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Hyundai Alcazar ownership experience: Major upgrade from our Honda City

5th December 2023, 16:30 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

The second-row knee space is slightly limited for tall people when you compare it with the Mahindra XUV700, Tata Harrier and Safari, Skoda Kushaq and the likes.

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I was using a Honda City V MT 2012 model and the itch to upgrade kicked in from last year. Honda ownership has been pretty stress-free, and the car served me well for 11 years. i-Vtec engine has been a gem and the vehicle has never let me down barring minor cosmetic niggles. I would have kept the City for some more time had there been one more driver in the family.

Plan was to buy an SUV, an automatic for the ease of driving, getting in & out for all, better ground clearance to tackle the broken roads and lastly a good interior with some of the latest features. We are a family of 4 who do quite some long drives, especially to Kerala and use boot space to the max. Honda City has kept us very happy in this department and this too became one of our selection criteria.

With this started our search for the one that fits our needs and wish list. It finally ended up in the Hyundai Alcazar. Went ahead with the Turbo Petrol variant as I found it fun to drive, powerful, refined, and feature-loaded with attractive interiors. On the downside I was prepared for bad mileage, but to my surprise it wasn’t that bad, maybe I kept the expectation very low.

Took delivery on 13th July and so far, it has run ~4400 Kms with two 1200 Kms long drive & rest within the city, mostly in B2B traffic.

Model: 1.5 Litre Turbo Petrol, DCT
Variant: Signature (O), Starry Night shade
Dealership: Trident Hyundai, Indiranagar, Bengaluru

Key Handover

First drive to CCD near Hoskote

Front and side profile

Rear Profile

Will try to pen down my initial ownership experience with the vehicle. Most of the Pros and Cons listed below are in comparison with the Honda City I had.

Pardon shortcomings and oversights.

Pros:

Smooth & refined Engine: Very silent throughout the rev band. Powerful and responsive with no signs of struggle.
A very silent cabin with no road & engine noise creeping in. This was a major highlight compared to Honda City and other cars I test drove.
Very smooth shifting gearbox that one doesn’t feel the shifts at all. This combo of DCT and Turbo Petrol delivers a power of 159BHP that will put a smile on your face once you hit highways and low traffic.
Though it comes with 3 drive modes (Eco, Comfort, Sport) all you need is ‘Comfort’ to manage City and Highway traffic alike. By default the mode is set to ‘Comfort’ every time you start the vehicle, something to my liking. Though I have driven it with 4 passengers and luggage, never felt the vehicle struggling prompting me to switch to manual or Sport mode.
Nimble and easy to drive in the city. I could pretty much drive through and park in all the places I took my Honda City.
Body roll is well contained, vehicle feels planted & stable even at speeds of 120Kmph. Till now didn’t feel compromised moving out of a sedan. I don’t do high-speed cornering anyways.
Loaded with safety aids & features some of which are not available in much expensive cars.
Steering wheel is superbly designed, good to hold and ooze quality. Very light at low speeds and gives a sense of heaviness at higher speeds. In Honda, I felt the steering to be light even at higher speeds.
Fit and finish of the interiors is one or two notches above its competitors. Though it doesn’t provide any soft touch experience on the dash, it does make up for the finish, quality, ergonomic layout, and sheer number of feel-good & useful features. Colour theme of brown and grey on the dash, door pads and seats really stand out and gives an overall luxury feel. Will be easier to maintain as well compared to beige.
Boot Space is a healthy 180 litres with all 3 rows up, we can easily place 2 cabin bags. With the 3rd row folded you get 570 litres of space which is more than adequate for our needs.
Ground clearance of 200mm is more than sufficient to manage any bad roads.
Personally, felt the overall build quality to be impressive let it be the heaviness of doors, bonnet, sheet metal thickness, switches, gear lever, steering wheel, aircon vents, sunroof blind etc. Of course, can’t comment on the crash ratings, but the vehicle gives a sense of safe and secure feeling inside out.
Suspension is stiffer than Honda City; road undulations, joints on the flyovers, small potholes, humps etc are not felt inside at most speeds. Plus there is no bounciness that was prominent in Honda City. But for bigger potholes one needs to be slow and careful else the impact will be felt inside.
Comfortable front & rear seats with spacious interiors. My mom and mom-in-law are very happy. They feel easier to get in and seated, more of a walk-in experience.
Excellent visibility all around, nothing really hampers. A-Pillars are similar to those of Honda City and will have some hindrances while taking sharp turns.
Sidestep comes standard with the Signature variant and is useful only for really short people. But it will hamper the rest as it brushes against the calf while getting in & out. Ideally speaking this car doesn't require one. But it adds to the overall looks.
Alloys look very attractive to me and the 18’ inch wheels fill that wheel well perfectly.
I get 9-10KMPL in city traffic and 14-15 on Highways. This was a surprise as I was expecting it to be lower than this. Post first service am getting a mileage of 10KMPL consistently in the city though I haven’t changed my driving style or routes. The best mileage I got is 16.5KMPL during the Kollam to Thenmala section (~90Kms) on my way to Bengaluru during an early morning drive.

Cons:

3rd row seats are only for small kids. In my car, it's always folded and I use the space for luggage.
Electric boot should have been provided; the door is very heavy to operate.
Headlights should have been better, though it's trio beam LED, the throw and focus is not great. I found no major difference between High and Low beam. Feel the halogens are more effective than these LEDs which look good only from outside with no purpose.
There is a slight turbo lag below 2K RPM. In B2B drives, one might feel small jerkiness but it's just a matter of getting used to. This 1.5 turbo picks up speed in no time!
Sport Mode: I felt this to be an overkill and the driving experience is not so pleasant esp in City drives. Engine keeps revving in the power band even when you slow down ready to accelerate again. Not so pleasing experience for me. Maybe during a steep incline and for those split-second overtakes it might help. Otherwise, Comfort mode is more than enough for me.
Lumbar Support should have been provided as I felt it lacking.
I liked the earlier front grille as this facelift one looks more subdued and can be mistaken for a Creta. Except for Turbo Petrol, older grille is maintained in all other models, don’t understand this logic.
Alcazar exterior is more of love it or hate it design. In my opinion, it looks better sidewise and from the rear.
Fuel Switch and its placement under the driver seat is carried over from decades old Santro! This is poorly designed in an otherwise quality cabin.
Only driver side window has auto up and down feature.
Driver side power window switch alone is illuminated, can’t digest this. When you are providing ambient lighting on all doors with 64 colour option, come on, Hyundai!
2nd row knee space is slightly limited for tall people, when you compare it with XUV, Harrier, Safari, Kushaq and the likes. This is primarily due to the tray table behind the front seats that eats up some space. I felt it to be unnecessary and its opening & closing isn’t that easy as well, overall an ergonomic flaw. 99% of the owners might not use it as well.
Missing ADAS: Am not a big fan of it, but yes when Seltos and Creta (soon to be) are going to have it, would have been good if it was in Alcazar as well. Probably the next version might have it.
Missing auto wipers, not sure why Hyundai omitted this.
Passenger seats should have been powered as well.
Fuel efficiency of Turbo Petrol engine is very sensitive to the way we drive. Efficiency drops drastically if we use the Sport mode or do sudden bursts of acceleration frequently.
Auto Start Stop must be switched off every time you start the car. There is no way to disable it permanently. But in Alcazar, I felt it is not overly sensitive and annoying.

Alternatives Considered:

We did TD of the below cars, before finalizing on Alcazar, these are just my personal observations, not to undermine any of them.

Jeep Compass: +ves: Sturdy, excellent stability, interior fit & finish, looks. -ves: Cramped space, Boot capacity, slow gearbox, not-so-inspiring service network & support.
Kia Carens: This was a good competitor but somehow didn’t like its interior as compared to Alcazar, plus the absence of a panoramic sunroof, whether we use it or not, the family was clear.
XUV700: Liked it, but the waiting period of 8-10 months quoted was disappointing. Also, we weren’t sure about the overall fit & finish, after sales support etc. Plus I felt it's not so nimble or easy to drive in the city traffic. Also in terms of refinement and cabin noise insulation, Alcazar is way ahead.
Tata Harrier/Tata Safari: Didn’t venture out due to the not-so-encouraging feedback from some of my owner friends.
Creta/Seltos: Though I liked both of these products, boot space was a compromise for us. Somehow didn’t feel as an upgrade from my City.
Skoda Kushaq/VW Taigun: Really liked the drive, engine and gearbox! But the interiors, fit & finish were a letdown and above all the attitude of the Raja Skoda dealership folks. I felt the same attitude from TAFE Access as well a couple of years back when I went to check the Karoq. If you go to their dealership in an Uber or auto, you can forget any attention leave service.
MG Hector: Liked its interiors, fit & finish. But decided to look past due to the not so inspiring petrol automatic. Diesel manual on the other hand was pretty good! Family was impressed with the space, features and cabin quality.

Decision:

Finally, we decided to go with Alcazar as everyone liked it and it was a jack of all trades. I feel it's an under-rated product that lost prominence in front of its more popular siblings Creta, Seltos, Carens, and the barrage of SUVs from Tata and Mahindra which are more popular & butch-looking. Also, Alcazar is an MUV with no 4-wheel drive option. Alcazar Turbo petrol might excite those who need that luxury & refined feeling, plush drive, occasional use of 7 seats or luggage space, exciting & powerful turbo engine with less worry on the mileage and lastly the Hyundai Service. For me, it's a miniature Tucson minus ADAS at a much lower price.

It's not a looker compared to others and doesn't stand out with this new grille now! Some of my friends and family didn’t even know that Hyundai has models named Alcazar & Tucson.

Booking & Dealership Experience:

Both me and wife had decided (I influenced) on the new Tucson and had booked it as well (Signature 2WD Diesel Variant) in Nov-2022 though it was above our budget. After 5 months of waiting, we decided not to shell so much and decided on Alcazar as we felt it meets most of our needs at half the price. We felt the vehicle to be value for money. My wife was more than happy as she was not completely aligned with spending so much and rather invest rest of the money. A wise decision indeed and no wonder, they are called the ‘Better Halves”. In fact my family got more impressed with the interiors of Alcazar than Tucson. That aside Tucson Diesel is a very good vehicle in its category but I felt it's overpriced for a Hyundai tag and for what it offers!

Same time I also came to know that they are stopping the 2.0ltr one and launching the new 1.5Ltr Turbo, this was a bit concerning for me as I wasn’t sure how the vehicle would perform considering its weight plus the DCT gearbox. Also, I had taken TDs on the 2.0ltr ones and was happy with that. I still went ahead and changed my booking from Tucson to Alcazar Turbo in May.

Apart from the new engine & gearbox, the facelift came with some additional features like Idle Stop & Go (ISG), gear indication in the MID, seat belt indicator for all 5 passengers (on the roof), Alcazar logo projection, new front grille, Turbo badging (rear) & DCT badging (driver side), 3-point seat belt from the roof for the 2nd-row middle passenger.

There were no TD vehicles despite so many follow-ups with multiple dealerships and I was clear to my SA that I would cancel my booking if I was not happy with the turbo model. He was perfectly fine with it and reassured me that all Kia/Hyundai Turbo ones are going be replaced with this new engine to comply with BS6 Phase 2 RDE (Real Driving Emissions) emission norms.

Finally, in the month of June, he got me the new Verna Turbo petrol for a TD. I was really impressed with the drive and performance, also got me thinking about whether to change the booking to Verna. Mind keep playing games. At this point, my wife put her foot down and said it’s going to be Alcazar, or we keep the Honda City for another year or two. All settled!

Still my mind was wavering about how would this engine perform on a heavier vehicle. Strangely there were no credible reviews on YouTube or any other media to get clarity. And just a week before the delivery, SA got me the new Alcazar for TD and all my doubts were put to rest. The vehicle performed smoothly with 3 people on board, didn’t experience any struggle.

I had opted for Trident Hyundai Indiranagar dealership as it was closer to my place. Overall, it was a good experience right from the booking to the delivery and I must mention Mr Santhosh M who was my Sales Rep. He worked with me patiently to answer all my queries, arrange multiple test drives, documentation and making sure the delivery was smooth.

Delivery was fixed on 13th July, evening.

Dealership gave me a chocolate box and an instant photograph of the ceremony which was nice. I distributed a sweet box to the dealership folks and gave a small gift to Santosh.

Soon after delivery, heavy rains started. My first drive home was through those rains in B2B traffic, and it was indeed a task. This was the first automatic I was driving, plus I was lost in all those controls, features, and alerts! It took me a while to control & operate the intermittent wiper speed, rear wiper, and experience the auto start stop function in the midst of the maddening traffic.

On-Road Price & Discounts:

I took the car via ALD Corporate Lease which had a tie up with my company. On-road price was 24.56L. I got floor mats, perfume, mud guards, Ganesha idol as freebies.

Features and Safety Equipment:

There are lots of feel-good and useful safety features, will mention the ones that stood out for me and my family. In this regard, Alcazar was a major upgrade to us from our humble Honda City. In terms of features, it was a giant leap into the future.

Thankfully, all the features work as expected.

360 Camera: One of the best safety features and works flawlessly. Clarity of the visuals along with adaptive guidelines really stands out. Can choose multiple camera angles as well.
Blind Spot Monitoring: Useful while taking turns, side camera visuals get projected on the MID based on the right or left indicators and the clarity is good. Though at slow speeds and narrow roads, I would any day prefer activating 360 Cam. This covers the whole perimeter of the vehicle.
Auto Hold: God send feature, no need to keep my foot on the brake pedals anymore. Driving has become more relaxed.
Paddle Shifters: Haven't tried it much, never felt the need for it. But the levers provided are of good quality.
Digital MID: I can safely say that it is one of the best digital instrument clusters in this side of 50L that is also shared with Tucson. Crystal clear display with lots of information. Directions from onboard MMI maps, compass, TPMS are displayed in MID. Dials changing colour with drive modes is cool. It also showcases a host of driving information and one can easily toggle through the info via the steering-mounted switch.
Loaded with 6 airbags, Hill Assist, Electronic Parking Brake, Tire Pressure Monitoring System, auto dimming mirrors, auto headlights, Idle Start Stop.
Panoramic Sunroof: family loves it, and we used to keep the blinds open during the monsoon drives in Kerala.
Rear Sun blinds: no need to put towels on sunny days.
Ambient Lighting: This really makes a difference to the interiors and adds up to the luxury quotient. I didn’t observe or give importance to it during my test drives or showroom visits. But once we started using the car, realized it made a lot of difference to the cabin experience at night, it was more than a gimmick for me. My friends & family are in awe of that.
Ventilated Seats: Again, a boon and should be there in all vehicles sold. Works very well.
Electric Driver Seat, Tilt/Telescopic Steering: Super useful and helps in finding the right position quickly. Good range as well.
Bose acoustics is good, and the infotainment screen is neatly integrated into the dash, I love it more than the ones that stand out like a tablet and block the vision. Kudos to Hyundai for making it super intuitive and lag-free.
Connectivity: You have 1 fast charging USB type A port, a 12V socket and a wireless charging pad in the front. There is a type A USB port for mobile connectivity (Android Auto, Car Play) as well. You have 1 USB Type A mobile charging port for 2nd row passengers and 2 of them for the 3rd row. All of them are illuminated as well. Bluetooth and Android auto connect seamlessly. I extensively use Android Auto for GMaps and YT music.
Bluelink App: Remote engine start/stop, lock/unlock and a host of features can be accessed via this mobile app. I really like the ‘My Trips’ section of this app that shows day wise information about our trips, Kms traversed, Max and Min Speeds, Idle time, start and destination details. It’s a good log of our trips and very accurate.

Usage Pattern:

Primary usage is home to office and back. A total of 25Kms commute through heavy traffic. Once in a quarter to my native in Kerala (1500 Kms to & fro).

Build Quality, fit & finish, paint quality and panel gaps:

Really good and hope everything ages well! Yet to observe any uneven panel gaps. Fit & finish overall is top notch.

Wheels & Tyres:

The wheels are of specs 215/55 R18 and it came with JK UX Royale tyres. Have no complaints so far.

Driving Position & Ergonomics:

Due to the powered driving seat and tilt/telescopic steering, one can easily nail down the best driving position. Once set, Alcazar gives a good all-round view from the driver’s seat, front seats itself are very ergonomic and comfortable.

Handling, On-Road behaviour:

Very planted with excellent grip, I find it more stable than Honda City at all speeds.

Niggles:

There was a rattling sound coming from the front left wheel well while steering left or right. Took it to the service centre and it was basically tire hitting the loosened mud guard. They immediately found it out, tightened the mud guard and the sound was gone!
Now this one is slightly tricky: Post 1st service, I feel the brake bite has gone down. Earlier, effectiveness was pronounced even with a short press of the pedal but now I had to go for a long press, and I feel the pedal has become a bit spongy. I tried in vain to correct it with SC folks, but to them it is normal. With my insistence, they kept the car with them for 2 days to check the brake pads and ABS. They also did brake bleeding, but still the issue is there. Am planning to take it to a different SC and see. This has slightly dented my confidence in Hyundai Service Centre folks.

Other than that, we are happy with the purchase and pray & hope for a good long term ownership experience. Will keep updating here as the journey goes on.

Have attached some snaps below, not all are of good quality, sorry for that.

3D Camera - Front View