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Transmission malfunctions 2 days into my Altroz DCA ownership

16th April 2024, 10:33 by Rahul Nagaraj

The car is 3 days old and over a bad road rattling noise is coming from the dashboard.

BHPian JDMBOI recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

When you buy a new car you want to enjoy every moment of it and thoughts of facing any issue hardly come into anybody's mind but our destiny didn't want us to enjoy the very first drive.

Car & Variant - Tata Altroz - XZ Automatic / XZ DCA
Price - Ex-showroom Rs- 9,59,900 and on-road 10.60L.
Odometer - 16 KM during PDI and now 24 KM.
Mileage - 8 KMPL (in the cluster).
Accessories purchased - 3d Mats and body cover. (Mud flaps were unavailable, was given 7 days)

Wants:

Safe car
Hatchback / sub-4-meter car
Automatic
CNG from the factory (in the end bought petrol)

Cars considered:

Tata Punch.
Tata Altroz.

Why petrol over CNG?

No automatic with CNG.

Not much difference between the current price of CNG and petrol.

Somewhat similar mileage of CNG and petrol.

Booking

Booked Tata Altroz online on 5 December 2023, was given 20 day waiting period which turned out to be 58 days. In the meantime, we didn't receive any update from the salesperson we had to call him now and then and the most disappointing part was his being unable to give a satisfactory answer to the questions, so my brother decided to wait until the 10th of January if the car doesn't arrive by then he will cancel the booking but he never did.

2 February - Car arrived at showroom.

3 February - Went to the showroom on 3 February to do PDI (without intimation to a salesperson, the showroom is a few minutes away from home). Told him that we wanted to see the car and the way he said "It is in the stockyard" felt like he didn't want us to see the car but when I insisted, he drove us to the yard by saying "Only take 5 minutes to do PDI, I am busy". Reached the yard and to our surprise, the car was not there, The salesperson called someone and then told us it was parked in their second yard and he couldn't show us the car as the yard was locked and the person who possessed the key was away. No wonder Why I felt suspicious. He told us to come the next day and he will have the car at the showroom.

4 Feb (Sunday) - Reached the showroom and the sales guy was not present (his phone was switched off) talked to another staff member, and explained everything but they were uninterested. Finally, after 20 minutes someone came (who happened to be going to the yard otherwise I would have been waiting there for God knows how long) and we went to the yard and the same old drama continued, couldn't locate the car. The other yard which was locked yesterday was empty so we went to the former yard the car was not there at this point & my brother lost his cool he was about to call the manager but he (a staff member) located the car, A huge sigh of relief. Clicked a few pictures & as I was about to start the PDI this happened:

Him- What is this?
Me- PDI checklist.
Him- Do you work at a car company?
Me - No
(At first, he was calm but after five minutes or so he started behaving erratically and started asking me -is it done? is it done? how much time you are going to take?)
Me- At least 30 minutes.
Him- I can't wait 30 minutes, how about you stay here, and I will return after some time or send the PDI guy?
Me - Sure.
Him- (After a phone call, literally after 2 minutes). Is it done?
Me- NO
Him- I can't wait.
then things escalated he yelled at me " O bhai sunle, mai tumhare sath bandha hua nhi hu, ye tumhare sales man ka kaam hai( "Listen, brother, I am not associated with you it's your salesman job".)
Me - He fixed the date and he is not present plus his phone is switched off. It's not my problem. Why don't you send the PDI guy you were talking about?
Him - NO, I can't leave you here. You have only 5 minutes then we need to go. I can't wait as I have to do some paperwork for delivery.
Enough is enough. Before I lost my patience, dropped the process and went home.

PATHETIC EXPERIENCE with Swan Motor Tata, Sonipat (Haryana).

My recent experience with HONDA was much better. (1000 Times better)

20 days turned into 60 days.
Didn't call us once to give any updates.
Won't pick up your call.
Unable to give satisfactory answers to questions regarding car arrival.
Fix the PDI date and don't show up. (The salesperson was unable to come due to some emergency but they should at least assign someone else)
Yells at you for taking time for PDI.

5 February - Finally PDI completed and satisfied with the car but it has a couple of scratches and a mat full of mud (I don't understand why Tata doesn't paste plastic on their carpet now it's all messed up.) which wasn't the case with our Amaze, it was spick and span.

7 February - Took delivery of the vehicle. Was given a small basket of snacks. No cake cutting. The car was driven home by its driver (I had never driven an automatic car so didn't want to take the risk of driving a brand-new car) and reached home. While he was parking it, I heard a metal grinding noise (not so loud but consistent and concerning for a brand new car. Like something is broken inside the gearbox/metal groves grinding when you engage the gear without pressing the clutch fully) and told the same to the driver he said don't worry if something happens car is in warranty. Didn't pay much attention at that time because I had to drop the driver back at the showroom.

The issue faced - Transmission malfunction and TPMS error

After taking delivery, the car was parked for 2 days. On 10 February when I tried to start the car, it won't crank. (The same thing happened during PDI on 4th February even the Tata guy was unable to start the car and gave an extraordinary excuse that there was no fuel (I didn't buy that) but on 5th February I made sure everything was ok by requesting Tata employee to start the car few times and it started in 1 try each time) tried few times but no luck. The display says to press the brake pedal and then press the start button but it won't start (how hard do you want me to press the brake pedal, do you want me to stand on it) tried locking and unlocking the car but no luck. I Called the salesperson and told him about the scenario he started giving illogical reasons - you might have left the door open and the car battery drained. Are you kidding me?

When I was about to give up, I tried one last time and this time 2 errors popped up on the screen first TPMS and then Transmission malfunctioning. My heart skipped a beat after seeing the latter fault then I thought maybe that's why the grinding noise was coming from the car they might have sold us a LEMON. Called the salesperson again (like always won't answer the call) and told him about the scenario at first he didn't believe me, little did he know I made a video of the cluster with the aforementioned error & when I forwarded the video to him, he called us and I can feel the change in his voice tone and requested to wait as he will contact the technical team and call back. Finally, after an hour or so they arrived home.

The technician pressed the button once and I showed him the error and salesman was shocked, he tried 1-2 times. Still, no luck and tried shifting from the park and pressing the button then the car started. All the faults disappeared (MUST BE TATA THINGS) told him about the gearbox noise, and he tried parking the car as the other driver did on delivery day (noise was coming while moving at a slow speed too) but no noise this time around but he did something after opening the bonnet and sticking his hands behind the engine (loose plug or maybe a screw) Took the car for a test drive, he hit some good figures and we came back. After they left I took the car for another test drive and it was working fine. Thank God it wasn't the gearbox or maybe it is. time will tell. The thing I noticed was that the brake pedal felt hard (less travel) when the car didn't start but after they left I tried to start the car and it started in one try at that time brake pedal was smooth (more travel)

If that dude had given me more time on 4th February I definitely would have tried to start the car a few more times and if that error had popped up during the PDI then we would have avoided the car. Do I trust the car, will I recommend it to anybody, HELL NO. To be honest I was telling my brother to buy Amaze CVT (he denied it because of not-so-good built quality) now it's wait and watch either it's fine or we are in for a drive that we don't want to do.

Likes

5-star safety rating.
Build quality, thud sound is so satisfying.
The speaker's sound quality is good.
Cornering fog lights.
Feature loaded - TPMS, auto headlights and wipers cooled glove box.

Dislikes

Under-powered, noisy 3-cylinder 1.2L petrol engine.
Reliability.
After-sales service.
Only 2 parking sensors.
No auto-dimming IRVM for a 9.6L car.
Windows take a lot of time to go down fully.

Nitpick

Handbrake location.
Indicator on fenders.
Ugly long antenna.
Piano black is prone to scratches. (Tata used it a lot- near the headlight, window surround and at the rear too)
Rear door handles.
Not a fan of touchscreen implementation.

Initial thoughts

Acceleration - Not so quick response it takes its own sweet time (1-2 seconds) sometimes I question myself did I hit the pedal or not.
Rattling noise - The car is 3 days old and over a bad road rattling noise is coming from the dashboard. Very nice.
Steering - The steering (leather-wrapped) is very eager to come back to the centre. Usually, if you turn the wheel 5 -10 degrees in other cars you have to bring the steering back to centre yourself but not the case in Altroz.
DCA Noise - Noisy, you hear the gear grinding noise/ gear engaging and disengaging that it feels like some parts are broken inside the gearbox. I want to ask fellow DCA owners, is it normal?
Build - Doors, trunk lid, bonnet are heavy and the thud noise it offer is something else.
Gear change - When the car changes gear you can feel it, no jerk though.
Hand brake - The build quality (plastic) of the brake is poor, it moves left and right (base structure) not properly implemented. Positioning is kind of weird.
Windows motor - They are not noisy but take their own sweet time to roll up or down fully. means you have to hold the button longer than usual.
Seats - Fabric material, they don't hug you though.
Glove box - Soft opening, has panel gaps and I find it to be less useful as they partitioned it by putting a plastic shelf in the middle.
Button quality - The quality of the steering wheel button and window switches is decent.
ORVM - They are huge and offer good visibility.
Reverse camera - Good quality and comes with adaptive guidelines. (utilizes full screen for the camera)
Headlight and fog light - Headlight(projector) and fog lights are in halogen. can't comment on their performance, yet to drive at night.
Engine bay - It has white padding (above the front wheel arch on both sides) when asked they said it's for insulation but I think it's for the headlight, to protect it from water splashes as its plug is right next to it and it has under hood insulation.