[arjab]

Nice clicks!

Any particular reason as to why you have kept the towing-eye screwed in/fixed to the vehicle?

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by arjab

Any particular reason as to why you have kept the towing-eye screwed in/fixed to the vehicle?

Nothing specific - just lazy to take it out after I tried the hook last time. I observed that actually, it is serving as a deterrent in traffic for other cars that tail too much closer. I am aware of the risk it has in case there is a high-speed rear-ending the impact will be carried into the body. Besides, it looks good in Red (if I paint!)

Originally Posted by abirnale

The Saturday early morning, I saw this warning on the MID console. Using the portable tire inflator simply topped up the air and continued with the drive. So far, haven't fixed the puncture (most likely as the air keeps reducing and I simply keep inflating and driving). I will attend to this tomorrow or the day after.

I attended to this puncture today. Thought this is worth mentioning - the XUV7OO wheels have the lug bolts. They need 17 mm sockets, so my old socket with sturdy tommy bar isn't going to be used as-is. I need to find a new socket now. By the way, read this to understand various types of bolts.

These are good ones with a flip side - These bolts make changing the brake rotor easy but an added hassle of lining up the wheel and brake rotor when mounting wheels/tires!

Here is how these bolts are, the rotor, and obviously the culprit that caused air loss on Saturday.







thanks for reading!

[Mudhalaipatti]

@abirnale, would you mind explaining how to set a user profile. Mine is stuck at guest and I can't add a user profile from the screen.

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by Mudhalaipatti

@abirnale, would you mind explaining how to set a user profile.

You can see this video and do the changes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xCkwVp__gg

What I have noticed is - to see the option active, you need to have the car in neutral gear for MT/ Park gear for AT and not moving.

The profile on the car can be linked with the profile on your Adrenox App, Keyfob too. Options exists on the ICE screen if you follow above link.

[Mudhalaipatti]

Originally Posted by abirnale

You can see this video and do the changes:

https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=3xCkwVp__gg

What I have noticed is - to see the option active, you need to have the car in neutral gear for MT/ Park gear for AT and not moving.
.

Thank you so much. I had been trying this option when the vehicle was in motion and the profile selection options were all greyed out. I tried it when the vehicle was parked in neutral and was able to set the profile. Awesome tip.

[abirnale]

Got wheels? Must drive... all of them!

It's been a month since got this baby home. It's unusual that there have not been any real trips - only short drives. Drives without destination. 2300Kms on the odometer is still good progress, I think. Earlier on Wednesday got a call from our dear friends with Thar if I wanted to explore some nearby trails and give my AWD a little workout. It was too sweet a deal to say no - two Thars, escorting all the way from beginning to end, what more one can ask for!

@Tilt and @Robimahanta were available for the quick morning drive along with @Zebo - started around 6 am, caught up with everyone just before Ragihalli Forest Gate and together went in around forest area, towards Anekal and then later to Gangadhareshwara Hill. Finally reached Kanakpura Road and back home by 12noon to resume the work. I love these Fridays more than weekends!

Since there were just too many pictures and videos, I stitched them into a clip (auto-generated by iMovie) and uploaded it for quick view. The top view of the hill can be seen after the 3:10 min mark. Gives you a perspective of the climb as well as the terrain around it:

https://youtu.be/1JQH8XEQ1Pk

The route is almost well tarred all around this area with exception of village trail roads. Instead of charting a specific trail, we simply headed into every mud-road we could find and see on Google Maps terrain view to exploring. The areas I have been going to using the normal roads, this time tried with dirt and bad road trails. And at the last, we conquered the Gangadhareshwara Hills The roads to the hilltop goes through the villages, they are very very narrow. You would either get stuck or spend too much time navigating through those lanes inside the village. Also, end up disturbing the village life. Instead one should pick the road from the KPR side bypassing the village. The challenge is - there is a lake bund work where the cement pipes are laid halfway - your car must make over them.

Here are some pictures of today's trail exploration:



















AWD experience:
The XUV7OO is a soft-roader, period. It is important to note that the car doesn't have the kind of 4L mode the real SUVs have. It's also important to know that this car isn't meant for hardcore offroading. There aren't any driving modes to select. It does offer the HDC - Hill Descent Control. This is a by-product of the ESP system that brakes itself while the car tries to come down violently. You can also manually slot the AT box into the first gear and come down from the hill. Since this is a small hill, AT overheating is a distant possibility. Even in 1M, the speed of the car will be rolling down up to 20kmph, which is a lot. So if you engage HDC, you can control the speed using Cruise set+ and - buttons. Habitually, it's just easier to use the brakes and 1M instead of HDC. I felt more comfortable using 1M + brakes. Of course, brakes can heat up too - but then again this is a small descent, nothing to worry about. Also, the AWD lock was forced manually and the speeds were always lower than 30 kmph.

It basically is a capable car that can do some good speeds o the road, AWD helps avoid torque steer. I have seen on certain sections of the highway, the AWD widget glowing the first two bars even at the speed of 80kmph! I do not know when it starts and when it disengages. All I know and experience is, it kicks in 99% time you want it to. AWD kicks in reality yo

As you are aware, there is a dedicated AWD button on the driver's console to force the car in AWD mode - how much power goes to the rear wheels is still the car's decision! But when you do, the car shows a different side of it that pleasantly surprises you. While we went on the rocks, drove through mud roads with large potholes, waterways, the car was holding alright. The traction not even once felt to have lost. The power is more than adequate. Climbing on the steep paths is extremely easy. The so-called gizmos for holding on the hill, controlling descent, surround-view - thankfully all worked as expected, except once ESP blinked again for a moment when I wanted it to just shut off

The articulation of the wheels and body, like you, might have seen on the special AWD testing track, isn't really the practical scenario today. But on numerous occasions, one or more wheels went into the air and the car did not feel out of control at any moment. While climbing the gradients, small or large humps, the wheels did not spin out of control - the speed was maintained at the crawling level and the car did the rest. Again note that the car neither has trail-rated shoes nor the terrain needed anything more than 4H for the seasoned off-roaders who were with me, the Thars.



At the last hairpin bend on the way to the hilltop, the ESP yellow blinking light flashed. So all I had to do, was brake and hold for a few seconds, it stabilised the car and then hold on to the line and let AWD do the job. The 450 NM torque easily make the rest of the work look like a cakewalk. Luckily not even once the underbody even touch any obstacle!

While doing these trails, I found below observation, which in my mind needs attention by M&M - if they are reading this:

• The SVS system automatically stops after 15kmph - during offroading, this is a must-have feature and should be kept streaming the view for at least until 30 kmph speed.
• Swithing between the front and rear cameras isn't a great on-screen UI. It's not easy to choose the cameras in a quick millisecond. You have to stop/ brake and carefully touch the small 4x4mm screen icon, two clicks to switch into cameras. Couldn't it be simpler?
• The Front Radar module keeps detecting the tall grass as an obstacle and warns you (or brakes if you kept AEBS ON). To ensure these things aren't enabled on the trail. I need a shortcut or one quick hardware button to enable or disable these things!
• The front radar module is located behind the front bumper at the lowermost part - no idea if it will hold longer during a water crossing. Don't know if there will be any water seepage or damage to it during the monsoon? I guess I will know it only when that happens. Today, no issues though.
• The car width is not an ideal one to take the narrow trails. I have picked up a lot of battle scars today - the scratches due to the bushes on the trailside. But no regrets, I will paint the whole car in a couple of years! Daag Acche hai, so are the scratches!

As soon as back to the urban jungle, got the car washed and ready for the next expedition again.



Have a great weekend and take care of yourself. Keep driving.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by abirnale

Got wheels? Must drive... all of them!

Awesome update and a great report @abirnale! Kudos to you for taking your XUV700 on a real off-road trail and doing what you did. I have rarely (if at all) seen any other reports of such proper off-roading tests on the AWD system on any XUV. Yours is one of the rare such reports and deserves an applause for that.

The observations and insights you shared on how the AWD system behaves are quite interesting and useful to understand more about this relatively less discussed topic of the actual performance of Mahindra's AWD system. Thank you for sharing such a detailed report!

This thread is already turning into a very informative thread on XUV700. Looking forward to your regular updates and further trip reports.

[Sandegov]

Thanks for this Informative post on the AWD capabilities of XUV 700, how do you find the stock tires so far? in terms of road noise and grip levels? I am slightly inclined towards changing them over to Michelin Primacy SUV at delivery for a more silent and gripper drive and your inputs would help decide if it makes sense to take on that cost now or put it off to later date.

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Looking forward to your regular updates and further trip reports.

Thanks, AD - I am so so looking forward to clicking my red car with yours! For sure in the monsoon drive in the green back-drop, they will be eye candies!

Originally Posted by Sandegov

...how do you find the stock tires so far? in terms of road noise and grip levels?...

The stock tires are strictly street/ highway tires. They are silent (Definitely as silent as my old Michelin HP Lattitude - my first ever set. Or maybe it's because the cabin is silent and nicely filters all the noises, I don't hear it even at the lower side of triple-digit speeds. The tires will do fine in most conditions, have good grips but are not the best option for off-roading. Just because the exchange from these to newer ones doesn't have considerable financial benefits, I chose to keep these. I will move to LTX at a later date when these tires show their age. Just because I was curious to see AWD, I ventured into the areas and trails that otherwise generally my car wouldn't need to. My suggestion to you if you asked for - exchange if financially it makes sense, else live with these for a couple of years and then switch.

Sunday evening:
We spent another beautiful Sunday evening driving around the KA-TN border through Aiyar forest, Panchapalli Dam and clicked these beautiful pics for my readers:

[Sandegov]

Originally Posted by abirnale

The stock tires are strictly street/ highway tires. They are silent (Definitely as silent as my old Michelin HP Lattitude - my first ever set. Or maybe it's because the cabin is silent and nicely filters all the noises, I don't hear it even at the lower side of triple-digit speeds. The tires will do fine in most conditions, have good grips but are not the best option for off-roading.

Thanks much for this feedback, I’ll roll with the stock tires - my use is mostly on city streets and highways and looks like the stock ones do a good job on these surfaces

[abirnale]

Since we are not getting some opportunity to do longer trips, we are going after every chance we could drive out even if it is for a short duration!

We recently went through two interesting drives - first - via BG-KPR forest road towards Muninagara Dam and then into a completely unmarked forest trail with no fences. On this trail I am unable to even get onto the maps with the terrain and being out of cell phone coverage, neither is my location tracking got updated. The trail was memorable as it involved very bad roads with gravel and mud, perfect for my AWD and the route offered a lot of birds sightings - spotted a large family of Indian Paradise Flycatchers with juveniles, male and female - all in their best habitat. The best part is - the car engine is so silent at crawling speed, birds didn't even notice we being closer to them. Love it!

Some pictures around the trail:











The second trip was a longish one involving the highway drive! On Sunday afternoon we took the Bangalore - Hassan stretch to find some isolated spots around Gorur dam. The place was serene, accessible with high GC cars. All you need to do is - look at the maps, find those tiny white lines that go closer to the backwaters. Park at a place it is safe and risk-free and then enjoy the sunset and beautiful cold breeze blowing over water. This was the longest highway drive on the car so far - absolutely fun! Didn't even use Zoom mode but the feel is really pumping the adrenaline! The overtaking was easy - without a drama. I was apprehensive about how the car will behave compared to the MT tranny. Will I get that surge movement that I used to in my old car by holding onto the gear or dropping a cog down sometimes? I think AT just understands your intents to move faster or slower - obviously, it's not instantaneous but as soon as you push the pedal down, the car knows you want it to hold the gear and keep accelerating. It was a mad adrenaline rush when I tried this in Zoom mode! The movement on the road through traffic is like dancing at your own will! The tires aren't as noisy as I thought. And the best part is - even when we were stuck in the traffic-crowd of parol-returning Bangalore crowd over Sunday weekend after long holi weekend, I did not feel exhausted at all. It took me about 30 mins from the last toll on Mangalore highway to Nelmangala Elevated toll road and another 30 minutes in a standstill situation on the NICE road! When people were going mad and driving crazy, I was letting the AT and EPB/ Auto-Hold do their job without freaking out!

Here are some clicks from this drive:



















On the highway, the combination of all drives, the car gave a FE of 12.2 or so (tankful to thankful). And yes, the speeds mostly hovering above 100, occasionally with inaudible speed beeps

Another long drive in planning - hopefully, it materializes this weekend.

Oh and I also love this Google Photos auto-creations - then and now - made my day!



Thank you for reading!

[quantobigboot]

Awesome thread man!
Just noticed that your XUV's roof is blacked out, whereas dual tone isn't an option from the factory. Did you get it wrapped from dealership itself?

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by quantobigboot

Awesome thread man!
Just noticed that your XUV's roof is blacked out, whereas dual tone isn't an option from the factory. Did you get it wrapped from dealership itself?

Yes, that’s right. Sorry, forgot to add this earlier. I got this thing done from 3M, Koramangala. It’s a 2080 Wrap series for dual tone with gloss black that matches with other gloss black parts. It costed me around ₹28400.

[padmrajravi]

The gloss black roof really adds to its looks. Mahindra should have a dual-tone variant like this. Not that they are short of booking anyway.

Any plans to blackout the six vertical lines in the grill? I think the XUV will look a lot more menacing if those silver lines were not there.

[sridhar-v]

Originally Posted by abirnale

Yes, that’s right. Sorry, forgot to add this earlier. I got this thing done from 3M, Koramangala. It’s a 2080 Wrap series for dual tone with gloss black that matches with other gloss black parts. It costed me around ₹28400.

Did you have to modify the RC, at your local RTO, for the wrap?