Maruti Dzire to Mahindra XUV700 diesel MT upgrade: First Impressions

Before the 1st service, the SUV is returning a fuel efficiency of 16 km/l.

BHPian prakhar30 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hi Fellow BHPians,

I finally got my XUV 700 AX7L diesel manual White delivered last week. My initial delivery date was July-Aug but got preponed. Mine was under price protection and got it for Rs 19.89 lakh (ex-showroom) and the OTR price in Indore was Rs 24.35 lakh. I purchased insurance from outside since my father is in Oriental Insurance. I got the insurance for 60k (it includes the return to invoice clause as well).

Coming to the car, there are already a lot of reviews about features already on this platform so I am going to skip that, however, there are very few reviews for the AX7L diesel manual variant as I think that for most of the customers in this price range prefer an automatic and the Rs 1.5 lakh increase won't be that significant of an amount.

Couple of reasons I bought a manual:

1. I wanted a manual as this will be one of the last ICE I will own and EVs come with automatics only, so just wanted one last vehicle with proper old school manual transmission.
2. Little bit more fuel-efficient.

Having said that, I must say the gearbox is smooth and gear ratios are good. However 1st gear is tall and has too much torque so quickly that you have to get it to the second.
Also, there is an auto-hold button but it doesn't work with the manual gearbox. Confirmed this with SA when he came home for installation. Apart from auto-hold and adaptive cruise control, all the features of the Luxury variant are in line with the automatic variant.

The electronic parking brake, 360-degree camera and Sony music system are worth mentioning and spending the extra bucks.

One thing I want to mention about IRVM, as everyone said this is part where the cost-cutting has been done. I agree with this but I also see that IRVM has little to no use when there are 7 people sitting. Even without last row occupants, it is not much of help. ORVMs are good and big enough. I was driving Dzire in which I used IRVM a lot but in this one, even in city traffic, it is of less use.

As of now before the first service, the car is giving me 16 km/l on a tank-to-tank basis and 18.1 km/l on MID. I have rarely crossed 100 km/h and mostly cruised on highways around 80 km/h.

One annoying thing I found is there are too many irritating sounds and warnings on MID:

1. Indicator (why would you have this sound? and no option to turn it off)
2. ADAS sounds
3. Blind Spot warning

Overall, the shift from Dzire to this beast has been easy and smooth. The car is sorted and touchwood has no niggles as of now. Dealer experience has been great and explained each and everything in detail post 4 days of delivery at home. I got 7D Mats, a screen guard and mudflaps as accessories as I am planning to go for full PPF so post that will plan other accessories.

I am thinking is there anything we can do to save the soiling of the light-coloured seats? Has anyone found any good seat cover options for the Luxury variant?

Attaching few pics

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