Tata Altroz DCA: Observations after a 500 km drive with family

No hiccups, no feeling something is amiss, no problems encountered as such. The car is nearing the 10k kilometer mark now.

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So, we had an impromptu trip to Nashik and back over the weekend. We went to Nashik on Saturday and returned today some time back. Nothing unusual to report in this 500km trip as well. This time the car was loaded with 4 adults and 1 child along with their luggage and it performed as expected. 80-90% of the total time, the air conditioner was running. No hiccups, no feeling something is amiss, no problems encountered as such. The car is nearing the 10k-kilometer mark now. A couple of observations along with some pictures.

• The car has a low center of gravity. That brings a lot of stability in the sense that it doesn't feel nervous when turning into corners. It feels table, planted, and sticks to the road like a leech.
• The Good Year ATM-2 tires help a lot in sticking the car to the road. Very good quality rubber as compared to the MRF ZV2K or ZVTV OEM ones. There is little road noise and the compound seems to be soft. (How do we determine whether it is hard or soft as compared to MRFs?
• The boot eats up a lot of luggage (2 medium-sized bags, 2-3 small bags, and nick-knacks), but the loading lip is quite high. As a result, you tend to remove the parcel tray, put your bags in, and then fit back the parcel tray.
• The grey color is fantastic. It has a very good wet look lustrous finish and the paint quality on this car is top-notch. No complaints in this part, except for the fact that it has to be kept very clean for it to shine well.
• The braking performance with front discs and rear drums is adequate. I will call it adequate but you feel as if something needs to be more. Ideally, a set of rear discs would bring up your confidence level, but maybe it costs less to do a disc-drum setup.

• Engine performance is okay for the power/torque figures. I will state here that it takes its own sweet time to get into triple-digit speeds, but it's not something that normal folks would notice. In between the DCA box has to drop down one or two gears to ensure that the engine remains in the power band.
• On flat roads and downhill roads, it's all smooth sailing. The gearbox is in the fifth or sixth gear and the engine is doing 2200 rpm or so. It's the uphill sections and start of flyovers where the engine has to be whipped to push the car at the same speed.
• The DCA gearbox is fantastic. I still say that it is a very good gearbox only let down by the wheezy under-powered engine. Up-shifts are unnoticed by other passengers. The downshifts are also smooth, but you can immediately notice them because the engine RPM rises and the engine sounds filter into the cabin.
• Speaking of sounds, the cabin insulation is fantastic and does a very good job of isolating the occupants from the outside noise. There is rubber beading all around and the doors are heavy, so that helps to an extent.

• The air conditioner performance is fantastic, it cooled down the hot cabin in barely 5-10 minutes when we were driving on the hot Saturday afternoon. So are the auto headlamps and rain sensing wipers. Coming to the topic of wipers - the frameless ones that we fitted in the last service are already making a noise so will have to be replaced.
• The seat comfort is once again adequate. While the driver's seat has height adjustment, the other seats don't. That means that you sit quite low and end up with upward-bent knees. The comfort on the back seat is good for short people or someone like my parents who likes to sit in a cross-legged position. The knee room is fantastic (due to the length) but the width makes it suitable for 4 adults only. Even a 5th person starts feeling unwelcome after some time.
• Speed warnings at 80 and 120 are not intrusive. You can hear it but it's quite low in volume. The speed limit sign on the dashboard is so small, that it requires a magnifying glass to read it!

• On this trip, we managed a speed of 100-110kmph from Chakan to Nashik and from Nashik to Chakan. From Pune to Chakan and vice-versa we barely managed 30-35kmph tops.

Overall, we are very satisfied with the car and its performance. I would definitely recommend it for the city as well as an occasional outstation trip. Enough said, now for some pictures! I will put in more pictures after we get it washed and cleaned tomorrow.

Here's the car at Daulat Dhaba, where we stopped for a tea break on Saturday. See how the wet-look finish shines when clean!

The slope of the rear windscreen means that it acts as a dust and dirt magnet. A lot of the dirt that is thrown up settles on the sloping part of the glass and the sloping part of the bumper. Also, the piano's black surfaces are scratch magnets but don't look that way from a distance.

Here's the look when the car has gone through rain, muck, dirt, and dry air. As dirty as it gets.

The OEM cabin mats are very good quality but are cloth ones. They will stink when wet or saturated with mud. There is a tri-arrow design on the mats as well. They are soft as well. A dead pedal is very welcome and you can comfortably rest your left foot on it. Contrast stitching on the seat and the design looks and feels good.

Here's the worst mileage that we achieved when traveling from Nashik Fata to beyond Chakan. We crossed Chakan between 3.30 pm to 5.00 pm on Saturday, so this was expected.

Here's the overall mileage that we achieved for the entire trip.

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