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-   -   Mahindra Thar Roxx is the official name of the 5-door Thar (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/282915-mahindra-thar-roxx-official-name-5-door-thar-34.html)

Thar derangement syndrome (TDS) is real, It used to be Scorpio earlier and somehow Mahindra from the days of Scorpio has always polarized opinion. You either love it or you hate it with a passion.

I know of people who bought competitor products and go through hell although the equivalent Mahindra is the perfect solution to their need simply because they associate the brand with certain class in the society for some reason.

Coming back to Thar Vs Wrangler situation, if Mahindra designers are given an old Marshal and asked to come up with a retro modern equivalent, what would it look it, I wonder.

Some of us love and own both Thar and Maruti Gypsy/ Jimny.
Ref Mahindra designers and Marshal and retro modern. Just a point that Marshal itself is a design which is totally Jeep based. So Im wondering how different any further retro modernism will be, from the Mahindra guys.

Overall this 5 Door Thar is resembling the Mahindra Armada, which used to be a Taxi of rural segment in early 90s.

Armada was XUV700 at that time.. It was never used as taxi.

Commander 650/750 line was used as taxi. Later it became Sawari.

Now I know what picture to show to a smug 5 door thar ownerrl:

Seniors any idea from the video, how the Thar suspension is tuned on the new version? At about 9 seconds in the video thar accelerates pretty quickly and takes a right turn. To my untrained eye it seems body roll is contained.
If Mahindra has worked on the suspension 5 door version is a Bumper Hit on arrival. And it makes sense for them to update the suspension as well as the 5 door is most probably intended/Suitable for bigger Families. But if its the same old story, don't think family purchases are coming Thars way after the initial excitement wanes.

Mahindra continues with its little quirks in 5-door Thar as well. It has 3 different types of door handles.

1. Front doors get horizontal flap door handles
2. Rear doors get vertical flap door handles
3. Tailgate door gets a vertical pull-type door handle

Now that even LED headlights have taken inspiration from Wrangler, what stops them from giving pull-type door handles all around?

I strongly feel that the vertical flap door handle might stick out badly on an otherwise good-looking side profile. At least they should have continued with design consistency and provided the same door handles on the front and rear doors. I don't think it would be an engineering nightmare for Mahindra to figure out how to fit a horizontal door handle. Also, the rear door handle is placed at shoulder level for a little more inconvenience.

Check the below video at 2:50; a single-pane sunroof is clearly visible. It seems to be of size similar to Scorpio-N but is placed rearwards. Also, we can clearly spot the beige-colored roof liner. So, could it be that the Thar 5-door would come with a metal roof or that the ABS hardtop roof would be engineered for a sunroof?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLaCYiV8IBA

If you are interested in the vehicle, meet the nearest dealer and find out when the unofficial bookings start. The rest of the deliberations can wait.

They sell 5000 units of 2 door per month - and it was launched in 2020, so I do not think ride quality is a deal breaker at all.

The secret to a well riding Thar is very simple - go fast, it has a stiff low speed ride like most Mahindra vehicles, the short wheelbase and tall profile amplifies it however as the speeds increase it settles down. 4 Door Thar has longer wheelbase, that should help.

I recently encouraged a fellow to drive the Thar fast with the top open - its the most fun he had ever behind the steering wheel of any car. All you hear is the wind and the excited scream of passengers, what a fun time.

Are you suggesting we shouldn't discuss vehicles unless we book one ? Beats the whole purpose of the forum, doesn't ?:coldsweat

One could argue that they sell ONLY 5000 units as well, the same as the XUV 300. Infact Mahindra sells double the amount of Boleros. Seems ride quality is an issue for some, including me.

Please do not take this in the wrong way but what you said does not make any sense at all. Its a generally agreed upon point that high speed stability of Thar is not good. BHPians who own the Thar have multiple times advocated driving it max at about 100 km/h for stability. But since i dont own one and havent driven one above 100, ill rest my case. I must have missed something.

Those screams must have been for dear life. At those speeds it must have been a Roller Coaster drive:p

Note: Mods, i had typed the same reply but while posting had made mistakes with quoting. Posting again, please delete whichever is required.

More pictures of the 5-door Thar.











Link

Speaking as a person who owns and has been driving the Thar all over the place and at various speeds, since Feb 2021 the Thar has a skittish ride even at a slightly greater speed.

Whatever it is, personally I wouldn’t drive my Thar consistently at speeds higher than 110kmph. It is not comfortable because of its aerodynamics, the wind noise and of course the dangers on our roads.

I would also worry about being able to stop in time, this being a large, heavy and ponderous vehicle. In fact, the concrete white-topped roads of Bangalore do have a lot of undulations, seams and imperfections. This, coupled with the Height and Big Wheels and Tyres and Short Wheelbase of the Thar causes the Thar to have a skittish and jiggly and jumpy bumpy ride all the time.

These characteristics are transferred directly onto the driver and passengers through the steering and the suspension even though in my case my suspension was upgraded to AVO and the settings are at the ‘comfort’ level and the fact that I have also ‘aired down’ my tyres to 28-29PSI. It is true that the AX version smaller wheels and tyres with the higher sidewalls offers better ride comfort.

Very possibly the longer wheelbase Thar 5 door will have a better tuned suspension and the length of the wheelbase will also make for a better ride.

Your vehicle may need a reset back to stock condition :)

You do not have to take my word for it but try it and you`ll understand what I`m talking about.

Disclaimer (not for you Sankar but for those who are crying murder)- We are adults, at least as per our license, use your accelerator wisely.

I`m sure they are well meaning in their advice but that does not mean the vehicle is not capable, you just have to explore it to know it. Another thing that does not make sense is that Thar will also corner hard & grips the bends of Nilgiris so well.

Let me introduce you to What a Thar is. The presenter in that video is a beloved BHPian who is no longer with us on this earth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCVuAM8EMuM&t=394s

Thar is not an offroader in the sense of a Wrangler or Jimny etc and so may things do not make sense at first.

Note : I do not wish to promote unsafe driving at all, please take care and drive safely.

Mine is stock except for AVO dampers and rear springs and Underbody Aluminium Shield and the Throttle Controller. And a few other functional and cosmetic and storage related improvements.
When it was on stock suspension it used to pitch and nose dive and sway and roll very badly. Under braking and over bumps and speed breakers the wobbliness was bad. Taking curves on highways was unsettled. Honestly AVO and my other small enhancements have made a huge improvement in the stock Thar.

Basically lets face facts. The SWB, height, wheel and tyre sizes and stock suspension setup in all early Thars definitely makes for a jiggly jittery ride. The inherent negative characteristics can neither be ignored nor blinded by Love or wishful thinking.

They also sell about 10000 units of the Scorpio every month since launch. I can personally assure you that the ride quality is the deal breaker for many. I test drove the Thar in 2021 when I was waiting for the XUV, and again in 2022 when I was waiting for the Scorpio-N. Both times, the deal breaker for me was the unsettled nature of the Thar. Sure, I'd have caught some flak from my family for the rest of my life for buying the impractical 3 door, but the poor ride quality was what I couldn't live with.

I also drove the new Gurkha at the time, and the ride was significantly better than the Thar. It was also way more practical due to the rear entry, wider cabin and rear captain seats. The main reason I skipped it was the lack of an automatic option. They too are going to launch their 5 door version, and I think it will find more takers.

I was disappointed that the Watts linkage does not seem to have made it to the Thar 5 door, but I guess that it's more suited to the Scorpio's high speed usage. Your solution of "Drive Faster and the bumps disappear" does work to an extent, but it works even better on the longer wheelbase Scorpio-N. lol: And I cherish every opportunity I get to enjoy long drives on the Scorpio.

In the video, Dhabarji is talking about the original Thar, which was the first Mahindra Jeep that actually handled. I remember reading his posts, where he spoke about the feeling you get when you pass a vehicle in a car and pull back into your lane and the benchmark being how the vehicle feels when you perform that maneuver. At the time, he got a lot of brickbats here from purists who were upset with him for opting for IFS instead of a live axle. As I recall, even some of the hardest opponents ended up buying the Thar themselves.

+1 to this. I wasn't willing to spend lakhs modifying an already over priced vehicle for ride quality, especially when I was pretty sure that I was not going to use the 4x4 almost ever. If the ride quality had been a bit better, I'd have gone for the 3-door, because of it's smaller size in the city.

Don't you think if a company like Force motors could get their vehicle to have a supple low speed ride, Mahindra who has been making Scorpio for 2 decades could have done the same thing? Softer springs & dampers , increase the steering ratio , maybe even add leaf springs like that of Qualis instead of the multilink etc and you will get maybe a Sumo instead, why would anyone do that?!

But it's not just Ghurkha, there has been N number of BOF vehicles that have come since the time of Scorpio and if only its numbers have increased over the years. The surprising thing is in 2014 they made it even stiffer, sharper and jumpier to the pedal with subsequent increase in sales as expected, their highest ever!!

Ghurkha won't sell till force motors figure out who their buyer is, Thar, XUV, Scorpio etc have good clarity in that sense from the OEM's perspective.

Comfort isn't a deal breaker for them.

One more thing - Thar 2 door with convertible top would have given you so much more to remember by now, but then it's not a practical family car no doubt. Some things are like this.