of performance and features. Almost no other car (spare Seltos) offered these many goodies in our budget. It helped that the adventure edition is gorgeous!

Purchased from Dee Emm Hyundai Gurgaon. Cost us 23L on-road. The sales experience was okayish. Nothing to write home about.

Driving experience

The good parts:

Turbo

• Turbo is a joy to drive. Kicks in nicely around the 2K mark.
• Not too soon to feel jerky and not too late to be of use only on highways.

NVH

• One of the things I'm particularly enjoying with the petrol engine is the super low NVH levels which means driving hard whenever I want to without thinking twice.
• This wasn't something I could do with my older diesel.
• Even at speeds of 120kmph+, there's barely any noise or vibration so highway rides have been super comfy.

Handling and transmission

• Auto transmission has been a great plus, particularly in the mountains.
• Did two trips: one to Rajgarh in the Himachal foothills and one to Gangotri in Uttarakhand, upper Himalayas. Loved every bit of both drives.
• This reminds me that the turning radius is very impressive for a car of this length. Very useful in both mountain roads and narrow city lanes.

Mileage

• The mileage has been decent too. Right now averaging around 11.8kmpl as per Fuelio.
• Highway drives pull this up to 14 and city drives pull this down to 10.

Features

• The interiors have been top-notch. Physical controls, touchscreen, sage-coloured seats, window curtains, speakers, even the gear handle... these are all the things I enjoy every time I get into the car.

The not-so-good parts:

Suspension/wheels and seats

• The ride quality is something I would have expected better at this price range. I know the threads indicate that the suspension is soft but in my experience, I've seen Tatas do much much better.
• I've started to suspect this isn't as much about the suspension as it is about the 18-inch wheels. There's probably lesser shock absorption overall. Would love to understand this better from fellow BHPians.
• Same with seats. They don't feel as plush and don't hug you at the ends which means you have more work to do when when you're driving in the ghats.

Steering

• Steering is responsive but Ecosport's felt like a feather which I liked. Not complaining. This is just a remark.

Digital aspects

• Finally, the in-built maps are pathetic. Forget being useless, they're incorrect at many times and I have to fall back to my wired Android auto.
• While the voice control recognizes everything I say that car supports very few functions! So I'm not sure what good this feature is for.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.