[nkrishnap]

Hi,

We are looking forward to procure a vehicle which can accommodate 5 people (a must) and carry loads of about 500 kgs. The weight would be carried around most of the time and will be registered as yellow board. 70% of the time it would do the duty around the City and 30% on the highways. A max budget of 10 lakhs on road is what we have. We have considered the below vehicles, observations during the test drive and prices are listed below.

Isuzu Dmax S Cab High Rise

On Road Price: INR 924,736/- with a zero depreciation insurance.

Observations during Test Drive:

1. Very car like feel, the interiors felt put together. Steering adjustment, power windows, dual glove-box with one of them lockable. Built very well, feels built to last.
2. AC Very effective and has no or negligible impact on the pick up. Comes with AC Filter too.
3. Can seat 5 comfortably.
4. Pulls neat in 3rd gear without much fuss.
5. Comes with builtin speakers. Sales rep mentioned these were Kenwood.
6. Manual central locking is present.
7. Vibrations present but nothing too alarming. Vibrations felt mostly during starting the vehicle, once on the move it is very smooth with effective brakes.

Claimed Mileage of 13 kmpl in city and 14-14.5 kmpl on highways with AC. Sales manager mentioned 15000 discount and suggested to take insurance ourselves and save some money. The landing price would be below 9 lakhs on road.

Oil Change interval - 10000 kms, reasonable prices for brake pads and rotors. Rest of the service parts are reasonably priced. Body parts are a bit pricey (head lights, tail lights, tail gate)

TATA Xenon 3.0 Dicor

On Road Price: INR 776,951/- with a zero depreciation insurance.

Observations during Test Drive:

1. Interior design decent for a pick up truck. Steering adjustment, power windows, fog lamps, powered ORVMs lockable glovebox. Iffy plastics.
2. AC Very effective and has no or negligible impact on the pick up.
3. Legroom not satisfactory at the rear. Weird ergonomics with the driver's seat and the steering wheel mount not aligned straight.
4. Pulls neat with good amount of low end torque. Nothing much to mention beyond 2000 rpm
5. Comes with remote central locking.
6. Loading bay of 24 sq ft (5ft x 4.8 ft)
7. Vibrations present both while starting the vehicle and while on the move. Gear lever kept shaking most of the time.

Claimed Mileage of 12 kmpl in city and 14 kmpl on highways with AC. Sales manager mentioned 45000 discount

Oil Change interval - 15000 kms, Yet to receive the maintenance cost and schedule from the sales rep.

Mahindra Bolero Camper with AC

On Road Price: INR 815,021/- with a zero depreciation insurance.

Observations during Test Drive:

1. Interiors are hopeless for the asking price of 8+ lakhs
2. Very torquey in almost all the gears
3. Legroom satisfactory at the rear but very upright seating postion.
4. Apart from a lockable small glovebox, nothing much there as speakers.
5. Loading Bay 16 sq ft (4ft x 4 ft)
6. Ride very bouncy, hard cluth and okish brakes.
7. Steering freeplay on a vehicle with just 700 kms on the odometer.
8. Was smoking very heavily when throttle was floored. This smoking issue was not found on Xenon and D max.
9. Gears never slotted smoothly in the bolero. This particular one may have been a lemon.

Claimed Mileage of 11 kmpl in city and 13 kmpl on highways with AC. Sales manager mentioned 8000 discount

Oil Change interval - 10000 kms, Did not bother to check as the vehicle itself disappointed us. Disappointment is solely on the asking price for a vehicle which should have costed atleast a good 40% less.

Now the choice is between Isuzu Dmax S Cab and Tata Xenon 3.0.

Searching on the internet threw up quiet a few issues with the TATA Xenon 3.0. However almost nothing for the Dmax S Cab which comes with the 4JA1 engine.

Do pour in your suggestions.

[hserus]

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

Mahindra Bolero Camper with AC

https://www.carwale.com/mahindra-cars/scorpio-getaway/

This might fit your bill. The drivability and gearing are certainly much nicer than the Bolero, and it does come with an AC cabin air filter.

[nkrishnap]

Originally Posted by hserus

https://www.carwale.com/mahindra-cars/scorpio-getaway/

This might fit your bill. The drivability and gearing are certainly much nicer than the Bolero, and it does come with an AC cabin air filter.

Mahindra showroom guy did not put forth this option at all, let me call and check for this. Also White board registration for a 2WD makes it 14 lakhs on road, which is beyond budget.

Else, V Cross would have been a straight fit.

[hserus]

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

Mahindra showroom guy did not put forth this option at all, let me call and check for this. Also White board registration for a 2WD makes it 14 lakhs on road, which is beyond budget.

Else, V Cross would have been a straight fit.

V Cross - how good is their service network outside major cities, given that you are buying a load vehicle?

You can get Tata and Mahindra showrooms pretty much anywhere in India, even in really small towns.

[nkrishnap]

Originally Posted by hserus

V Cross - how good is their service network outside major cities, given that you are buying a load vehicle?

You can get Tata and Mahindra showrooms pretty much anywhere in India, even in really small towns.

Reliability is on high priority. Service network though important wont be as required as much if the vehicle is reliable. Hence the query of any known issues on the Dmax 4JA1 engine.

Scorpio getaway is beyond the budget and it is the same with TATA Xenon 2.2

[hserus]

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

Reliability is on high priority. Service network though important wont be as required as much if the vehicle is reliable. Hence the query of any known issues on the Dmax 4JA1 engine.

Scorpio getaway is beyond the budget and it is the same with TATA Xenon 2.2

Old, tried and tested engine. Versions of this have been around in India since the Tavera aka Isuzu Panther.

[KMT]

Hi
I went through the same process lately. I settled on a year old 4x4 Getaway.
If it is for self driving go for the Isuzu, if it is for a Driver go for the Bolero. Xenons look good but depreciate badly and they are apparently prone to suspension issues.
Mahindra has the best Service network and holds value well but the Bolero design is just too old.

[nkrishnap]

Originally Posted by KMT

Hi
I went through the same process lately. I settled on a year old 4x4 Getaway.
If it is for self driving go for the Isuzu, if it is for a Driver go for the Bolero. Xenons look good but depreciate badly and they are apparently prone to suspension issues.
Mahindra has the best Service network and holds value well but the Bolero design is just too old.

I will be driving it often and my very close friend. Rest of the time driver is there. But dont want to be avoiding traveling in it for the lack of comfort.

Scorpio I have placed an inquiry. Lets see what they got. But seeing the price, it would mostly fall out of the budget. Driver/Employee too are humans, Bolero camper is just way too uncomfortable and the asking price is rubbish for what is on offer.

Have seen quite a few new xenons with white boards (of course illegal as per the RTO) and a few old ones smoke pretty bad and feeling a few more years older.

I have ruled our the Bolero, unless they come back with a 40% discount This leaves me with the Isuzu. Now waiting to hear any gross defects in in the products to rule it out completely.

[KMT]

Champ, I get it that drivers are humans. .
Are you implying that Boleros are not good enough for humans?
I think that is a bit rich.
BTW, my workers use an A/c Thar CRDe, its just that when they use it harshly and I feel bad.

[Turbanator]

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

I will be driving it often and my very close friend. Rest of the time driver is there. But dont want to be avoiding traveling in it for the lack of comfort.

Now waiting to hear any gross defects in in the products to rule it out completely

Nothing that I can think of, we have multiple ones running fine. Do buy the rear trunk cladding as the base is not that strong as Tata or Mahindra and is prone to dents. They had some of the older SCabs (not the high rise) at some very tempting discounts some time back. We picked a couple at less than 6 lac a piece

Sevice can be an issue especially beyond the places where they don't have a service centre, so you will have to use RSA if anything goes wrong.

[Amartya]

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

Driver/Employee too are humans, Bolero camper is just way too uncomfortable and the asking price is rubbish for what is on offer.

Appreciate your expressing this. Far too often, even on this forum, we see a distinction being drawn where the driver's comfort plays second fiddle to the owners. We know that is true of numerous commercial truck and bus operators (caveat: I personally know one who had retro-fitted A/Cs in all his long distance trucks, I believe 5 of them at the time, somewhere around 2007).

Originally Posted by KMT

Champ, I get it that drivers are humans.
Are you implying that Boleros are not good enough for humans?
I think that is a bit rich.

Your read is different from mine. I read NKrishnap's post simply saying that the Bolero was uncomfortable for him and his friend/colleague, and chances were it would be just as uncomfortable for their drivers. Both human, same standards.

[hserus]

Just saying there’s more than one bhpian who has put lakhs of kilometres on a Bolero. Even named it white feather, black pearl etc.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-t...rm-report.html

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-t...ro-lx-4x4.html

[Simple_car]

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

Hi,

We are looking forward to procure a vehicle which can accommodate 5 people (a must) and carry loads of about 500 kgs. The weight would be carried around most of the time and will be registered as yellow board. 70% of the time it would do the duty around the City and 30% on the highways. A max budget of 10 lakhs on road is what we have. We have considered the below vehicles, observations during the test drive and prices are listed below.

Isuzu Dmax S Cab High Rise

TATA Xenon 3.0 Dicor

Mahindra Bolero Camper with AC
Do pour in your suggestions.

Used to own the bolero camper (2 nos.) previously.



Own a Isuzu S-cab (non highrise version). My load is limited to a max of 150 kg, and the vehicle is about 8 months old. It has covered about 25k km in city roads only. No significant issues faced till now.


Have a couple of observations which differ slightly from yours:


1. The A/c is adequate for only the front 2 passengers. I didn't find the rear cooling to be that good.


2. The length of the vehicle is a deterrent for me to enter some of the places with narrow access. Surprisingly didn't have issues with the camper.


3. The lights are woefully inadequate.


4. I have installed the rear trunk cladding and trunk lid, and it's pretty durable. However, the trunk lid fitting is not well designed or not fitted well in my opinion. It lets in rain water into the trunk in my case, and repeated complaints to the service centre have not yielded satisfactory results.


5. Power. The bolero wins hands down. The tuning/torque on the bolero is made it very sprightly to drive and is a boon in the city traffic.


6. The ORVM mirrors on the Isuzu do not appear to withstand the nicks from drivers. I have had 2 incidents wherein the mirror just dropped off after small nick by motorists and one misjudgement by the driver. The mirror replacement costs a hefty 1100 bucks, and the assembly replacement cost me 3000 bucks


The A.S.S. reach is not a concern for me, but the dealership monopoly is. I stay very nearby to the Isuzu A.S.S. in Mumbai, and I have had to act sternly with the A.S.S. every time to get my vehicle back in a timely manner. They have only 2 bays for routine servicing and share the body shop and other equipment for major repairs with their neighbouring Skoda workshop.

Originally Posted by Turbanator

Nothing that I can think of, we have multiple ones running fine. Do buy the rear trunk cladding as the base is not that strong as Tata or Mahindra and is prone to dents. They had some of the older SCabs (not the high rise) at some very tempting discounts some time back. We picked a couple at less than 6 lac a piece

6 lac a piece! When was this offer?



Thanks,
Simple_car

[comfortablynumb]

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

Do pour in your suggestions.

Have you checked the Mahindra Imperio? As per M&M, it is a so called premium UV (whatever that means). I just had a cursory look at the website, and thought it could fit your purpose.

[hserus]

Originally Posted by comfortablynumb

Have you checked the Mahindra Imperio? As per M&M, it is a so called premium UV (whatever that means). I just had a cursory look at the website, and thought it could fit your purpose.

Friends don’t make friends buy something named after a Harry Potter curse

Based on the Xylo platform of which only the Xylo of all vehicles has sold fairly well. The Xenon beats it hands down.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/commer...-ex-thane.html