5 issue-ridden months with my Altroz diesel: Spends 83 days in workshop

Multiple service centres were not able to diagnose the issue properly.

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My brother (Sarath P Nair) owns a Tata Altroz Diesel, which is now 2 years and 4 months old. He previously had a Tata Tiago (2017) which he exchanged and upgraded to the Altroz diesel in 2021. He had a very pleasant ownership experience with the Tiago, and that was a driving reason to upgrade to the Altroz.

The car was fine and the ownership experience was relatively uneventful and hassle-free. All the services were done as per the recommended schedule, at authorised Tata SVCs. My brother is a civil engineer and uses the car primarily for his work, which includes long commutes over the highways. Thankfully, he has never had any issues with the emission system, like forced regeneration etc. Apart from minor oil leaks and the laggy head unit, he had no other issues till last May.

03/05/2023: While he was driving from Kottayam to Trivandrum for work, the check engine warning light came on and the car went into limp mode. Once he stopped the car, it refused to start and he had to wait a while for the car to start. The car was still in limp mode, so he took it to the nearest SVC, Trivandrum Motors, Anayara, Trivandrum. The car was under warranty at this time. They kept the car for a day and diagnosed the issue as a minor emissions warning, cleared the error codes and did a forced regeneration. The car was handed back and he was charged rs 100 for this.

11/05/2023: The same issue reappeared while he was at Kottayam, and took the car to the nearest SVC (MK Motors Pala). They kept the car for 2 days, and returned the car after clearing the error code without any explanation, but mentioned that all the issues were resolved now.

15/05/2023: This is the very next day after receiving the car back from MK Motors, the car outright refuses to start in the morning. All kinds of warning lights were on the console. Called up the same SVC (MK Motors), and technicians were sent to his home, but they were unable to start the car. The car was taken to the service centre on a flatbed. He was informed after a few days that the high-pressure Diesel pump was having issues. Since the car was under warranty, they ordered a new high-pressure fuel pump, and we were told it may take a few weeks to source the parts and resolve the issues. We had requested them to check the injectors, as we read about similar issues (injectors being stuck open, clogged injectors etc). However we were informed that the injectors were in pristine condition, and it was just the high-pressure pump that needed to be changed. He was offered a loaner car during this time frame. The car was in the service centre for 38 days in total, and he received the car back once the high-pressure fuel pump was replaced. We were assured by the service centre that there are no other issues with the car as of now.

With all the issues he was having, he wanted to extend the stock 2 2-year warranty and paid the full amount for the same to the same Tata dealer. After a few days, he was told that his warranty extension was rejected by Tata, mentioning that his car had had two accidents previously, and hence the warranty could not be extended. The amount paid was returned. My brother had two accidents with the car.

1. The car hit a roadside post, airbags were deployed, radiator assembly was changed along with the airbags.
2. A bike hit his car from the side, damaging the driver's side door which was replaced.

For both of the above incidents, all repairs were carried out under insurance at Tata service centres only. We tried to challenge their decision to not extend the warranty, but the customer care was not very helpful here, we were just told it was standard Tata policy. The warranty ended on 30-6-2023.

4-09-2023: The same issue reappears after just 2 months. The car was taken to Luxon Tata Kottayam, who checked the car and returned the car mentioning that there was nothing wrong and that they had cleared the error codes. He was charged rs 80.

7-09-2023: While he was on his way to Trivandrum, the check engine light returned, and the car was taken to Trivandrum Motors. They kept the car for 8 days and returned the car mentioning they had fixed everything, he was charged rs 1180.

23-09-2023: Same issue again. My brother was really fed up with this, the majority of his time was now being spent just taking the car to and from multiple service centres. He gave the car to Mk Motors and told them he would accept the car back without a clear explanation of what was going on. Below are the events after that:

1. Initially, they said they cleared the error code and were unable to reproduce the issue. Brother rejects this, and literally begs them to keep the car for a few more days and run further checks.
2. After a few days, they were able to reproduce the issue. They outright say it's the fuel pump. He then told them that they only replaced the pump 3 months ago, and if they think they replaced it with a faulty pump, they should talk to Tata.
3. No response for a few more days, they now claim that the fuel pump is right, but something else is not right, and they are trying to figure this out. The only clue they have is that the fuel rail pressure is low.
4. After a few days, they started to try to replace part by part from a demo car (Pump, fuel rail etc).
5. At one point, he was told "Sir, we are a small service centre, we don't have enough parts to check everything".
6. They blamed that whoever did the last service, did not replace the diesel filter. My brother went to the SVC, called up Trivandrum Motors who did the last service, put them on speaker and told them that MK Motors was saying that they did not replace the fuel filter. He asked for an explanation. The SVC teams talked, and now MK Motors agreed that the fuel filter was changed.
7. All this while we have been asking them to check the injectors. The response was "Sir, we already checked the injectors 2 months back when we replaced your pump, everything is alright!". Upon further persistence, we were told only a visual inspection was performed.
8. We offered to pay for getting the injectors checked by an outside vendor if needed, and finally, they agreed to check the injectors.
9. They open up the injectors, and all injectors are rusted at the top, they outright blame that someone has changed the injectors after they replaced the pump. Again, the brother calls up Trivandrum SVC, they talk and finally accept they were the stock injectors.

The car has been with the service centre for 23 days now. Every time they wanted to do a long road test, my brother had to pay for the diesel expense for the same. My brother was not offered a loaner car this time. On the 23rd day, they finally tested the injectors and then called up my brother and said all 4 injectors were damaged and needed replacement. They gave him an estimate of 75k. We were all this while talking to Tata customer care too. We requested Tata to replace the injectors under warranty as the original issue started 5-6 months ago while the car was under warranty, and it was the Tata SVCs who were not able to diagnose the issue properly. This was rejected. We requested a replacement under a goodwill gesture at least. The same was rejected too.

The last offer from the SVC was that they have 4 injectors with them, they are not brand new. They can offer these to him for free, but there will not be any bill/warranty or assurance on the life of these injectors. We rejected this offer and asked them to return the car as we handed it to them 30 days ago.

Summary:

• The issue started 5 months ago while the car was still under warranty, multiple SVCs were not able to diagnose the issue properly.
• The car is now 2 years and 4 months old, and Tata is recommending my brother spend 75K on the car after having the car in the service centre for 83 days in total over the past 5 months.
• The sheer incompetence of service centres in properly diagnosing an issue is unacceptable. Not sure how Tata trains the service centre technicians.
• Customer care though reachable and sympathetic, there is no real help to the customer from here.

The questions we have now:

1. Why was the fuel pump replaced and the injectors were not checked the first time? SVC has no answer for this.
2. What kind of QC does Tata do, which results in 4 injectors going bad in just 2 years?
3. Why was the warranty extension rejected, what if we had the warranty extended earlier and then had accidents, will the warranty be rejected then?
4. If you have an accident and get the car repaired in a TATA SVC, and they mention that as a reason for rejecting your warranty extension, does that mean Tata themselves don't have much faith in the quality of work done by their own Service centres?

At the moment, we have asked for the car to be returned with what they claim are faulty injectors. My brother plans to have the injectors checked with a Bosch workshop and see if they can be repaired/serviced. If not he plans to source the injectors directly and have them replaced outside the SVC. He is also planning to file a complaint with the consumer court for the same issue, and all the trouble he has faced during the past 5 months. Any advice/recommendations on the same is welcome.

We have decided to list our experience here on Team-BHP so that existing customers as well as prospective customers for Tata cars could have an idea of what going to be their experience if something goes wrong with their car. We believe the issue with injectors is not a one-off case and might be common with Nexon / Altroz diesel. I am not attaching the series of emails between my brother, Tata and the service centre over the past 5 months here because it will be too much, but to anyone who doubts, we do have all the communication in emails as well as bills.

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