News

Are Mahindra XUV700's small rear indicators safe enough?

10th March 2023, 17:02 by Rahul Nagaraj

AX3, AX5 AX7 variants will not be getting sequential indicators retrofitted from Mahindra as this feature has now been officially removed.

BHPian vikash49 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

As per Mahindra's website, only the top AX7 Luxury variant of the XUV 700 comes with Sequential Indicators like these.

All other variants like AX3, AX5 and AX7 don't have them. So I was expecting my AX7 Petrol AT (non-L) to come with full-length static indicators but I was disappointed to see that in reality, the rear indicators are like this.

Only the tiny corner portions of the indicators are lighting up and the door portion of the indicator strip does not light up at all.

As you can see in the video, these lighted portions are not only very small but also on the far corners and hence barely visible from the straight behind the position. And hence, could easily be missed during day time and cause a safety risk.

Should Mahindra not be providing at least static indicators for the whole strip? Please, share your thoughts.

P.S. And unlike what the video says, AX3, AX5 AX7 variants will not be getting sequential indicators retrofitted from Mahindra as this feature has now been officially removed from the spec list. Only AX7L variants will be getting replacements at a later date.

Here's what BHPian Manualpurist had to say on the matter:

I've seen many XUV7OOs and these small turn signals are just fine but what I've noticed is that the rear ones are not in sync with the ones on the ORVM and when they are turned on it looks like two cars have their turn signals on. Could you please check on that one? Thanks.

Here's what BHPian AYP had to say on the matter:

I do agree that turn indicators on cars need to be bigger and ideally, span the entire length of the tail light. With the earlier simpler cars with halogens all around, this hardly used to be an issue but with newer cars with full or partial LEDs, the turn indicators have become slimmer. While their being slim is not an issue the limited length in cars like the XUV 7OO or the Taigun does make them a wee bit more difficult to be spotted. Pretty sure that there are at least a couple more similar examples.

Now, if the question is, 'Are they safe enough?', I'd say Yes, they are. Personally, I never fail to not notice them. But, would bigger turn indicators be safer? Yes again. In the absence of any regulation w.r.t. the length, I am pretty sure that examples like these are here to stay. While I would like to appeal to the government to come up with a regulation for the same, going by their record on handling matters related to vehicles in general, I am a bit sceptical about the same.

Here's what BHPian wild child had to say on the matter:

Nice observation!

It is programmed in such a way that when it works as a sequential turn indicator, the first LED of the light element mounted in the boot door lights up in sync with the LED on the ORVMs. The remaining LEDs of the rear indicator then light up in succession. So by the time the fag end LED is on, the LED in the ORVM is already glowing.

However, without the sequential turn indicators, only the fag end of the indicator lights up. So as per the programmed logic, there appears to be a delay in operation between the LEDs lighting up at the rear and the ORVM.

Here's what BHPian bobbyblr had to say on the matter:

I found Performance Requirements for Direction Indicators for Motor Vehicles from the ARAI website by google search. I am attaching this document here. Also, I am sharing a few screenshots from this document which will be helpful. Please feel free to go through this document fully.

The indicator intensity in candela is given in this table: