Accessories on my Thar which helped me improve its interior ergonomics

All of them fit directly into existing anchor points, with no drilling or permanent adjustments required.

BHPian arunpools recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Recently, I added a bunch of things to improve the interior ergonomics of my Thar. I got the rear and front armrests from Mahindra Accessories. These were available at the dealership at the time when I took delivery of my car. Unfortunately, these armrests were not listed as genuine accessories in the Thar accessories catalogue. Anyway, I have got these now. They are not the quality that you would expect if fitted directly by the manufacturer but are far better than many I considered from other aftermarket brands. No drilling or anything all goes to existing anchoring points. The rear ones came at 12k and from one at 4k. Could have come cheaper but I think I didn’t strangle the Sales guy enough to reduce the price. The rear armrests do reduce the rear seat's usable area somewhat. Have a look.

I have also added these roll cage hugging bags that I got from Amazon. The accessories are from Armaro. I came to know about these from a blog by Shankar Balan. Thanks for that. These are big enough for all the stuff that one would imagine to put in a normal car. An Eureka Forbes vacuum cleaner, a Michelin Air compressor, some puncture repair kit, some cleaning clothes etc., all find a home inside these cylindrical bags. They are well-made and look extremely durable.

I have had enough of USB cable plugging and unplugging for Android Auto every time I drove the car. So, I got myself a wireless Android Auto device from Amazon. The device is sold by a company called Ottocast. I would have preferred Motorola MA1 if I had a choice. MA1 seems to be the only one approved by Google but I couldn't get one online.

One word of caution with Ottocast, they have two separate models for Android Auto and Apple Car Play. If you have both types of phones at home and intend to connect them to the car, then you have to consider buying their higher and more premium version device that supports both Android and Apple devices.

Anyways, the Android version in my case is pretty much stable and gets connected in about 15-20 seconds. The connection stability is also good in my case and has worked seamlessly except for those random times when it doesn’t connect at startup. No lags or anything to report. I bought the device at 8K which I consider to be a premium. Probably it's worth 4 or 5K.

One quirky thing that I noticed is that even after the car is switched off, the Ottocast device remains ON for some time. The car USB port, into which this thing is plugged, powers it for some 3 minutes after you take your key out and lock the car. At first, I was a bit sceptical about keeping the device plugged in after switching off the car. Scary memories of a crazy ‘smart GPS tracking device’ that went into the OBD port of my XUV 500 managing to drain the car battery came to my mind. I wouldn’t leave any device that draws power from the car while it's switched off connected to the car unless it’s something that the car manufacturer has installed. That meant unplugging the Wireless Adaptor every time switched off the car. But the replugging it at car startup would have negated its utility altogether. But some experimentation with the car proved that indeed the power switched off after a while. At least I think that is the case.

Ok, that’s about it.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.