Re: Review: The Force Gurkha 4x4 I along with my family took test drive of the new 3 door Gurkha Xplorer on the 9th of this month at Vishal Force, Dibrugarh.
The sales guy from Force Mr. Sayantan (7086090046) was pretty helpful & followed up with me through out since i put up my TD request on the force website. He explained all the features etc to us in details & replied to our queries quite patiently.
There was another person from Jorhat who had come for the TD. So myself with my family & the other person along with force guys took out the vehicle for TD & we took turns to drive the vehicle.
For TD we took the vehicle to a pretty rough stretch of road approx. 3 kms in length along the new Dibrugarh rail station. Rest of the TD was carried out on decent village roads & within the city. To set the record straight, by rough i mean the road had innumerable huge potholes filled to the brim with water (it was raining that day), most of which were pretty deep.
Confidence of the force guys on their vehicle was to be seen to be believed. That was quite reassuring. Why Gurkha: We are form NE India & based near world famous Kaziranga & we travel quite frequently. Due to reasons not know to me, most roads in our part of India apart from the showcase lifelines are perennially in a state of repair. As one goes to interior places, condition worsens considerably. My wagonR sounds like a ringing bell nowadays even on smooth roads. So I need a low maintenance, cheap, reliable rough & tough beast with 4X4 capability with which I don’t need to care about road condition anymore, which can take me wherever I want. So Gurkha looks practical to me. Now comes the initial impression on looks: Externals: Looks good even with stock AT tyres & steel rims. Vehicle has to be seen in person. Most of the pics of the vehicle don't do justice to real smart upright look of the vehicle. Will post some pics taken during TD later in my next post. Internals: Utility interiors put up without much homework & nothing much to speak of really. Cheap plastic shines through. Real downer. I was pretty excited about the vehicle till i saw the interiors. Now i can't make up my mind & my family is even less sure. For i am interested in the 5 door xplorer which with alloy wheels, maxxis tyres & some fancy accessories will turn me back by around 14 lacs. At 14 lacs, interior quality matters. I would have been happy with TATA Sumo or WagoR quality interiors also. I guess, i am not asking for much. Seats: Front seats were decent & comfortable. Feelings from driving seat: Driving postion is high up & good. View of the road from inside is commanding but feels truck like, almost intimidating for a person who has till now driven WagonR mostly. Even though the snorkel is fitted along the A pillar, view is not much obstructed. Had that back of the mind feeling that, it will not be as maneuverable as my little WagonR, the bulk may drag it some distance. Parking it may be pain in the congested city like Guwahati, Jorhat or Golaghat, which i frequently visit. Steering & gearing was pretty comfortable & soft. Now coming back to the TD experience: The Gurkha gobbled up the pothole filled obstacles without breaking a sweat. We took it along the bad stretch not once but thrice & not at any moment, anyone of us even remotely felt that it may get stuck. Suspension was sweet & no noticeable discomfort was felt inside the cabin even on the bad stretch of the road. Although the suspension is sprung softly, i didn't notice much body roll but then vehicle was driven at speeds not exceeding 50 kmph all through out. Vehicle was easy to drive but intimidating nonetheless. NVH levels are quite low inside the cabin. Regarding engine even though nos. are low on paper w.r.t. power & torque, at no point during the TD even when it was plunging & coming out of lunar size craters that I have described above the engine felt like under powered. Feeling was same while driving within the city roads.
The sales guy told us that the previous while travelling from Dibrugarh to Jorhat, they had driven the vehicle at speeds around 120 kmph for approx. 140 kms on mostly bad roads. I don’t know whether to believe him or not. One peculiar thing I noticed was vibration of the steering wheel while driving. When I asked the sales guy he said that the previous day some novice took the vehicle out for TD at Jorhat & got it badly stuck at some obstacle, during repeated efforts to get the vehicle out, the wheel alignment got disturbed. Another doubt is till now, I have seen some guys down south opting for the xpedition & xplorer 3 door, although sales nos. are still in single digits I suppose. But till date I have not come across any guy who has opted for the xplorer 5 door. That apart, low sales nos. donot really discourage me as I know that the vehicle can be driven for 10 years & upto 1 lac kms without any significant problems.
Last edited by finiteinjustice : 21st September 2017 at 14:23.
Reason: To improve
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