| re: My First Diesel car - Mahindra XUV 5OO - Power unleashed EDIT: Now sold!
Last update to the thread : ODO 1,17,000 kms.
I sold my XUV W8 last week at 1,17,000 kms after almost 6 years of ownership. Sharing below the love points and issues I faced of the vehicle throughout my ownership below -
Hate points first -
- Rattles/noise from seats and dashboard console.
- AC behaved weirdly few times. Stopped cooling and worked again after few hours as normal for the next 5k kms.
- Insufficient and noisy braking.
- Failure/hang issues of the Entertainment system. (Fixed)
- Frequent loosing of the Bonnet sensor causing random errors indicating that the Bonnet is open when it's not.
- Failure of the motorised ORVM over the period of time.
- Failure of Star-stop system (micro-hybrid)
- Airbag malfunction light on.
- Outside air entering the cabin in AC re-circulation mode. Not rectified by SA despite of me repeated attempt to make him understand of the issue.
- Clutch failure at 80k kms. Replaced under extended warranty free of cost after much persuasion to Mahindra customer care.
- Stiffer ride quality especially at low speeds.
- Overall fit and finish.
- Frequent visits to workshops for small issues. I have a running of 20k kms a year and get my XUV serviced once a year. But in the initial 4 or 5 years I had to visit workshops many times for trivial things - Bulb replacement, Noise fix, Power window unit replacement, AC fixes twice (due to wear and tear), headlight alignment, etc.
Loves -
- The engine, power, acceleration.
- Stance and feel of being safe in solid and well equipped vehicle.
- Loads of space. Perfect for my family of 5. I used it as 6-seater with decent luggage often. Served me well.
- AC is powerful and never disappointed with the performance unless failed twice or thrice.
- Excellent boot space as a 5-seater.
- I find the size of the XUV to be perfect on our road conditions. I can't imagine maneuvering a Fortuner or any other longer vehicle on the narrow city roads of Himachal or Uttarakhand. Realised this more after riding my Brother in Law's new Fortuner. It's huge.
- Reasonably priced spare sparts and service cost.
The disappointing factor with the Mahindra still is their Workshops. It's a pain to get things done at the Mahindra workshop. I experienced four of them at Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Dehradun and Sterling, Gurgaon. It takes more time for them to prepare billing then to fix the issue. Have to literally run behind the SA to get the things done. Their administrative part is bad. The mechanics and electricians I encountered were good and I don't remember going again to the workshop again for the same issue to be fixed. They never offered the free or even paid pick up and drop of the XUV as guaranteed by the so called PURPLE CLUB.
My reason to sell off the car was the drastically reduced resale value of my car due to 10-Year ban by NGT plus I need to spend around a lakh on my car for upcoming 120k kms service, rear disc replacement, four tyre changes and few dainting-painting jobs plus additional cost on diagnosing the issue of Airbag malfunction light and Micro-hybrid failure.
The first choice of upgrade was Fortuner or Endeavor. But test drive to my BIL's new Fortuner made it clear to me these big SUVs are not for me. I really liked to go for the Skoda Kodiaq even after knowing the gamble with their after sales service but high price of the vehicle ruled it out completely. The other choice left were new XUV and Crysta. Hexa was considered and ruled out due to non-availablity of the Service centre locally, high cost of the AT variant compared to new XUV and the other negatives from the T-bhp official reviews. Everybody wanted us to go for Crysta in the family but since our requirement for the auto transmission was very clear, difference of price between new XUV W7 vs Crysta ZX AT was around 8 lacs. Also, Toyota service centre is not available locally. But since Innova is considered to be a trouble free vehicle albeit with shorter service intervals than the XUV, it can be ignored to an extent. The things favoring XUV were as below -
1) Availabilty of service centre in the city.
2) Low Spare and service cost
3) Expectation of the new facelift to be more reliable/noise free than the first generation.
4) SUPPORTIVE and active Mahindra customer care who actually listens to the customer and favours them more than their dealers. I had many instances of it throughout my relationship with Mahindra and always satisfied with their positive and timely resolution. I accept and know their dealers/SA are not polished, prompt, supportive, technically sound than Honda or Toyota but little help from customer care definitely helped me in very big issues saving me over 80k of my money.
The reason to choose W7 variant was pure financial. After enjoying peace of mind of W8 variant owning a W7 is downgrade but it was a choice between W7 and W11. W9 is not worth it IMO. The price difference between W7 and W11 was not convincing to already skeptical other family members. Had there been Crysta VX AT or GX AT with -20% of the features of the W7, it would have been Crysta without a doubt.
Hope to get a trouble free plush new Mahindra experience in the years to come. Hoping to add Skoda Octavia, Kodiaq or a used Volvo XC60 in the next few years to the fleet.
Last edited by superbhikari : 30th July 2018 at 23:47.
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16th January 2014, 17:03
(2)
Thanks
. Anyways you are gonna love Plush Gen Auto, just the shift from 2nd gear to 3rd is a pain area initially. I have been told it gets better after first oil change, so will have to wait as i am still around 900kms till now.