[HillMan]

MRF wanderer tyres by my experience are good for city use. Even though they lose grip on wet roads the water don't splash on your windscreen. While most tyres with good road grip on wet surface trend to throw water in all directions including the windscreen, which is blinding.
So i guess driving on puddles at high speed is a no no for sure.

[yatesh.92]

Glad to hear that you didn't have a serious incident due to aquaplaning. IMO, for safety reasons it's best to avoid triple digit speeds on the highway atleast in wet conditions even if you are driving a high end car.

Originally Posted by abirnale

- The white interiors get dirty very fast, especially with our village soil and rain and mud. They can be cleaned up easily too but while it is dirty, they just look real eyesore in the cabin. I can’t force my family to every time clean their feet, hands and then enter the cabin. Never if its raining…

Completely agree with you on this. The white interior panels on my Ignis attract a lot of dust hence need frequent cleaning even though the car stays covered when not in use. Mahindra should consider all black/black + tan dual tone seat upholstery atleast as an optional package considering that white would be a headache to maintain in Indian conditions.

[abirnale]

After a good 2000Km round trip, we are back in BLR as of Saturday. The first longish drive we have ever had in this car - I am sure there will be more of those. We got to explore more and enjoyed the journey thoroughly. Some more pictures from our visits to our farm are included below.







The FE - Did not expect this on MID ever for an AT of this size! The actual average T2T method fr the entire trip returned about 13.x though.








The milestone, with fancy ODO number. Now its at 10550kms.


A clean car - no this wasn't the ASC visit, just happened to be a coffee stop and a safe parking outside ASC.


The car gathered a lot of dirt - a good car wash fixed everything the next day after arrival in BLR. The new footmats held well, the seats are still not as much soiled as I thought and it still feels good to get behind the wheel.

The FE will be amazing if I drive in Zip mode, at around 100kmph with occasional bursts. The Zap mode returns lower FE by a km or two depending on how you drive. And obviously, in Zoom mode, we shouldn't be talking of FE

While in MH, I extensively used the remote AC/ Car Start feature to beat the heat every time the car was parked outside in the sun and we needed to get into it. Worked every time like breeze! ADAS, Auto AWD, and ICE worked perfectly - no issues whatsoever.

Coming up next - 10K service updates!

[Sandegov]

That’s a pretty decent mileage for an AWD

How’s your suspension holding up? any noises ? I am seeing a lot of folks on YouTube complaining about suspension noise suddenly!

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by Sandegov

How’s your suspension holding up? any noises? I am seeing a lot of folks on YouTube complaining about suspension noise suddenly!

So far so good - no loud thuds, no Pushpa effect, all is well - except that ASC thought no WA WB needed whereas the trusted WA system shows it does!

And so here is 10K Kms Service - Second Free Service Updates:
As always, a quick note to Chrome contact and planned visit for this important on Tuesday (yesterday). The car is ready again for the next 10k Kms!

Highlights of this service -

• Oil Change (Engine oil as well as differential oil)
• Oil Filter
• Cabin AC Filter (The Smart Filter, single-piece known as Carbon Filter)
• General Inspection
• Additional customer ask - Spare Tire TPMS enablement

The pictures from the service visit are below:

The brake pads from the front tires: different sensor designs than XUV5OO:


The disk looks so rusted, had to spray WD40 as well. My car does have a small brake noise at slow speed when coming to standstill:


The Engine Oil details used:


The Spare tire now showing up on the MID, the alerts also show up on Adrenox App:


The summary bill:


Current tire condition: Note that the new spare has a different make and brand and tread pattern, keeping that as spare for now.


The WB report - tires rotated too.


The WA report, before and after


Important observations:

• The Engine Oil used is semi-synthetic, 6 Ltrs, Mahindra Maximile branded.
• The Differential Oil consumed is 1.8 Ltrs, again Maximile branded.
• The Brake pads from the front have shown a good amount of wear - may last another 3-4K km max, about 6mm thickness left.
• The ASC did not do any WA/WB. So I had to do the tire rotation and WA/WB with my usual tire center. They noticed the changes in the rear wheels, removed those shady default weights, and added the stick types.
• The TPMS Auto-learn works like charm if you rotate tires, the spare tire setup is a different gameplan. You need to enable Spare Tire through iSmart from the CoTek toolkit, force Manual TPMS learning through the diagnostic console on the OBD connected computer and then you are all set. This isn't something you can do on your own as we did in XUV5OO.
• There is a new Software Update due for cars with issues related to display going blank, speaker jarring, etc. Since my car does not have any of these issues, I asked them to not touch the ICE software. I will do the update now only when the Apple CarPlay comes - eagerly waiting!
• The overall service cost I had to pay was Rs. 5,339. Only consumables were charged. Post free services, they will add labour charges extra.

As usual, stellar job by Chrome Motors ASC and The Red Sparkle is ready for another long road trip coming weekend!

Stay tuned

[Sandegov]

Originally Posted by abirnale

So far so good - no loud thuds, no Pushpa effect, all is well - except that ASC thought no WA WB needed whereas the trusted WA system shows it does!

Thanks, good to know that the suspension is holding up well.

Originally Posted by abirnale

The Spare tire now showing up on the MID, the alerts also show up on Adrenox App:
Attachment 2315250


As usual, stellar job by Chrome Motors ASC and The Red Sparkle is ready for another long road trip coming weekend!

Stay tuned

This is fantastic , going to be the first thing on my to do list post my AWD delivery. Glad that you have been having a good experience with Chrome motors - I may need a referral to your service advisor if you can please, this is close to my place.

[rpmmachine]

Originally Posted by abirnale

Highlights of this service -

• Additional customer ask - Spare Tire TPMS enablement

• The TPMS Auto-learn works like charm if you rotate tires, the spare tire setup is a different gameplan. You need to enable Spare Tire through iSmart from the CoTek toolkit, force Manual TPMS learning through the diagnostic console on the OBD connected computer and then you are all set. This isn't something you can do on your own as we did in XUV5OO.

The Spare tire now showing up on the MID, the alerts also show up on Adrenox App

Can you please advise the cost of the TMPS including installation (for spare Tyre) and also how much time it took for the guy to calibrate it? If possible please attach the bill.

I am not getting any signals on the embedded e-sim, just got once or twice and there is no pattern how it got. Anything you have heard about this from your SA?

Thanks for the update, I will also check for the Brake pads during my upcoming service.

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by rpmmachine

Can you please advise the cost of the TMPS including installation (for spare Tyre) and also how much time it took for the guy to calibrate it? If possible please attach the bill.

I had recently bought:

• 17,000 - The Spare Alloy (Old cost, now its 16,388 on m2all)
• 899 - Sensor Cost
• 4199 - Anti theft wheel bolts

Since I went to Madhu’s Tyre Center (well-known on this forum, run by our member) to buy the full size Yoko Geolander SUV tire, fitting was free. Cost of this tire is additional - choose the same make model as your existing tires (for matching capabilities over thread pattern, etc. etc.). I picked Yoko as I am going to switch soon (after 20K kms).

The physical fitment etc is same as you would do for spare tire - nothing extra needed to mount on the car.

For the enablement on the MID: The iSmart tool from CoTek’s computer needs to connect via OBD, inside configuration, they need to enable the spare tire. Now let car auto-learn the TPMS by driving for around 2-3 kms. Since the spare tire does not have any movement, most likely, spare wont auto-learn. Since the spare tire was enabled in earlier step and TPMS did not detect the spare tire, it will throw an error. use the laptop and scan again - the error cleanup routine will ask you to manually force TPMS learning. Once you do that, MID will take you to the step-by-step learning process. It involves learning each tire by releasing the air rapidly as MID tell you to. Once the learning of all tires is done, using Tire Fill Assist on MID, top-up the air and you are good to go.

All of this drama will easily take 30mins! If you are out of your luck, may take well over an hour too.

[jithin23]

Nice updates and 10k kms in such a short span is amazing!

Regarding the MRFs I think almost all OE MRF tyres are not great for highways.

The service cost too is fair enough (even if we include labor at 2.5-3k) for a 30L SUV.

Wishing you blissful miles on this steed and the red and black combo looks hot!

[DieselWanderer]

Hi Abirnale!
Thanks for the continuous updates! I just have few questions
- With the xuv700 tank being 50l, Has this impacted your highway range? The xuv500 came with a 70 litre tank and my current car(xuv500at) gives me a range of around 840kms on highways. What range do you get from your car?
- Have you faced any def issues when using in city?
Thanks

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by DieselWanderer

Hi Abirnale!
Thanks for the continuous updates! I just have few questions
- With the xuv700 tank being 50l, Has this impacted your highway range? The xuv500 came with a 70 litre tank and my current car(xuv500at) gives me a range of around 840kms on highways. What range do you get from your car?
- Have you faced any def issues when using in city?
Thanks

Thank you!

• The XUV7OO Diesel tank size is 60 ltrs. That easily gives around 600kms in almost all scenarios. Hasn’t really affected my driving in anyway so far. I refill towards end of journey to MH and that has stayed as-is. Earlier I used to refill at border because fuel is cheap and I still do the same. thats about 500-550 kms from BLR home! So nothing really changed. The range is subjective - I still can extract about 750 kms a tank if I am in mood to spend that much time on road.
• The DEF tank is 20 Ltrs. At all visits to ASC, I insist that if the level is below 70%, they should just refill, not wait until we go to the wire.
• No issues with DEF so far. At about 10K, it would have eaten about one tank of DEF. I do drive in City pretty much everyday about 20kms or so, and so far no issues. Not even once manual or system triggered REGEN has taken place. Must be because of my highway drives.

[abirnale]

This is a late post - covering the trip we had last weekend to Kumta and then a night spent at CKM. Two different locations and two totally different moods!

The first part is covered here: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-...ml#post5332191 A spirited drive with buddies to Kumta, a great beach side evening chatting about cars and things and then a quick dash to coffee country, that was a great trip. While Saturday was spent with friends, Sunday I spent at CKM, Halli Berri Cottage with my daughter. The first part of the trip destination was hot and humid while the second was filled with mystic rains!

Here are a few pictures from that fun trip which took the car odometer to 12000Kms now.



































I also got some beautiful aerial views of the beach and Halli Berri cottages, the off-roading in the coffee plantation - hope to put them in a short video.

[abirnale]

I did a rookie job to stitch together some videos and pictures together into the video below:

https://youtu.be/W2a0eqNOskk

The aerial shots are from mini2 while the off-roading trail recordings come from trusted GoPro. I hope to make a better job of adding a nicer music to the video 😬

Thank you and looking forward to more drives and some rains.

[abirnale]

A lazy start from home, heading into the western ghat and just going around without agenda - thats a perfect weekend trip. The bonus part is - great homestay, best weather, perfectly calm surroundings, lot of bird sighting, great drive to unknown and unseen terrains. Western ghats are just beautiful around this time of the year!

See for yourself:







The non-existent network connectivity in the region made sure that I couldn’t mark the exact the location - it’s somewhere around Kolavara/ Koppa area. Totally forgot to mark it on the offline MMI maps too :(

The best part is - the RedSparkle keeps sparkling always. brings the smile on our faces every time we head out. Be it highway or state roads or non-existent trails, this all wheel drive cars gives confidence to keep going. Of course I cant be stupid to take it into 4WD terrain. AWD terrains are different! Driving into the ghats was never so much fun! Unleashing the power to overtake so called peppy sedans and hatches on winding ghat roads was fun - I am almost confident that that was the driver in them and not the cars themselves who weren’t getting best out of their cars. The brakes are confidence inspiring. Car doesn’t sway at the rear. The youngest as well as slightly eldest members of family didn’t throw up on the winding roads. There is no niggle so far with car mechanics - touchwood. Ad the best part is - where google failed to route/ re-route or locate destination/ roads, MMI perfectly knew which directions to take! This was one of those trips where I had it as completely unplanned (even with family in the tow). No offline stored maps on google, no internet connectivity - the Red Sparkle did not let us get lost in a literal sense. Instead it just connected us back to the nature - see those teaser images I posted above - the terrain was like a mini Himalayan region!

Some issues with ICE (like loosing BT connection of music alone, phone in tact), slow reading of 64GB USB pen drive for music and extremely slow triangulation of GPS on the ghat roads are a few to report though. The GPS signals may be due to cloudy day/ misty or rainy atmosphere - the weird part is, even the phone Google maps wasn’t updating properly so I brushed this aside as one-off situation.

As usual, working on stitching together all images, footages to make a clip for you all. The large part of this work is convincing my daughter to help with

The Red Sparkle now proudly displays 13250K kms on the odometer. In the next two weeks, it is sure to cross over 15K kms.

Stay tuned, more coming up.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by abirnale

See for yourself:

Wow! These are absolutely fantastic pictures, abirnale! The color coordination is brilliant. The warm earth colors and that muddy water flowing under the bridge create a very coherent and mesmerizing images. Especially the third image. That one looks like it is out of some professional magazine. Brilliant photography!

The red car blends so well in those earthen colors, without looking out of place. That is why I love red cars . They are lovely for photography. They go well on the warm earthen color, as well as on the cooler green of the forests and trees.

Thank you for sharing these pictures. Looking forward to more pictures of your RedSparkle from the upcoming drives.