Mahindra XUV500 Diaries


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Model: XUV5OO
Variant: W8 AWD
Color: Black
Test drive: Oct 29th 2014
Vendor/Dealer: Anant cars, Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore
Delivery: Nov 19th
Presales
The sales guys were good in demonstrating and walking through the vehicle. While I had already checked out the available colors on Mahindra’s portal, the sales guys at Anant insisted that the AWD variant was available in our first choice of color – Arctic Blue.
A few days after having placed the order, the guys call me up and say that this color is not available and ask for an alternate one. I went with black.
The delivery
Went smooth. They had all the stuff in place and the accessories that I’d asked for installed (the reverse cam and the side door cladding). The odo read 54kms.
We were given the purple club documents, a flower bouquet, a cake and chocolates (something for everyone in the family!). The sales guy walked me through all the stuff again and offered to have a guy visit our place and demo the car once again (I believe that this is standard Mahindra SOP).
First Drive
Our first drive was to Mysore. The ~300k trip was pretty uneventful except for a one time blip of the infotainment system – it just reset/re-booted mid drive. This was at around 270 kms on the odo. It’s not repeated since and the car’s done about 450kms.
The feedback from family was that they were all happy and comfortable.  The main reporter of the feedback, my 10 year old son, even tested the 3rd row of seats and said that they were comfy too.
My daughter was happy with the seats and the sound isolation. Wife was overall quite happy. In all, that left me happy as well! The drive ergonomics is good.
Decking the beast up
Ok, so now I had to look at “personalizing” the beast. My wish list is as below:
  • Side Body Guard – done at Anant
  • Rearview Cam – done at Anant
  • Extd Rear VM – got this from one of the local accessories shop cost 250
  • Side Steps – CTrack R600 – from Konark’s Auto Accessories, Jayanagar, Bangalore, cost 10.8k
  • Foot Mats – from a local shop – 3D black costing 4k
  • Steering Knob – I-Pop from Konark’s @ 600
  • H7 Bulbs high beam- Osram DBs from Konark’s @ 2.6k
  • Scuff Plates – plain metal ones from Konark’s @ 1.2k
  • Door Visor – Galio visors from Konark’s @ 1.95k
  • Roof Rack – CTrack X300a from Konark’s @ 8.9k + 250 fitting
  • Roof-top Reflector – This is a white sticker treatment to the roof. Helps in keeping the heat absorption low in summer. Got this done from Taj Stickers, Jayanagar, Bangalore. This cost me 5.5k while 3M quoted 10K!
  • Dec 15: Dash DVR – I got this on eBay.

  • Horns – Not decided yet. If I have to, I’m opting for the Hella Red Grill pair
  • Sun Film (70%) – The vendors tell me that this is needed, but in a quandary. Should I? The court ruling says not to. While one vendor quotes 3.6k another says 2.6k.
  • Nudge Guard – again not very certain whether I’ll get this or not. I do want to fit Hella fog lamps, so may have to look at options of how to do this with or without the nudge guard.
  • Vacuum/Inflator Pump – Have a very old one, that takes ages to inflate due to low capacity. Seen some as combos with a vacuum cleaner, not sure how good these are though.
  • Luggage Step Ladder: Narrowed down to Ozone. Again, this is optional at this point.
  • Fog Lamps – as I mentioned above, I am looking at Hellas. Either Rallye 3003 or 4000 yellow beams.
  • Hella Wiper Blades – not immediately, but maybe a year or two down the line. I’ve been using these wipers on both my Swift and Indigo LS (sold it now). They are very effective and long lasting.
  • Paint protection pack from 3M. Not very particular, but may opt if I can.
Whew! Quite a list, eh? [:)]
Niggles
Well, none that have surfaced as yet. Other than the aforementioned infotainment system reboot.
-------------------------------------
I have not named the beast yet. My son suggests Duma and a friend said Black Beauty. But neither enthrall me as such. I think I’ll keep it simply as Black!
Will keep updating as we progress along.
 

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Re: XUV Diaries

Congrats on your Panther. It looks too good in black. Wish you a lot of happy and safe miles.

I've one observation on "Fog Lamps". Unless there's a need to have better night time car specific visibility (sort of better low beam light), there's no need to change. Down South here, it is mostly for show and XUV doesn't need stuff like that. And, you've got an interesting twin mobile holder there. Care to throw some light ?
 
Thread Starter #3
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Hi Vijay, thanks!
On the fog lamps, I agree that in most cases people have mounted fogs as a show piece. In my experience, I have needed to fog lamps at several points in my travels - in the hills, even on the plains when passing through very early in the mornings, etc.). The thing is that while the beam pattern, brightness and all is fine, if one is driving in foggy conditions, then the "white" light of the regular beams don't work and we need the "yellow" spectrum to kick in. The white just reflects off the fog (even in heavy rain) and hampers visibility even more while the yellow gets reflected much less and thus aids visibility.

On the mobile holder, it is a Capdase HR00-CB01. I got mine off eBay a couple of years ago. Just checked, it is still available - Capdase Universal Car Dual Device Mount Holder iPod Smart Phone GPS HR00-CB01.
Hope that this helps.
 
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  • Steering Knob – I-Pop from Konark’s @ 600

  • Horns – Not decided yet. If I have to, I’m opting for the Hella Red Grill pair

Congratulations for your new ride. Wishing many many safe miles ahead.

May I ask you, the purpose of the Steering Knob? It may be tiring to hold for long drives.

How is Hella Red compared to Roots Megasonic or why opting for Hella? Me too planning for an upgrade.
 
Thread Starter #5
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Congratulations for your new ride. Wishing many many safe miles ahead.

May I ask you, the purpose of the Steering Knob? It may be tiring to hold for long drives.

How is Hella Red compared to Roots Megasonic or why opting for Hella? Me too planning for an upgrade.
Thanks, Mathew!
Steering Knob: Touchy subject for some. It is a matter of personal preference. See this - Brodie knob - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On the horns, the Roots Megasonic is pretty heavy and the frequency range is also narrower. See the below comparison in the pic attached.
 

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Heartiest congratulations on your black xuv iqbal and wish you and your family many happy miles with it.
Having what ambylover said that continued with the footstep ladder finishing of chrome stripe carries to make a treat to look at this black beauty.
 
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On the horns, the Roots Megasonic is pretty heavy and the frequency range is also narrower. See the below comparison in the pic attached.
Nice. I am planning an upgrade of my vehicle Horn. It is not enough!!. Kerala, particularly Ernakulam, people honk continuously. No idea why?

Did you make any long drive? How is the performance on High Ways?
 
Thread Starter #9
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Nice. I am planning an upgrade of my vehicle Horn. It is not enough!!. Kerala, particularly Ernakulam, people honk continuously. No idea why?

Did you make any long drive? How is the performance on High Ways?
[:)] Yeah, I can understand the reasons for upgrading the horns. On my XUV, just checked, it comes standard with Hella TT horns. Good enough. The sound insulation on the car is so good that the horns sound very distant from within!
Yeah did a couple of 350km trips. The vehicle is pretty solid on the road. No surprises and very easy to handle. The first run was before I added the roof rack. The 2nd was post that. So, in the send run, the XUV started "whistling" (wind noise) once we hit past 90km/h due to the roof rack.
Good otherwise.
 

bhvm

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Great and crisp write up!
get that info system replaced at once as I had the same issues and required 5 visits to rectify.
feel free to contact us in case you need any Help.

do read'thunderbolt xuv 500 '
 
Thread Starter #11
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Great and crisp write up!
get that info system replaced at once as I had the same issues and required 5 visits to rectify.
feel free to contact us in case you need any Help.

do read'thunderbolt xuv 500 '
Hi BHVM, thanks for your encouraging comments. The infotainment system has not acted up again. Just crossed the 1k kms mark today.

Also, got the DVR delivered from eBay today. Will need to get it rigged up in the next couple of days and will check out the unit's performance & report the same.
 
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Congrats Mr.Iqbalkhuraishi for your black cheetah.Wishing you happy miles with it.Its nice to see xuv in black with those accessories.
Please post some pics of the DVR after mounting it.
 
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Thread Starter #15
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Thanks, Dreamscapes & Hari Gangadharan!
Been busy with daily stuff, so haven't got around to updating the pictures for the DVR mounting and sample clips. Will get that done before the new year![:)]

Mathew: No service at 1k, direct at 5k. Will check again and update on the number of free service slots.

Have not had any issues till, TG!

Planning for a long trip sometime around April (school/college going kids, so got to work with their schedules).
 

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