Only 3-month-old Tata Safari facelift: Owner faced starting issue twice

The first time it happened, the odo reading was 540 km. And the second time, the SUV had completed only 640 km in total.

BHPian MadhavBitra recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Dear friends, I would like to share my experience with my new Tata Safari.

My 3-month-old Tata Safari has already faced a starting issue twice.

Incident 1

On 30th Oct 2023, when I tried to start the vehicle in my apartment parking lot after 2 days, it gave a beep sound from the engine and did not start. Reached out to the Sales Manager of the Tata dealer from where I purchased the SUV.

She helped me to request Road Side Assistance and after 4 hours, a mechanic from the dealership came and told me that the battery was not generating power to start the engine. So he did a jump start using the car in which he came and it started. After running for 15 minutes, we tried to restart the car and it fired up normally. Then the mechanic advised me to drop the vehicle at the service station and I did so on the same night.

They identified the issue as a battery problem and replaced the battery. They confirmed that the dynamo unit that charges the battery is working fine and only the battery was discharging fast. They took 4 days to deliver the vehicle after the replacement. Along with it, they also did the first service.

Number of km driven when I faced this incident – Just 520 km

Incident 2

On 14th Nov 2023, when I tried to start the vehicle in my apartment parking after 2 days, the story repeated. This time there was no beep sound but the SUV was not starting and showed a message on the instrument cluster “System error”. This time I directly contacted Road Side Assistance and they are on the way to check what is the issue.

Number of km driven when I faced the second incident – Just 640.

With these incidents, I have started losing confidence in Tata Motors and my love towards the Safari is on the edge.

Here’s what BHPian TorqueIndia had to say about the matter:

Where is your parking location? It’s in the basement or what? How about telematics, it’s configured or not in use? Maybe the remote functions are draining the battery, that’s one point to be checked.

Here’s what BHPian spaceunicorn had to say about the matter:

Just a thought here – I have seen the following behaviour:

• The sunroof blind is operational after the car is switched off. Means there is a regular supply of electricity to the mechanism.
• Tail gate is operational after we unlock it.
• Front both power seats are adjustable even after the car is switched off.
• If we open the tailgate while the car is locked, the inside lights get on and won’t go off after you close the tail gate. They will switch off only after we lock the car again. So, if you forgot to lock the car – the lights are on (for some time, I believe). Maybe the 60- or 120-min rule applies to the tailgate function as well.
• Each time the car is unlocked – the side mirrors unfold (I remember Mahindra taking out that feature and making them unfold only if you start the engine).

Can this cause an extra load on the battery?

Here’s what BHPian r24x7 had to say about the matter:

I haven’t seen such an issue reported anywhere else.

Ask the SC for a BCM update, maybe? Based on your explanations, it looks like the vehicle is always in Accessory mode causing frequent discharge.

I have an APR 2023 manufactured Safari and I had a BCM update done recently. Ever since the update, I noticed that my phone is already connected to Wireless AA just by unlocking the car. Earlier it used to connect only when I pressed the start button for Accessory mode/ignition.

I have only seen minor niggles, but nothing really bothersome or causing inconvenience to me so far in my past 7 Months/9000 Kms of ownership.

BHPian MadhavBitra came back with an update on the matter:

Yesterday, I came to know that during the first incident on 30th Oct, they didn’t replace the battery. They did a verification test from Exide and found everything to be good. There was a communication gap between me and the service executive at the time of the delivery (who is different from the one who did the service).

My bad, I missed checking the documents that were handed over to me at the time of the delivery (there was a test report attached). It was mainly due to the trust in Tata Service and also a little negligence on my side. They also did the first service at the same time.

Regarding the ongoing diagnosis, the update as of today 17 Nov 23 is:

• They have checked the ACC module and found no issues.
• Reviewed BCM for any updates required, looks normal and no updates required.
• Verified whether there are any power leakages via multimeter and also using plucks meter (if I heard it correctly) and found no issues.
• They will verify a diode connected to the central cluster which is used to sound an alarm when the door opens for any leakage or fault.
• Finally they will also do a re-verification of the battery by sending it again to Exide for testing.

Overall, the Service Manager is sure that the battery is faulty. They have seen cases with the Altroz and Nexon where the battery tests are successful but the same issue occurs. In this case, the replacement of the battery resolved the issue. So he would request Exide to replace the battery even though verification from their machine is a success.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.

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