An honest review of our Tata Altroz DCA XZA after 35,000 km

I have covered most of the Ghats in Maharashtra for last 2 years and really enjoyed driving in Ghat section and corners. This car gives at most confidence and she is pretty stable on corners and hairpin curves.

BHPian sagarp1209 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hello BHPians,

I would like to share an honest review of our Beast machine i.e. Tata Altroz DCA XZA (Second Top variant of First Batch) being a long term owner of it now.

Why did I purchase Altroz DCA?

Considering the traffic in Pune-Mumbai city, an automatic car was the suitable option for me. I have driven manual cars for more than 12 years, and it's really a pain driving a car in bumper-to-bumper traffic. So while purchasing my own car, automatic transmission was my first preference.

I had taken test drives of the Honda Amaze, Renault Kiger, Skoda Kushaq, Tata Nexon, Kia Seltos, and Hyundai i20, but the confidence that I got in the Altroz DCA was incomparable, and considering the budget of 10–11 lacs, safety, and features, the Altroz was the best deal that I was thought of.

Also, the back seat comfort we were looking for (3 people fitting without discomfort) was only available in Altroz.

I got this deal at 11.20 Lacs (on road), including a three-year extended warranty up to 1 lac kilometers and accessories such as seat covers, mud flaps, door visors, stylish body side moulding, underbody and engine coating, car cover (not worth) and 10H ceramic coating. Ceramic coating cost me 20K and was not worth getting done at a service center.

For car coating you can get it done from any good detailer near by your locality or within your city.

Ownership Experience:

I received delivery of my beast on 1st June 2022. Since then she has never disappointed me.

Considering TATA’s quality checks, I agree there were some glitches but those can be ignored considering Safety and comfort of Altroz. Till date I have clocked around 35000+ kms on ODO and never encountered any major fault.

Total Service cost paid till now :

1st Service : 354 (Some value add service charges ideally it would have been 0 but wasn't aware of it)

2nd Service : 0

3rd Service (Major): 5211

4th Service (Minor): 2674

5th Service (Major): Somewhere around 9k actual invoice was of 13881/- but which was including rear AC assembly replacement of around 3K and Interior cleaning of around 1k which is not applicable for everyone.

As mentioned earlier there were some glitches but after software upgrades those were resolved.

Eg:

Jerk issue at low speed: I received a solution from Tata after me and many fellow owners from our DCA group reported it to TATA plant team.

Solution: CPC adaptation and DCA system updated. (Most of the time SC are not aware of this solution ask them to connect with TATA Plant and get it under their observation)

Hard Break Pedal at the time of cold start(Intermittent issue):

Solution: I received a resolution in the form of Break Bleeding from SC, which substantially fixed the problem.

Also, I do follow few best practices which sort of are workaround it:

1. First start of day I wait till RPM to settles down then start my journey.
2. If in a hurry, press the brakes 4-5 times after the car starts.

Instrument cluster blackouts:

Solution: Remove battery negative terminal and plug it again.

Workaround: Turn off the car and wait for 15-20 Mins and restart the car again (it will resolve the issue)

I have covered most of the Ghats in Maharashtra for last 2 years and really enjoyed driving in Ghat section and corners. This car gives at most confidence and she is pretty stable on corners and hairpin curves.

While driving in Ghat sections, if you are getting stuck in traffic, make sure that, in case you are not confident, you shift the car to manual mode and manoeuvre it without panicking in that situation.

The same is applicable for 2-lane roads. While overtaking, you should plan overtakes, and in the case of a loaded car, shift it to manual mode. This will help you get enough power.

Ghats Covered till now: Kumbharli, Anuskura, Amba, Tamhini, Ghats of Mahabaleshwar.

My Overall ownership experience is really satisfactory and day by day I am falling in love of my Altroz  Considering price and the transmission this deal is worth every single penny. Only pain point is Tata Service but if you visit to good Service center or responsive service center you will get satisfactory service for sure.

I have created a Facebook and WhatsApp group for Altroz DCA owners (Altroz DCA Owners Club) to seek help from other owners, and this group proved to be a lifeline for the majority of us.

Also, our TeamBHP forums which really helped us to get important email ids for Tata Motors which helped us to triage issues on priority. 

Few Recommendations:

I would recommend everyone planning to buy Altroz DCA and who already have it, do purchase Extended Warranty because there were few gearbox issues reported by BS6 PH2 owners. Their gear box got replaced due to malfunction and it was costed around 2.84 Lacs. This was all covered under Warranty. One of my contact who is owning BS6PH1 at DCA owners group faced this issue and got gearbox changed under extended warranty

I use below accessories which I believe are some must buys.

1. 70mai Pro Plus+ A500s dual channel dashcam (you can buy latest variants also)
2. Skyshop Solar internal TPMS
3. Jopasu duster
4. Turtle wax Hybrid solution & Clearvue Rain Repellent
5. MotoHunger sun protection film (Windshield only but planning to apply it for all windows)

Here are some pics of my Beast Machine:

This was at the time of Delivery.

This was clicked near Patan, Satara, Maharashtra

This was clicked at Mahabaleshwar

This was clicked at Daman.

Random click.

Our Travel buddies

Current ODO.

DCA Owners Group meet-up

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