Upgraded from my XUV500 AT to an XUV700 AX7L diesel AT

I had become an admirer of Mahindra with the XUV500 but with this one, I feel proud of what Mahindra has brought to the market.

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On December 1st, NBS sent me confirmation that the car had reached the stockyard. I was shell shocked as I wasn’t expecting the car until July/August 2022. I hadn’t planned the finances and had not even looked for a buyer for the XUV5OO W10 AT. After many inspections from various aggregators and nonviable offers, I thought I would lose the opportunity to get the XUV700. But just before I was about to call the dealer and cancel my booking, I got an unexpected call from a neighbour asking if I was still interested in selling my car. The deal was a win win for both of us. While the deal was done, he needed 2 weeks to make the payment and I genuinely believed him as he said he didn’t want to take a loan and would be breaking his FDs. Nice chap, so I obliged and asked for a token amount. Now it was time to speak to my relationship manager at NBS and ask for more time to take delivery as I needed about 3 weeks to arrange for finances at my end. And they were very accommodating. We agreed on December 21 as the day to make all payments and take delivery around Christmas.

Took delivery of my Everest White AX7L diesel AT on Christmas Eve. The delivery experience was a mixed bag. Long wait as many deliveries were scheduled that day. But I returned home with everyone smiling ear to ear. So the mood was upbeat. Have hardly driven in the 3 weeks, but whenever we are out its a complete joy. I cannot express the feeling of upgrading from the XUV500 W10 AT which in itself was a great car and served me well.

But the ride quality, ease of steering wheel, and the audio quality is far far better than the XUV500. Or a tleast that’s my personal opinion. I had become an admirer of Mahindra with the XUV500 but with this one, I feel proud of what Mahindra has brought to the market. While I may have not sat in many fancy German or European cars, this seems to be right up there. Installed some very good mats which cover edge to edge. Someone I know in the accessories business recommended Ctrack for floor mats. Got them in Tan colour in leatherette for 5k.

Also fitted the micro SD card for continuous recording from Mahindra itself.

Alexa is able to search for most songs either on Hungama Music or Gaana. I believe in some cars Alexa will play through Saavn. I was told cars have been randomly allotted different music streaming services through Alexa. But now I use Spotify through my phone.

As expected a few niggles on the tech side. Will keep it brief:

• I have turned off Auto Emergency Braking as its not consistent. So cannot rely on it.
• I have also turned off Blind spot Monitoring as i rather do it the old school way for now.
• Forward Collision Alert is not consistent. Sometimes I do get alerts, sometimes nothing.
• While the phone is connected, it sometimes did not show the network icon. Only the e-sim network icon showed up.
• Without the phone being on the wireless charging pad, the wireless charging icon would show up.
• Navigation wasn’t stable, it would work sometimes and sometimes it would show I am in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
• Last few days, there was an error that popped up on the top of the screen “Device no response” and the audio would play only from the left front speaker. Basically the equalizer settings had randomly changed.
• The most annoying was that on turning on the car, the infotainment would automatically start playing music on very high volume and cycle through Radio—-> My Drive—-> USB. Didn’t know previously that there is a way to turn off the infotainment system before shutting the car down. Keep the intelli control knob pressed down for 5 seconds. This is similar to my XUV500, but had no clue you could do it here as well! This way, the infotainment will not turn on the next time you switch your car on.

Called up Mahindra to let them know of these issues. They asked me to bring in the car for software upgrade.

The software version that is now showing is 06.14.41 vs 06.00.81 previously.

So far issues 4,5,6 & 7 seemed to have been resolved. Also, I noticed that on activating the voice command from the steering wheel, I now can see Google Assistant open on the big screen. Earlier it was Siri. Functionality is the same. I have successfully dialed out, sent a text message and a WhatsApp message, and also sent a voice message as well. So pretty happy with the results.

I asked the technician at Mahindra as to how one can transfer the videos captured in the micro SD card to a USB or your phone. He said he thought there is a way and tried everything, but could not do it. He said he would look into it and get back to me. I am hopeful that in the next software update this should be possible.

Now I only need CarPlay to get activated to get GMaps.

That’s it for now,

Cheers!

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