The service center had replaced only one gearbox till now. I was really concerned about their inexperience in handling this situation.

BHPian anand_roy recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

My worse fears on the Tata Altroz DCA has come true. The automatic gearbox probably needs replacement within one and a half month's of purchase.

We brought home the Altroz XZA+S on 20th October last month.

It all started with a noise last week. When my wife reversed (R) the car and then put it into Drive (D) mode and moved a bit forward, there was a screeching sound.

She thought that it was something in the road and continued. When I did the same sequence of events a day later (reverse and then drive), I also got the same sound.

It came immediately after the car if driven for maybe 50 metres after putting in drive mode (after the car is reversed). This sound is a bit longish lasting for about 2 seconds. It felt like the noise was coming from the back. I felt it was something with the brake pads or something stuck in the wheel. Visual inspection did not reveal anything.

Then when the car is driven, a similar sound comes, shorter in duration and also lower in noise, in speeds of less than 40. Driving the car during the past few days, I noticed that it generally comes when the brake is applied and then accelerated or during acceleration in lower speeds.

Today, the first service was due and I reported the issue to the workshop. We went for a test drive and the SA initially felt it was coming from the back as well - but initial inspection on the roadside did not reveal anything.

They took it back into the workshop and did their investigation. And then, my worse fear came true. The SA reported that it was an issue with the automatic gearbox and it will need to be replaced. They do not have any diagnostics to run on the gearbox. They have tightened all nuts and bolts, checked the wheel and brake pads and per my understanding, came to this conclusion by the process of elimination. Also, the sequence which leads to the noise (reverse and forward leading to a longish noise and slower speeds leading to a shorter noise), is an indicator that this is a gearbox issue.

I had a feeling that the sound was coming from the back; but on another longish test drive when I was sitting in the back seat today, on careful listening, it seemed that the noise was coming from the front.

The Service Center has sent their observations to Tata and will wait for observations from Tata. Based on Tata's observations, they will order the replacement.

I was told that I can drive the car in the meantime. I am not sure how safe that is. But two cars is essential for us. We will try to drive it at a minimum but cannot avoid it altogether.

After coming back from the workshop, I went to my trusted mechanic and he also mentioned that the noise was coming from the front right (where the gearbox is located) and could not find any issue in the tyre or that general area based on visual inspection. He also advised to follow the suggestions of the workshop.

The service center had replaced only one gearbox till now. I was really concerned about their inexperience in handling this situation. Very sad that the only scenario that I feared has come true.

Tata personnel in Pune confirmed that this is an issue with the gearbox and the service center has asked for a replacement.

I also escalated the issue to the senior leadership team of Tata and received a call back from the customer care manager.

The replacement gearbox arrived last Wednesday and I took the car to the Service Center on Thursday for the replacement.

In addition to the Service Center personnel, Tata had sent an engineer from their automatic gearbox division to oversee the replacement.

The gearbox is situated in the lower part of the engine bay towards the left side wheel (the one nearest to the co-driver).

And they had to take out a lot of the parts to take out the faulty gearbox including both wheels as well as the axle.

The replacement job went smoothly and was completed in about 3 hours after which the car was taken for a long test drive and then handed back to me.

Since then, we have been driving the car and it is running smoothly. It has been only a few days only and hopefully things will be ok going forward.

I am definitely very concerned about the reliability of the car.

And a lot of parts were taken out and then put back in to replace the gearbox. That is also a cause of concern.

An automatic gearbox should not fail within one and a half months of operation. That is just unacceptable. That's a question mark on a lot of things.

I am in discussions with Tata Motors to assuage my concerns. Let's see where it goes.

If this replacement was required to be done without warranty, it would have cost 3.5 Lac + INR !!

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The car feels solid, stable and planted on the road and absorbs most of the bumps without any fuss.

BHPian W.A.G.7 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

A quick update on the car. The Altroz is performing its duties nicely:

• The odometer stands at 6190 km as I write this post. It has seen some reduced running this month due to the festive season. Apart from that no other updates.
• We are getting a fuel efficiency of 11-12 kmpl consistently. So I guess that after a year now; it is safe to assume that the average fuel efficiency the car will return will be somewhere within this range. Neither too good nor too bad. Expecting something more wouldn't be right, as this is a heavy car with an underpowered (read just sufficient) engine.
• The DCA gearbox is working excellently. We are loving it and are "converts" to automatic boxes now. I am happy that we didn't settle for the AMT one but went ahead with the fully automatic gearbox. Now I keep wondering, why I didn't stretch my budget in 2018 and got myself an automatic version of the Ecosport!
• The car feels solid, stable and planted on the road and absorbs most of the bumps without any fuss. We find the shock absorbers adequate for city use.
• The noise insulation is fantastic, once you close the windows; all other ambient traffic sounds are filtered out. You can hear the sound system nicely.
• The audio is another good part of the car. 4 speakers and 4 tweeters dish out some nice audio quality. Neither of us is an audiophile, but we can distinguish good speakers from badly tuned ones. I am happy to report that the Harman system in this car is excellent. Exception for an OEM system to sound nice!
• Good Year All Terrain Max 2 tyres are really good. They have little noise, as compared to the MRF ZVTVs or MRF ZV2Ks. Once again, I am happy that we got these tyres with the car by default.
• The air conditioner is a chiller, we have to tone it down to blower speed 1 or 2 after the initial 4-5 minutes. The automatic climate control works perfectly.
• Auto headlamps and Rain Sensing Wipers also work flawlessly. We have never faced any issues with these two so far.

I do feel that the Altroz DCA can complement your garage as a competent secondary car. It's perfect for city runabouts.I know a photo shoot is long due, I will try and put it up soon.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.

The TPMS is throwing up audible and visual warnings once again in the MID.

BHPian W.A.G.7 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

A few quick updates and observations.

Monsoons have arrived, read that as "dirty cars" that need frequent cleaning. A daily drive compounds this problem even more. We will mostly get it cleaned up during the service scheduled next week. Here in the pic, you can see that the rear wiper has a good sweep & cleanup area; and is being put to good use.

The car has started throwing up the "Service Due" reminder frequently. We have a scheduled appointment for the 1-year/15,000 km service on 5th Aug 2023. This is the real "true" service in that sense, the prior two ones were more or less check-up and top-up services. I will update the experience once we get back the car from the service centre. Nitpick - The infographic showing the fuel level in the meter blind spots the actual information! Just wish there was a separate place for the fuel level infographic but it is a minor inconvenience!

The replacement valve for the front tyre has gone kaput once again. The TPMS is throwing up audible and visual warnings once again in the MID. We will need to get it replaced during the service this time. The tyre is good for sure - checked twice and found no punctures at all. it's only the leaking valve that's causing the low pressure. The second point to note here is the average fuel efficiency. Monsoons = traffic jams, which is equal to stop and go traffic; which in turn means a drop in the average fuel efficiency. It keeps hovering between 11-11.5 km/l in the city. The odometer stands at ~5400 kms.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.

The highway runs are not the Altroz's forte, but strangely enough the car returns decent fuel efficiency even when pushed hard

BHPian W.A.G.7 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

So, a couple of pictures here. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words!

Starting with the fuel efficiency. The highway runs are not the Altroz's forte, but strangely enough the car returns decent fuel efficiency even when pushed hard! And funnily enough, its area of expertise is city traffic, where it returns a comparitively lower 11-12 kmpl (for a hatchback). I would have expected 13-15 in the city and slightly higher than 18-19 on the highways. But... the DCA gearbox more than makes up for lower fuel efficiency! Oh, the irony!

Here is an example run from Pune to Satara (~110 kms) done over on Saturday:

Continuing with the above, here is the combined fuel efficiency of Pune+Satara city driving and highway run (both to and fro). Just for the record, I returned today morning. We used the car on the weekend in Satara. Another thing to note is the TPMS warning. Guess, I spoke too soon in the previous post. This one showed up today while coming back. I stopped and checked all tires at Shirwal, but all of them were in perfect condition. I think it may have to be reset, but if it shows up again, then I think we can attribute it to the tire where the valve was changed and redirect an investigation into that:

One of the best looking angles. One wash and the paint shines through. Looks really beautiful:

This is another angle that I really love looking at. It looks beautiful:

Front view:

A close look at the swirls on the piano black finish. While they are not visible much from a distance, every wash and dry cycles seems to aggravate the situation:

Another thing that we noticed is that the Tata logo on the alloys, has faded. Or rather the plastic cover on the logo has faded. There's brake dust as well, but still the logo looks rather dull. And yes, there's a sticker as well! They didn't forget the alloys too, from stickering them up:

On the story of stickers, here's the VIN number pasted inside the driver side door. Can you imagine how much paper must have been wasted just to print all these stickers?!! And that too for all the Altroz's running around in the wild:

A close up of the logo on the steering wheel. The centre pad is made up of hard plastic:

A close up of the chunky flat bottom steering wheel. It is a delight to hold:

The left volume and phone control buttons. They work well and have a good tactile feedback. My only nitpick here would be - when you press any of the surrounding 4 buttons, the entire island moves. Its basically a small button in the centre surrounded by a plastic plate:

And the cruise control buttons on the right. Similar to the previous, but we hardly get to use the cruise control feature. It worked really well the last 2-3 times we managed to use it. Possibly a trip on the Samrudhhi Expressway would do justice to this feature:

Another nitpick is with the bonnet release button. Looking at the button from the driver's seat, you tend to pull it "up" towards yourself. In reality, it has to be pulled in a "downward" manner. Otherwise the bonnet doesn't open up:

The now redundant toll ticket holder, not getting used due to the Fastag:

A close look at the seat pattern and cover. The seats have held up very well, and we haven't yet put any seat covers:

A close look at the centre console buttons once again. Great tactile feedback and do the job really well. We are not fans of touch screen buttons. Notice the round dummy button - someone had pointed this out in the Dark edition thread of Harrier/Safari. Maybe its for an older 3.5mm jack?

A look at the right side of the steering. The blanks look terrible, but our car has only one button for the fog lamps. I wonder what else would there be, here in the higher XZ+ DCA variant:

A look at the footwell. The dead pedal is sufficiently wide - not too big and not too small either. The other two pedals have sufficient space between them:

So these are the updates as of today. The odometer is at 4324kms as shown in the photos. The Altroz will return to its daily duties in the next week, till then it is rest time for the car. I will share some more updates in the coming weeks.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.

We are very satisfied with the DCA gearbox so far. The automatic takes a whole load off your mind when you go for a drive.

BHPian W.A.G.7 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

So yesterday, we took out our Altroz on a highway trip. This was a long pending trip to Akkalkot around ~290 km from Pune. We wanted to visit Akkalkot for a long time but could make it only yesterday due to work and personal commitments. This was also a good drive to test out the highway manners of the Altroz.

We started from Pune at 5.00 AM in the morning and reached Akkalkot at 10.00 AM, after having a breakfast break in Solapur around 8.45 AM. The Pune > Solapur > Akkalkot stretch is excellent and we could hold on to speeds of 90-100 kph. There was hardly any traffic on the road, possibly because of the ongoing SSC and HSC exams and also due to the fact that we started early. The only traffic we ever encountered was during the last one hour of the return leg. From Hadapsar to Nal Stop (a distance of hardly 19-20 km), we took an hour and 15 minutes, which was too much considering that we had done Pune to Solapur to Akkalkot in 4 hours and 45 minutes.

Anyways, to come back to the car here are our observations:

• The road manners are pretty good. In fact, the handling is exceptional and the car feels stable and planted on the road.
• It can consistently pull on 80-90-100 km/h without breaking into a sweat. There's a caveat though - push it beyond 100 and the raspy note of the engine turns loud which after some time becomes an "ear-sore".
• The comfort zone of the car is between 80-100 km/h. The power band is sufficient in this range and it can comfortably cruise all day long.
• The fuel efficiency that we managed to eke out from the car was 17.7 km/l., whereas the maximum fuel efficiency we managed was 19.7 km/l. As I had mentioned in the previous post, the combined fuel efficiency in the city + highway driving cycle was 13.6 km/l - which I feel is pretty decent for a heavy car with a puny engine. We had to refill in Solapur while returning back to Pune.
• The DCA gearbox worked perfectly for the whole drive. The shifts were not noticeable at all and they shifted precisely and perfectly for every occasion. There was not a moment where we felt that it was hunting for the right gear, it managed to stay in the right gear/powerband for the whole trip.
• The suspension setup is good - in fact the layman will not be able to point any bounciness or thuds when going through potholes. The suspension manages to cover up anything that you throw at it, on the road.
• The Goodyear ATM2 tyres are very nice - in fact, I am much relieved that a manufacturer is finally using better quality tyres; as compared to the OEM MRF ZVTv's or MRF ZV2K's in all our previous cars. There's hardly any road noise and they have a good grip on the road.
• My wife drove the car for almost the entire trip and she didn't feel tired at all. We took breaks for 2-3 minutes after driving every 100-120 km just to stretch our legs and get some fresh air. She also didn't have any fatigue yesterday evening after returning back from the trip - which according to me translates as they (Tata) have got the ergonomics and comfort aspect correct.

Here are a few pictures from the whole drive/trip:

The combined fuel efficiency for the city and highway driving cycle:

Here is the light spread from the stock headlamps. I am happy with the spread and reach of the lamps. As a comparison, this needs to be checked in rainy season / foggy weather to find out if it is as good as this one in clear weather:

Looks nice doesn't it?

Another good looking angle:

I feel this is the best view of the car, the black accents look good, and from a distance, you can hardly make out any swirls on those:

Here's a view of the 90-degree opening doors. There's a practical difficulty though - You can't stretch and pull those towards yourself if you have your seatbelt on.

Trivia - What do you find inside the door once it is opened? Stickers!!

Here's a shot of the maximum fuel efficiency that the Altroz managed on the trip:

The sunglass compartment/holder is not lined - the result is that the sunglasses keep rattling and shifting position in the tiny space. Possibly a lid would have also helped here:

Here are the reflections on the windscreen in the hot sunny weather, somewhere between Solapur and Akkalkot:

Beautiful roads - these deserve a more powerful engine:

One more observation - while the centre screen is pretty bright and nice, it still has a lot of reflections due to the wide front windshield. Lots of glass area means a lot of sunlight filters in through the front:

Another ergonomic nitpick - the elbow rest in the front door fouls with the cap of your water bottle. If the cap is loose, it will be knocked off into some unknown corner in your front footwell! Good luck finding it in the moving car then:

Here's the final pic of the odometer when we ended the trip yesterday:

The odometer stands at ~3600 km as I write this post. We are very satisfied with the DCA gearbox so far. The automatic takes a whole load off your mind when you go for a drive and we are loving it so far.

Another thing - while the 82ps engine is definitely underpowered and is the only weak link in an otherwise complete package, it is still livable for 95% of the populace. In fact, for most people (for example, my non-automotive-inclined Mrs) this may not even be a consideration. Don't get me wrong, this is an engine which will do 90% of the things correctly and will be sufficient for the habitat for which the car is designed - the cityscape.

For purists like us, though; the shortcomings of the 3 pot motor are evident and the yearning for more power to complement the beautiful gearbox and planted chassis is something that you keep on asking - "Why in the world do they not offer DCA with the i-Turbo version?" Heck, if they had one; we would have got the i-Turbo+DCA combo without even batting an eyelid.

So, just hoping that Tata listens to the feedback and offers this combination; as an option at least.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.

While I am disappointed that the issue has not been resolved, I must point out that the dealer team has been prompt in trying to resolve the issue.

BHPian iamitp recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Posting an update after continuously getting the same Transmission Control Malfunction error despite two workshop visits to my Hyundai service station, and one home visit by their technical team. I have also been in touch with the Hyundai area parts manager.

Sometimes the car does not engage even-number gears, till it is restarted. Sometimes it engages all gears but I still get the error message on HUD and the check engine light. I just do not get any peace of mind.

While I am disappointed that the issue has not been resolved, I must point out that the dealer team has been prompt in trying to resolve the issue.

My DCT failure issue remains unresolved even after 2 years and almost 40,000 KMs.

Here's what BHPian heydj had to say on the matter:

DCT / DSG gearbox are not made for India. Before buying one knows it's possible there will be issues.

I bought Rapid DSG in 2015 hoping no failure however DSG failed after 20k kms and 2 years of ownership out of blue

My friend bought a Creta DCT and exactly 1 year later on highway while with his family it failed and since then he keeps saying replaced dct does not have same driving feel.

Hence my input is driving pleasure is not just about gearbox instead about gearbox engine mating. Hence don't buy dct car instead look for alternative car with good engine and gearbox combo.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.

We have come to love the stress free nature of the drive in this car. No clutch means that your left hand, left leg and your right brain are idle to fiddle around the controls!

BHPian W.A.G.7 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

So, we completed 700+kms in the first month. Tomorrow, the car completes one month in our home. A few practical observations so far:

• The DCA gearbox is a bliss in traffic. It really makes the driving fatigue free. Since we both come from a manual transmission background, the auto gears are working wonders for us. We have come to love the stress free nature of the drive in this car. No clutch means that your left hand, left leg and your right brain are idle to fiddle around the controls!
• Coming to controls - I am happy that there are quite a few physical buttons (though not everything gets a physical button). All the buttons have a good tactile feedback even though they are soft to press.
• Chilled glove box is like a mini freezer. We have managed to successfully transport two half kg boxes of sweets in the cold environment inside the glove box successfully, without spoiling the flavor and the taste of those. Having said that, one more observation is that the glove box is deep. It can swallow up a lot of "miscellaneous" things inside it.
• The ISOFIX mounts on the rear seat have an outer cladding of plastic. The one on the right hand side has come slightly undone (we will get it fixed in the first service).
• The area above the dashboard is very wide and long. The carbon fiber look and feel is premium but... it's also a big reflection magnet. Just see the pictures below and you will realize what I am saying. When the sunlight is front of you (i.e. you are traveling in the eastern or south eastern direction) the reflections become a big problem. See the reflection of the idol here in the picture and also of the defogger openings.

• Similarly see the dashboard in front of the driver. That's very reflective. I don't know if it's some polish that was applied or if the plastic is that way. On a side note - in the city the fuel efficiency that we are currently getting is 9.6 - 9.8 kmpl depending on the traffic conditions. I am expecting it to improve after the first service and after the 2K-2.5K km mark is done.

• First free service coming up soon. I will share my experience here once it is done. They have said that we can avail it anytime between month 1 and month 2, but we haven't booked the appointment yet.

If anyone of you has a suggestion for resolving the reflection problem, do let me know.

Check out BHPian commemts for more insights and information.

The wide opening doors are a boon because they allow the elderly a huge space to enter and exit.

BHPian W.A.G.7 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

The total mileage crossed 300kms yesterday night.  Tomorrow, we are traveling to our in-laws place, once again to Satara; so we have a chance to test the cruise control feature. I will update the experience here tomorrow or on Sunday.

Some things that I missed to mention in the main review are these:

• The steering wheel is a flat bottom steering which feels nice and chunky to hold. It is adjustable for height but not for the reach.
• The fuel lid opener is in the standard position near the driver's door. It's not linked to the central locking in any way (to give a reference, in the EcoSport, the fuel lid is managed by the central locking; unlocking the doors will also unlock the fuel opener).
• The rear view camera can be used to keep a tab on the vehicles trailing us; as shared by Turbosailor (Thanks Turbosailor). However, it is pretty useless at night because most of the people drive on high beams and the display distracts you when used in this way because the glare from the vehicles behind you is blinding.
• Wing mirrors are wide and will do a good job of showing the traffic to your LHS and RHS.
• We finally figured out how to change the mood lighting today morning! It's a roundabout process but I will show that with pictures. The red is gaudy, yellow/bronze looks weird, so we reverted back to the default blue.
• As pointed out by Turbosailor (Thanks, once again!) Siri works flawlessly when used with voice command buttons. The voice commands are useful now, but we are still learning some of those yet.

Here are a few exterior pictures of the Altroz. The location is Thoseghar waterfalls/Chalkewadi windmill farm. There was heavy rainfall when we went there for a photo shoot of the car.

When I mentioned the piano black surface was going to be problematic- this is what I meant. There are already micro scratches on all the exterior piano black finished surfaces:

The rear lights are tiny but bright. The alloy wheel design is simple and looks nice:

Here's a side profile of the car. The chrome strip was the only thing that we added on the car. Otherwise no other additions, it is completely stock:

Grey looks good. Its a please all and offend no one colour:

This is one of the best angles to view the car. Notice the projector headlamp and the pilot lamps which are on:

The chrome strips are nice, but they are not subtle as is the case with VW cars. I am not really a fan of chrome but these are okay for me, they are not too much in your face:

A photo with the windmills in the background:

Here's a shot of the rear, with the lights on. They are small as I said, but bright enough:

Another generic angle from which the car looks beautiful:

The natural water beading effect. We have not opted for any kind of coating as yet. The paint quality is darn good and is even on all the surfaces:

It remains to be seen, how the paint fares in the coming years. This one is on the roof. The antenna is a springy one, we would have loved a shark fin antenna. This could be a future D-I-Y:

Vocal for Local sticker. Is that really true in the sense of this car? Or does it have bits and pieces mixed from multiple car manufacturers? Also, notice the piano black finished triangle above the windscreen. That probably could be a cover for fitting the rear spoiler:

Wild flowers, nothing specific about this photo:

The chrome strips, are not overdone but not subtle either. The car looks good in this frontal shot. Just to clarify, our son is not alone, my wife was there in the driver's seat! However, the reflection on the windscreen makes it look otherwise:

Doors open w-i-d-e! Notice that the rear window does not roll down fully:

The wide opening doors are a boon and a bane. Boon because it allows the elderly a huge space to enter and exit, but they are bane because they will bang an adjacent surface or will eat up space on narrow roads, such that vehicles cannot pass:

When it's raining hard, there's no better combination than hot tea, Parle-G and omelette-pav!!

Another 3/4 view of the car. There's the piano black surface again, on the side. It's quite thick. What's the obsession with this colour, wherever possible? The good thing about this is that is blends nicely with whatever shade of colour the car is:

The heavy rainfall caused a build up of fog inside the light housing. Notice the piano black surface (again!) and the chrome strip:

A generic photo of the scenery. The nature here in these parts is utterly beautiful:

A long shot of the car, the rain had stopped for a few moments here. The roads are awesome and there's hardly any traffic on these interior roads:

Here's a rear shot of the car, taken when the rain had stopped for some time. 10 minutes later it became overcast and began raining once again:

The dashboard shows a nice 3D picture of the car with the exact door that is open:

In one of the original posts, I had mentioned about this. This is a nifty feature where the car reminds you to align the steering wheel if it's turned in either directions while parking. It also tells you the direction in which you need to turn the steering:

The indicator on the fender is tiny! Do not be fooled by the outer covering, that's way bigger than the actual bulb and it's housing:

As you can see, there are quite a few reflective (you guessed it, piano black again!) surfaces in the car. For example, the car is in neutral but I have a hard time figuring that out, because the outside reflections are bright. It's all the more obvious in the second picture:

For a round trip of ~300kms, for an automatic car that's actually quite a good Fuel efficiency of 15.6kmpl! The odometer stands at 606kms yesterday evening as you can see. Funnily we averaged a speed of 37 kmph only, that's quite low:

A parting shot of the car:

Shot a video showing the sweep of the wipers in heavy rains. The rain sensing wipers work like a charm.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.

Neither of us had ever driven an automatic before this car. Reason we chose the DCA is because of the gearbox smoothness. The AMT implementation in Indian cars, is still not mature enough, is what we felt.

BHPian W.A.G.7 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Prelude:

It all began on a lazy Sunday morning in Satara at my in-laws' place. It was around 6.30 AM in the morning and my wife had just completed a production release. The post-release QC calls and testing were still going on in the background on her laptop when she suddenly said - "We need a new car!". All traces of laziness vanished in an instant and I exclaimed loudly "What the...!, we don't need a new car. We already have a 2018 EcoSport and a 2002 vintage Old Honda City (Type Z)". She calmly responded - "We need a new car" and showed me her laptop.

Sure enough, there was an email from her office, asking them to return to the office in a phased manner starting a week thrice from August. For the record, she works in the EON Kharadi, and those who live in Pune, know how much of a pain it is to travel to Kharadi. Kharadi is approximately 19-20kms from where I live, so travelling ~40kms to and fro every day on an Activa would be a royal pain thrice a week.

"But the office transport is good enough. Why do you need a new car?" One more meek argument. In my mind, I was already excited about the prospect (after all, we are petrol heads and it is the reason why we are all here on Team BHP) but as the man-of-the-house, it was my duty not to show any kind of exciting emotions (at least in the beginning).

"Did you read the email till the end?"

"Well, no!"

"Then read it once again..."

Silence... You can trust ladies to put you on the wrong foot in an instant. It isn't even a contest.

The email mentioned that the post Covid office transport was only two buses in the morning and two buses in the evening. Both of these timings were unsuitable for her as this would entail stretching her work life from morning 8.30 AM to evening 9-9.15PM.

I said, "Use a cab. It will still be cheaper than getting a new car."

"We need a new car"

No contest now. We needed a new car. That's it. I was overjoyed at this point but still maintaining my composure, I asked "What kind of a car are you looking at? Have you thought about it, or shortlisted anything?" She responded that she liked that Grand i10 Nios in the blue colour. Fair enough, it was a decent choice, so I proposed to her that we go and visit the Hyundai dealer in Satara to check it out. She agreed right away, so the rest of the Sunday was happiness all around, for the fact that there would be a new car coming into the house!

To conclude, this email was the pre-purchase background or the trigger point for the car, let's continue with the cars that we test drove and our observations around those.

The test drive experiences:

This was the great part in the whole experience. We started with Hyundai, moved on Nexa, then to Maruti Suzuki Arena, then to Tata, back to Arena before finally settling down to Tata.

Hyundai Grand i10 Nios - Corporate Edition:

The first car that we checked out was the Grand i10 Nios at Kanase Hyundai in Satara. They were pretty forthcoming. A sales person was assigned to us in an instant, despite being a Sunday afternoon. Mandatory coffee was offered and we both burnt our palate and tongue on a boiling coffee. The other thing was that it was machine coffee heated up in a microwave oven, so the cold exterior of the cup fooled both of us and the coffee burnt our tongues the moment we gulped it down.

In the meanwhile the sales rep explained us the details about the G-i10 Nios Magna, Corporate edition, Sportz and Asta. We decided we could do with the Magna. He instead showed us the Corporate edition of the G-i10 Nios. It made a strong case for itself, with certain features more over the regular Magna. Plus they were offering some kind of discount for the month, so the corporate edition looked likely. We asked for a test drive, which was promptly arranged for us in 15-20 minutes.

However there came a twist in the tale. Till now we had both driven manual transmission cars. Heck, even our Ecosport is a manual transmission one. Kanase Hyundai said, "Madam, we don't have a manual transmission equipped test drive vehicle at the moment, can you try the one which has the AMT in it?"

We both looked at each other and agreed. We had zilch experience in driving automatic cars, but we were game. Some day or the other, the transition to automatics had to be made, so we both decided to take the chance and try it out that day. And trust me, that Grand i10 Nios made us converts to automatics. I will come to this later on in the review.

License traded for a position in the driver's seat, the sales person explained to us how to drive an AMT car. My son and I was in the back seat and as the car took of smoothly, suddenly "Ding!" Our heads bobbed back and forth, and my son & I wondered what happened. While we were thinking this, there was another "Ding!" as the car shifted to the third gear. The sales person was unfazed and said that all AMT's will have this head dinging behavior.

Till now I was reading about the AMT experiences in various threads, but we experienced it first hand in the test drive vehicle. The rest of the test drive was good, but every time the car changed gears we felt the head bob. Somewhere on the route, my wife and I exchanged the driver's seat so that I could have a go too. The head bobbing experience was there in the driver's seat as well, so that was a downer in what was otherwise an excellent package. We took a longish test drive for 15-16 kms on the highway. Post the test drive, we came back to the showroom, got the quotation for the corporate edition and promised to call them back once we had made a decision. A shout-out to Kanase Hyundai, Satara for the quick response in everything. I will still take away one star for the boiling coffee.

As we walked back to the EcoSport, I asked her "What next?" She said - "I want an automatic!" God! That was a pretty instant conversion from a manual to automatic. I couldn't agree more. Even if the test drive car had the head bobbing experience, it made us re-think about automatics and the ease of driving them. So in a way, it was good that we were thinking about automatics. Plus her everyday commute to Kharadi would be in dense traffic, so the automatic transmission vehicle would make a better sense.

To conclude the Hyundai experience, the Grand i10 Nios is a fantastic vehicle, but the head bobbing experience threw a spanner in the works in what could have been a quickest sales record. This could be probably attributed to the test drive car having been trashed around by all kinds of drivers; but my wife rejected the AMT saying that it was not to her liking.

Once again - "What do you want to do next?"

"Over there!" she said pointing to the Nexa showroom a few hundred meters away.

"Let's drive the Ignis"

Maruti Suzuki Ignis - Zeta AGS:

We backed up a few hundred meters before (if you have been on the highway traveling towards Pune, you will notice that the Nexa showroom is a few hundred meters before Kanase Hyundai) and went inside. The Nexa showroom (Chowgule Industries) was also bustling with many people, yet we were promptly attended to. They had an Ignis Zeta model for the display. Once again, they explained everything in detail about the car, price, offers etc. However they did not have an AMT test drive vehicle available. Instead they offered a test drive in an orange colored manual transmission equipped Ignis. They said at-least get a feel of the car, we will bring the AMT car to your home when it's available. That's the point where they lost the plot.

The orange test drive Ignis, was one of the crappiest cars that we had ever been into. It rattly, and the clutch was on the way to getting fried. A casual glance at the odometer revealed a mileage of ~49k kilometers. I was horrified. I never knew showrooms keep TD vehicles for so long. I had thought that 7-8k kilometers was the tops before they sold of the vehicle at a discounted price. But this orange Ignis blew away all expectations.

The test drive experience is nothing to write about. We barely managed a test drive of 5kms. My wife stalled the car 4-5 times, not because she is a newbie; but because the clutch on the car was already fried. Just to confirm that she was not making any mistakes, I tried the car myself and managed to stall it at least 3 times. Oh! crap! This one was outright rejected there itself by my wife. She told the sales person straight away - "This is way to cramped and is not a 5 seater car by any chance. Plus you better service your car, it is horrible to drive!"

After collecting the quotation from the showroom, we walked back to the EcoSport on a slightly sad note. Both of us had expected the Ignis to be the one of the runner ups in the line up but the test drive car trashed our dreams in 15-20 mins. Ideally it should have been a top notch choice - 4 cyclinder engine, small footprint perfect for the city and the supposed Nexa experience. By the way, the AMT Ignis never made it to my wife's home in Satara, despite the fact that she was there for a week later on. There was never any follow up from Nexa- Satara. We never followed up with them either. I am guessing that the orange Ignis was a beater car for the showroom folks and not an actual test drive vehicle.

Maruti Celerio - ZXi AGS (plus the Swift Dzire ZXi+ AGS):

Woah! The Maruti Suzuki Arena experience (once again, Chowgule Industries at Satara) was diametrically opposite the Nexa one. The Arena showroom is also bang opposite the Nexa one, so we headed over there to check out the Celerio. This was just on a whim and not much hopes after two downers. They had all the cars on display (Wagon R, Celerio, Swift, Celerio CNG, Swift Dzire, Ertiga). Cool! We checked out the Celerio and my wife liked it very much! She said it reminded me of the Micra that we had sold off in 2018. Cute looks, smiley face and pretty upmarket interiors for a budget hatch back. The VXi and ZXi were both in our budget, but the only possible fly in the ointment could be the K10C engine. My hunch turned out to be right later on.

Being a Sunday, they did not have a test drive vehicle and a skeletal staff to attend to people. But they promised to get back to us with the test drive of the Celerio AGS on a weekday in Satara. The sales person - I don't remember his name, was a pleasant smiling personality. He was prompt, and even though he was handling multiple people at the same time, was responsive and always available for queries. He promised to get the Celerio to my in-law's home in Satara on a weekday. We agreed. He offered us to give a test drive of the Swift Dzire AGS just for the feel of the AGS system. There was one condition though - we had to drive within the large compound because there was no one to sign the gate pass on the vehicle. We were impressed - there was the infamous "Ding!" but it was much more subtle rather than rocking your head back and forth. I mean you could make out the car was changing gears, but the effect was much more damped.

We left the showroom smiling - however we later realized why the AGS feels way too better in the Swift, Ignis and the Dzire - it's because of the fantastic 1.2L K Series engine - a proper 4 pot motor that does it's job extremely well to mask the shortcomings of the AGS system.

In the interim, I came back to Pune on Monday morning while she stayed back in Satara. The following week was spent in reading Team BHP reviews and in general thinking about which car it will be. The Maruti Arena showroom person called my wife and came to my in-laws' home with a Celerio ZXi - AGS as promised; on Tuesday. However, that test drive experience turned out to be a downer experience as well.

The 998cc K10C engine struggled on the a ~6% gradient on the approach road to my in-laws place. That's where she said she realized that it had to be at-least a 1.2L engine. The K10C is good on flat roads, but she found it to be noisy and pretty confused in shifting between 1 and 2 on the uphill slopes. My wife was dejected - after the Grand i10 Nios debacle she had hoped that the Celerio would be the choice of the vehicle for us. Trust me - that car has really good interiors, a great smiling face and very good build quality. The AMT implementation however, is not that good and my wife said that the head bobbing "Ding!" is all the more pronounced. It is amplified by the fact that the engine is a puny 998cc K10C engine - although fantastic by itself to be called a pocket rocket, it's best suited for a manual transmission; to dart around in the city.

On a whim, I visited Chowgule Industries Maruti Arena showroom in Pune (Taware colony) to check out the Swift on a lazy Friday afternoon in the coming week. Again a superlative service by the folks here at Chowgule. The sales person - Kalappa K was great. We were promptly attended to, explained everything about the car in details and he said - let's go for a test drive in the Swift ZXi AGS.

Maruti Swift ZXi - AGS - Experience 1:

The test drive vehicle was a beautiful red and black (it was actually a ZXi+ version with a dual tone colour scheme) The interiors were beautiful and it looked quite new and well kept. It had done around 18,000 kms but was in top notch condition. I test drove the car and came back impressed. This car (Swift) has one of the best implementations of the K12N dual jet motor and the AGS system. The K12N is even more impressive than the earlier K12M - it masks the shortcomings of the AGS system so well, that if you don't look at the R-N-D-<M> pattern near the shifter, you would think this is a proper automatic. The 4 cylinder K12N is extremely silent and the AGS system is way too good. There was only one place where I noticed the head bobbing "Ding!" - those who are Pune will know the steep U hairpin bend on the road to Taljai hills. That's the only place where I realized it had shifted from 2 to 1 and the engine was audible inside. Kalappa K allowed me to take an extended test drive and said that he would bring the car to my home in the following week, once my wife was back from Satara.

Excited, I called my wife up in the evening - telling her about this new discovery and said we should better consider the Swift. Since I was going there back again on the next day, we decided to consider the Swift for a test drive again in Satara. We headed back to the Arena showroom, but they did not have a Swift for a test drive. We left the showroom dejected, only to enter the Jay motors showroom behind. Read on below...

Tata Altroz - DCA - Experience 1:

Behind the Arena showroom in Satara - you have the Jay motors showroom for Tata. I said let's check out the Tiago. Funny enough - the Tiago was never on consideration so far, but we both said - what the heck! Let's test drive the Tiago AMT because by now we were hooked and addicted to automatic transmissions! The experience at Jay motors was a very pleasant one. The showroom was bustling with people checking out the Nexon, Safari and the Harrier. They were pretty prompt in assigning a sales person to us. When we said that we wanted an automatic, he said convincingly - "Try the Altroz DCA - it's newly launched" That statement was a game changer for us (but we didn't realize it at that time). He explained the pricing, colours, specifications and all the details. Took our licenses for the test drive and out came a spanking new test drive Altroz DCA in a beautiful navy blue colour. I will keep it simple - they have a fancy name for it, but at the end of the day it's navy blue or a dark blue colour. It was spanking new, fresh from the factory with only 256 kms on the odometer. The white/beige interiors were still white and not soiled, so we were the lucky few ones to test drive it early in it's life.

My wife cranked the car and the 3 pot motor thrum was obvious. She shifted to D and moved off smartly (by this time, we had taken to automatics in a big way!). Speed went up to 20-30-40-50 and then it hit both of us like a bolt from the sky! "What the freakin' hell!" we both loudly exclaimed in unison - there was no head bobbing here! The speed was around 45-46 kmph so it must have been the 3rd or 4th gear but we never felt a thing. That DCA gearbox was magic for us! Absolutely no indication of any gears being switched. Possibly the only way you know gears have changed is because of the 3 cyclinder 1.2 Revotron engine. This car has it the other way round - the gearbox is fantastic, but the engine should have been a proper 4 cylinder one.

Turned to the back seat and found the sales person grinning ear to ear - "I told you, Sir!" He also showed us how to put the gearbox in manual mode and then shift gears. Wow! Wow! Wow! This is a superb car - the best one that we had driven there so far. No AMT, a proper automatic gearbox and absolutely fab looking design. The car is a beautiful to look at - whichever way you see. Impressed - we left the showroom - we were both now pretty sure that we had found our match. The price was well - way beyond what we had initially planned so at that point of time, we were unsure of whether we would buy the Altroz (at that time, I say - later on we did buy it!)

What a bummer! We loved the Altroz but that could be way out of our budget (I will come to that later on). We liked the interiors and shapes of two cars (G-i10 Nios and Celerio) but the AMT/AGS implementation was horrible. My wife hadn't driven the Swift yet, so she was unsure. We went for the Tiago and came back impressed with the Altroz.

So by now, we had two contenders - Tata Altroz DCA and the Swift ZXi - AGS.

Maruti Swift ZXi - AGS - Experience 2:

The second experience with Chowgule Industries in Pune for the Swift was again fantastic. We gave a time of 3pm on the coming Wednesday 1st June 22 and sure enough at 2.55pm Kalappa K called - he was outside with the red dual tone Swift ZXi+. My wife test drove the Swift and was impressed. This was a proper 4 cylinder engine and the car was small enough for her to maneuver in the city. The car barely had a rattle on it so she liked it all the more. We promised him to come to the showroom on 3rd June 22 which was Ganesh Chaturthi for the booking, with all the documents. At this point of time, we still had a the Altroz on our consideration but it was going out of our planned budget. The booking experience was excellent - we were in and out of the showroom in 45 minutes flat. We rang the customary bell for the booking and were sure that we would be laying our hands on the car in a month or two. We chose the white colour.

Here we are, at the Chowgule Industries showroom, ringing the bell after completing the Swift booking:

That's when we saw the "Waiting period" board - it said 16-18 weeks for the Swift ZXi - AGS. Huh?!! 4 months waiting period! That's insane, but it shows the car's popularity and the reason why so many people buy it. Kalappa said he would try his best to deliver it by August end, but that seemed improbable. A reason we wanted an early delivery was that, my brother in law was traveling to USA on 17th Aug 22, so we wanted to have the delivery of the car before that. In the meanwhile, we could only wait - nothing else to do.

Next steps:

Suddenly there was a huge gap in our schedule now. Till now, we were enjoying the TD experiences, researching hatchbacks online, calculating budgets and price but now that the Swift was finalized and booked, there was nothing else to be done. The Altroz meanwhile kept lingering in the corner of our minds. We both had loved the looks of the car and the superb dual clutch automatic experience. The on-road prices was coming to 11 Lakhs on road for the XZA variant which was way beyond what we had initially planned.

10th June 22 - barely a week later after the Swift booking, both of us couldn't take it any longer. The 4 months waiting period was crazy and would have driven both of us crazy. We decided to check out other cars outside of Maruti and Tata. We didn't actually find anything much. The Renault Kwid was never considered because we both did not like the looks of the car. Hence, we never went for a test drive.

Maruti Baleno experience:

Another visit to Nexa - Satara road - it's the one managed by Chowgule industries; to check out the Baleno. Again, just like the Celerio, it was an amazing car. Fit and finish looked good, plus they had now added gimmicks into the car like a heads-up display. We loved the blue colour and asked the sales person Shivdarshan Borude for a test drive. It was arranged promptly for us. The test drive experience was more or less the same one like the Swift. Except that the car is larger and wider than the Swift so that is something that you need to consider. Also, I feel that such a beautiful car needs a proper 6 speed automatic gearbox from the Ertiga rather than an AMT one. The "Ding!" is very much present in the Baleno as well, and you can easily feel it, especially from 1st to 2nd shifting.

We explained the reason why we drove the Baleno. Shivdarshan said not a problem - we can transfer your booking internally. Since it's managed by Chowgule industries only, it could be possible. We then started considering the variants at this point. Baleno Delta made the logical sense - it had all the "must have" features, none of the unnecessary ones and most importantly was within our budget. However, my wife wanted the Zeta (she wanted mirrors that would auto fold when the car was locked/unlocked! Huh!?? once again! Trust ladies to want a feature which no normal human being has ever thought of, even in the wildest dreams!! ). Shivdarshan managed to convince her saying that you don't need anything beyond a Baleno Delta. Plus he promised to deliver the car by the end of July.

He said "Why don't you sit in the Baleno Delta and see for yourself?" That was mistake no. 1. He did a couple of phone calls and said that they would be getting a Delta variant by Monday in their stockyard so we could sit in that and get a feel, but no test drive (as it was a customer delivery car). The stockyard as it turns out was the open plot next to the Maruti Suzuki Arena showroom for Chowgule industries in Taware colony!

On a hot 13th June 22 afternoon, we followed another junior sales rep to the stockyard. That's where he committed mistake no. 2. It was his weekly off, (nothing wrong with it), so he assigned someone else to show the car to us. Heart in our mouths, hoping that we wouldn't run into Kalappa K in the stockyard (it's common for Chowgule Ind - Arena and Nexa), we went and saw the car. Crap! once again. The Delta variant doesn't have a height adjustment, so when my wife sat in the car, she could barely see over the top of the dashboard (being 5' 2" has it's own disadvantages! Just don't tell that to my wife!!). The junior representative was very professional and he did a good job by himself. However, the lack of height adjustment had thrown a spanner in the works. End result - Baleno cancelled by my wife in the stockyard.

That's where we stumbled upon our next requirement - the car must have a height adjustment for the driver seat. That seriously narrowed down our choices. Fortunately the Swift has it on all variants except the base LXi. So that meant, that we were still on the critical path to get the car. At-least until now.

Sunday - 12th June 22 - Tata Altroz DCA - Experience 2:

Sunday morning, once again my wife said - let's "Re-Review" the Altroz. Again a round of "What the...!" and by 1.00 PM we were in the Tata motors showroom. This time it was Dev motors on S.B. Road. They seem to be quite new, so the showroom was chock-a-block with families and people mingling around here and there. Again a good experience here - they offered us free water and coffee. We said no to the coffee, because it was playing havoc with the purchase decisions in every showroom. However, we grabbed the free water bottles! (it became a habit, after so many showroom visits, both of us bordering on the verge of being kleptomaniacs and hoarding locally branded tiny water bottles from car showrooms!). Anyway, not hijacking the main story, Dev motors didn't have either the Tiago or the Altroz for a TD available. Both cars were out on customer visits, so that meant we would lose precious time on the Sunday. We thanked them and escaped from the showroom.

Tata Altroz DCA - Experience 3:

Google maps showed that the nearest Tata dealer from Dev motors was Garve Cars at Wakdewadi. Since it was already 3pm, we hurriedly went to the Garve Tata showroom in Wakdewadi. We were greeted by a tall, serene looking team lead - Rupesh Pacharne. Although he had a pretty grim expression on his face, he was very helpful and assigned a sales rep - Prasad Kulkarni to us.

Prasad was a pint sized powerhouse. He talked nineteen to the dozen and was constantly darting around here and there. Plus he had a huge mullet hairdo that constantly kept covering his eyes and talked with a strange lisp. We asked him for the Altroz DCA. He made a few phone calls internally and said - "Madam, we don't have an Altroz right now, but I can get one to your home on the coming Tuesday. In the interim, he said let's test drive the Tiago. Once again, licenses exchanged for the driver's seat and we were off.

The AMT implementations in the Tiago is also one of the better ones out there. While the same 1.2L Revotron engine may feel underpowered in the Altroz, it felt nimble and sprightly in the Tiago. The infamous head bobbing "Ding!" was very much present, though it was well damped. Second only to the Swift. Where it loses out to the K12N motor is the refinement. That's obvious because the Revotron is a 3 cylinder engine whereas the K12N is a proper 4 cylinder one. The Tiago experience was fantastic in every other sense. The car felt very light, nimble and was easy to maneuver on account of the small size. It's a rare Tata car, that can seat 4 comfortably, but not 5. "This is a very good car, but... the quality of plastics is pretty hard. I don't like it that much!" Oh! Man! Ladies have a knack for successfully doing leg before wickets (LBW). Both Prasad and I looked at each other and shook our heads. "You bring the Altroz tomorrow to our home, she said"

Net outcome of the TD: Prasad promised to bring the Altroz to our home and we (my wife and I) internally agreed to either go ahead with the Swift booking, or switch over to the Tiago, if nothing worked out.

Tuesday 14th June 22 - 3pm, I am just finishing the daily stand up meeting and Prasad called my wife saying that he had arrived at our home. He was outside with the Altroz. Once again a spanking new Altroz DCA in the same navy/dark blue colour. It was a top of the line XZA+. This car had a different mileage than the previous one at Jay motors, around 950 kms; so we both were pretty sure that it was not the same car that was moving around different Tata Dealers in Pune/Satara district. Once again, the test drive we took was a longish one at 20-25kms and came out impressed. This time we paid attention to some of the finer details. The climate control was a chiller - never felt the need to go beyond the blower speed of 1 or 2 inspite of the hot afternoon. We also paid close attention to the DCA gearbox and the engine noise.

The DCA gearbox on the Altroz is a superb one. You don't feel the gear shifts at all, especially when it upshifts from 1-2-3-4-5-6. Even when downshifting the only reason you realize that the car has downshifted, is because of the vocal nature of the 1.2L Revotron engine. You can make out from the engine note that the car has downshifted. Our observation was that the car (and the gearbox) desperately need the higher powered 1.2L turbo petrol engine from the Nexon Petrol/Altroz Turbo.

That combo (1.2L Turbo Petrol + DCA) would have made it a no-brainer decision. It would have been an absolutely stunning substitute for the departed VW Polo GT-TSi. Tata lost the initial opportunity there, but I am hoping they will add this combination soon.

Again, without getting into much details here, we promised Prasad that we would book the Altroz on 17th June 22 (once again Chaturthi) and he agreed. He called us up almost every day, even on the 17th to ensure that we would come over for the booking.

Finally, after quite a few showroom visits, the whole episode was coming to a conclusion. I felt relieved and my wife felt happy. We reached there on Friday and once again the experience at Garve Tata was stellar. We completed the booking process and were out of the showroom in an hour.

Here's another picture of us with the Altroz booking. Just to clarify - I am not that oversized. There was a fan above that was blowing all the air inside! :-) That's me, my wife and Prasad with the initial booking docket:

After the Altroz booking completed, we headed over to the Chowgule Industries Arena showroom to cancel the Swift booking. Kalappa K was crestfallen, after all he had made a sale from a casual inquiry to a confirmed booking in a span of one week, so this would have scored him some brownie points in his appraisal. However, being very professional - he agreed to cancel the booking without asking any uncomfortable questions. Probably his sixth sense told him that we were interested in another car. I would give him full credit for the way he managed the whole thing - right from the initial inquiry to the booking to the cancellation. Trust Maruti to setup their showrooms like a well oiled engine. Everything is so smooth that you hardly have any goof-ups in between.

Anyway, to conclude (cramming too much into one post would be boring), the booking had now shifted from Chowgule Industries to Garve Cars Pvt Ltd.

The booking experience and the wait for the car:

As I have mentioned in the previous post, the booking experience at Garve Tata was great. We shared the mandatory Pan, Adhar, Copy of the electricity bill, two photos and paid up 11,000/- as the booking amount. Prasad promised us a delivery 11th or 12th August for the Altroz DCA - XZA variant.

For the colour - we chose the grey colour - they call it Daytona Grey but for us it is simple metallic grey colour. The dark blue colour looks fab in the showroom but would have been a pain to maintain everyday. The black colour is available in the Dark Edition - that would have been an even more of a maintenance nightmare, than the dark blue one.

We did not like the red colour (although it looks really nice, in person rather than in pictures) and rejected the white because we did not want the car to look like a cab in a sea of white cars. Strangely, the silver colour is available in the manual variants but not in the DCA version of the car. Hence, the last remaining option was grey - which we both liked and Prasad said he would receive the car faster because the demand for white and grey was higher. I would take that last statement of his with a bagful of salt - even if we had chose the red colour, he would have said that white and red are fast moving colours!

Little did we know that the government + bank holidays in the first two weeks of August would play havoc with the delivery timelines. The bank holidays and long weekend meant that even though the car arrived in time in their stockyard, the RTO passing and registration was delayed by a week. Garve Tata immediately formed a WhatsApp (WA) group with Prasad, Rupesh (TL), the Finance person, and the accessories person. All receipts were shared on the WA group and they also gave us the physical copies. We also received the mandatory SMSes from Garve Cars and Tata motors congratulating us for the booking and they gave us some kind of booking id. That booking id was important for us to track the booking or maybe for some reference, but we never used it anywhere.

We had booked the car on 17th June 22 and thus began a long wait. Probably it is the most dreary part of the car buying experience so far.

The Twist in the tale - Ignis once again!

We had hoped to receive the car by the end of July. However, by mid of July there was no communication from Tata and Garve Cars. The WA group was dead silent without any messages. Around 16th July 22 my wife developed cold feet. She wanted the car because she was scheduled to start her office from August. "Let's go out and see the Ignis once again - this time at Sai Service - Nexa". Once again a round of "What the...?!!" followed at home.

They say you can't fathom what's going on in a girl's mind. I now wholeheartedly concur with whoever has made the statement. Somehow, we were spending a lot of time doing "What the...?!!" statements. To cut the long story short we ended up at Sai Service Nexa on Aundh/Baner road on a very hot and humid Sunday afternoon of 17th July 22.

The Maruti experience is stellar - they assigned a sales rep to us in a few minutes and we traded licenses for a place in the driver's seat. Once again, an orange Ignis - Alpha AGS was waiting for us. Now; I developed cold feet - because it was an Orange Ignis (the first experience with an Orange Ignis in Satara was a very forgettable one). However, this time the car was superb. This one had done around 35k kilometers but the AGS was pretty smooth on this car.

We took a short test drive for around 10kms or so and came back. Once again the cold feet experience for me.(What if she cancels the Altroz now and switches over to the Ignis?). The sales person said we have a white and a silver Ignis Zeta in transit and if you complete the booking today I can give you the car in 10 days. He was asking us to reserve either of the car by paying the booking amount. My wife was tempted, but she held back; telling him to respond in a 2-3 days.

By now, I was pretty sure that my intuition was turning out to be true. On the way back, she told me and the EcoSport - "Let's cancel the Altroz and go ahead with the Ignis!" (I consider the EcoSport; because so far, it has been like a silent companion to me in all the buying experience). Once again a bummer - that would mean cancelling the booking at Garve and redoing the process again! Not again, please!

We reached home and I asked her - "Let's take a final decision, now! We can't keep jumping car bookings and collecting free tiny water bottles".

Final shortlist - Two cars:

• Tata Altroz - XZA - Daytona Grey - booking in progress. (Heart decision, no head involvement)
• Maruti Ignis Zeta - White or Silver - ? - (head decision, no heart involved)

I told her that if you don't like the Ignis but you are just going ahead with it because of the delivery timelines and practicality - then don't do it. If you love the Altroz - stick to it. There's no point in spending upwards of 10L on a car that you don't love to look at, everyday. That Sunday evening, she agreed wholeheartedly saying "Let's stick with the Altroz!" Good Lord! Finally He heard the prayers!

To conclude the post - we stuck with Altroz come what may now. The Ignis/Swift though practical head decisions wouldn't have been a good choice because in the back of our minds, we would have always thought of them as some sort of compromise.

For us both, the Altroz was love at first sight. We had loved everything about the car - the interiors, exteriors, the fantastic DCA gearbox. Thus, concluded our booking and Test drive process. All that now remained was waiting till the end of July/First week of August for the car to arrive at the dealership.

The delivery experience at Garve Tata:

Overall, I would rate them 4 out of 5. I will explain why I took away one star from an otherwise perfect delivery.

Around 4th Aug 2022 - Rupesh called my wife and informed that the car had arrived at their stockyard. Elation! At last! He asked her to complete the loan formalities. We took the loan from SBI (I will come to the finance details in a bit) as is the norm with majority of the people. That was pretty straightforward, given that the showroom is bang in between SBI on the left hand side and a BPCL petrol pump on the right hand side (Talk about business opportunities - you know most of the folks will require a loan, so you have SBI covering that and you know that everyone will fill in fuel after taking the delivery of the car, so BPCL has you covered there).

The SBI processing was quite okay in that sense - they had everything ready. Except that my wife had to sign at a lot of places on the application form. The clerk was an overworked young lady. Again, as is the norm, whenever two ladies meet - they find a way to connect with each other instantly. While signing the loan forms, the clerk found a patient listener in my wife - so she opened up quite a bit, about how much overworked they are, how it takes her 10pm to go home everyday, so on and so forth. We lost a good amount of constructive time on a hot and dreary Saturday - 6th August 2022 just to sign off a loan application form . It was 3pm by the time we (rather, they both!) finished off, so there was nothing else to do. I informed the showroom to complete the finance formalities.

With the holidays coming up in the week of 15th Aug, I had asked the showroom to ensure that everything was done quickly because we wanted to take delivery of the car in the month of Shravan. I had also instructed the showroom to share the VIN number of the car and also requested them to wait for the RTO passing till I ran it through the PDI checklist. The VIN indicated a manufacturing date of August 22, so that was a positive thing.

However, man proposes and God disposes. The following week, there was heavy rain in Pune and their stockyard is somewhere near Kasarsai dam. Unfortunately, in the coming week, due to the heavy rains and some personal work, I knew I wouldn't be able to make it to the stockyard. So, the PDI had to be skipped. We took the chance and gave the go ahead to invoice the vehicle on 9th Aug 22. However, 9th Aug was a holiday, so it was delayed.

On the coming Friday (12th Aug 22), their person called and said they were sending the car to the RTO for passing. "What the...?!!" once again! 15th, 16th Aug 22 were holidays, so the RTO was shut. 17th and 18th we had to go to Mumbai Airport to see off my brother in law. Nothing could be done now, so after a blasting by my wife and a few "Sorry madam!" conversations they finally gave the car for RTO passing only on 18th Aug 22. Again, 19th was Janmashtami, so that added one more day's delay. I will take away one star for the goof up in this.

Beyond this there was smooth sailing. We got a message from the RTO on 22nd Aug 22 with the registration details. It took the RTO two more days to send the new number plates. We decided to take the delivery on Thursday 25th Aug 22.

What was the bigger twist in the tale?

So far, Prasad who been handling all the things became unresponsive. Then in the week before the delivery, my wife showed me his WhatsApp status. He had joined Nexa, Baner and left the job at Garve Tata. "What the...?!!" once again. But to his credit, the TL - Rupesh managed the whole thing very professionally. He assigned another lady - Shubhangi to complete the formalities. That experience was totally seamless - we didn't have to bother about anything.

On the delivery day, Shubhangi had kept everything ready - all the papers, the pooja material, garland, cake, etc. etc. All that was left was taking the delivery of the car after signing the forms.

So, here are the pics from the showroom. So far there have been very less pictures in the thread, hopefully this should suffice for now. I haven't ventured out with the car, so a proper photo shoot is still pending.

The formal cake cutting ceremony in the showroom:

All smiling faces:

Garve Tata requested us for this photo, so that they could add it in their WA status, as well as on their FB/Twitter feed. We obliged:

And here is the happy owner of the new car! Happy to see all the smiles on face - a new car is always special, no matter what:

Continue reading on BHPian W.A.G.7's buying experience and review of his Tata Altroz DCA for BHPian comments, insights and more information.

Since the last 4 months I've noticed a slight jerk randomly when the gears are shifting.

BHPian sweetvar recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I purchased by 1.4 Turbo 7DCT Seltos in Dec 2019. In early 2021 I had an issue with the gearbox, the car was jumping gears from 1 to 3/4. We were told it was a gearbox issue and it was fixed under the warranty.

Late last summer my from left suspension started making noises and we had to pay for the replacement. However the issue didn't go away for until another month or two even after sending the car multiple times to the service center when they kept saying the issue is resolved when it clearly wasn't. This January they've mentioned that the suspension that was changed had an issue with it, so the replaced the new suspension again.

Since the last 4 months I've noticed a slight jerk randomly when the gears are shifting. My driver who drives the car most of the time didn't notice but I could initially. During the suspension issue, even though I've complained on the gear jerk, they couldn't replicate it during the test drives. The issue has creeped in a lot more in late Feb and we've sent the car back to service center couple of weeks ago and I was told that there's an issue with the clutch plates which are worth around 1.4L (what I was told verbally) and they will be replaced under the warranty. The car has been sitting at the workshop for almost two weeks now and I'm expecting the car back this week.

Luckily I'm in the warranty period of the car as it's my 3rd year, I don't know if I can still get the extended warranty but I'm considering it now seeing all the issues I'm facing in the first couple of years.

I just want to give you all a heads up to the issues I've gone through and hopefully none of you will have to.

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