So finally, I had an opportunity to drive the car out of state to my native - a longish 700km drive! The good part of this was fantastic NH48 stretch between Tumkur to Belgaum. The rains accompanied us all the way upto Dharwad. Even when the it was pouring on the road, we were able to maintain easy 100km cruise control! Looking around, it seems like this year, summer was very short - greeneries already all around.
We clicked many pictures of the car, enjoyed the good music and great drive. Some pictures from his drive and a few earlier too:
I have observed this AWD widget showing the rear wheel having some min power even at highway cruising speeds too: contrary to what I expected (AWD is only when the speeds are below 80kmph, else its pure FWD all the time).
The car now stands at 9100kms, by the time I am back in BLR, it would be around 10500 and should be well within range of second service too.
By the way, the observation from the onward drive in rain are listed below:
- The MRF Wanderer tires aren’t as great as I thought. Especially the wet grip part of it. On the six lane smooth highway, there were few puddles on the inner most fast lane. When the car went over it at about 110-120kmph speeds, I experienced the clear aquaplaning. So much so that, at one point the car almost skid and was to hit the median. Since the speeds were not very high, I was able to steer and not end up hitting the curb. I think these tires aren’t anywhere close to the Yokos I had or Michelin for sure. I definitely want to replace these sooner with something that is grippy on highways as well as good for mild offroading.
- The Auto-sensing wipers do they job perfectly well. Unlike the old car where the auto mode used to get reset after every power recycling, this one holds the settings. The reason is, in XUV7OO, the auto wiper is a left side stalk position and not any soft button. That is a good change form the earlier car. The speed at which it wipes the windshield is good too. And this time, the rear wiper has normal and INT mode. The old car had just ON or OFF - you got the angry wipe actions or just standstill!
- In the rain, as the muck and dirt gets tossed around, the 360 cameras get dirty and the visibility gets impacted. The SVS doesn’t help unless you get down and clean the cameras. The SVS is also not as great as I thought for night time. The headlights, cameras are all slightly dirty to throw light and catch the light to show on the console. Result - very poor view all around in an unlit area. I had challenges in reversing car in our narrow village roads at night. I think I need to make sure that even slight dust or dirt in camera is promptly cleaned. I was hoping for the better camera covers/ glass that repels some level of dust or dirt. Asking for the headlight washers is too much to ask for I guess :(
- The door pockets have umbrella storing holes - they are truly useless. Neither they have am ergonomic placement to use nor large enough to hold the regular short stalk umbrellas. The best is to use the ladies handbag umbrella whose stalk is less than 10 inches (overall less than a ft height).
- 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…
Mahindra has a lot of such nuisance “features” in the car - which presumably are features but at least me as a user, doesn’t use them the way they have designed it. May be I am spoiled with ability to customise things on my smartphone and this isn't a smartphone!
Anyway, more to come as we continue our drives - this year’s monsoon would be a great fun!