[Geta]

Being a satisfied XUV500 owner for the last 5 years, I was always perplexed to read the posts in Team-BHP every single time Mahindra launches a new car. As usual the cars will have great engines, 6-7 airbags, excellent safety ratings, cutting edge technology like level 2 ADAS, panoramic sunroof, mouthwatering prices etc., but still in practically every few pages someone will spring up and say " no auto dimming IRVMs???! Horrible cost cutting !" I had seen at least 25 such posts in the various Mahindra threads (Thar, XUV700, ScorpioN, XUV3XO, Thar Roxx) in the last 4-5 years, so much that I started wondering "Am I missing something which is very obvious to others?"

Frankly, I have driven more than 60K kilometers in my XUV500 and my ownership experience has been excellent. More than a third of my drive has been after sunset and I have never felt any necessity for any auto dimming IRVM all these years. I might occasionally flip the IRVM manually when there is a glare, may be 3-4 times a month. That's it. Nothing more than that.

For some reason, I had to take my wife's car out (Hyundai Grand i10 Nios) consecutively on three nights and the reality dawned on me. Many a time in city traffic, when a bus/truck comes within 15 feet with a high beam on, when you end up looking at the IRVM, it really causes severe eye-strain. There is eye strain even with smaller vehicles but more so with buses/trucks as their headlamps are at the same level as the IRVM (about 4 feet from the ground).

When I went back and did a little google search, it was clear that vehicle headlamps can not be lower than 24 inches from ground level and can not be higher than 54 inches (4.5 feet) from ground level. Most Mahindra cars have a roof height of 175 cms (XUV700) to 186 cm (Scorpio N, Thar, Thar Roxx). These vehicles have their IRVMS typically 4 inches below the roof. Hence the height of IRVMs is generally about 5'6" to 5'10" from ground level, which is at least 30 cms above the highest headlamps in buses/trucks (4'6").

Moreover, the shoulder line of the rear hatch of XUV700, Scorpio N, Thar and Thar Roxx are all taller than 4'6" (i.e, the glass portion starts only above 4'6") thereby effectively cutting the glare from the headlamps of the buses/trucks behind in close range.

On the contrary, in smaller vehicles, like Hyundai Nios (roof height 152 cms), the rear hatch shoulder ends at about 3'6" from the ground. The IRVMs too are placed exactly at 4'6" from the ground level, thereby ending up directly reflecting the lights from the headlamps behind.

Case in point: Auto dimming IRVMs are offered only in 2 cars from the Mahindra stable: XUV400 and XUV3XO. Incidentally these two are the shortest cars from Mahindra stable (height 165cms). This is no coincidence.

So, for most cars, if the IRVMs are positioned at a height of 5'6" or higher, I genuinely feel that there is no absolute requirement for auto-dimming IRVMs. The product development team at Mahindra really deserve to be appreciated for their clarity and understanding!

P.S: I hope Pratap Bose fanboys don't give him the credit for this.

[Bit]

Originally Posted by Geta

Case in point: Auto dimming IRVMs are offered only in 2 cars from the Mahindra stable: XUV400 and XUV3XO. Incidentally these two are the shortest cars from Mahindra stable (height 165cms). This is no coincidence.

So, for most cars, if the IRVMs are positioned at a height of 5'6" or higher, I genuinely feel that there is no absolute requirement for auto-dimming IRVMs. The product development team at Mahindra really deserve to be appreciated for their clarity and understanding!

As much as I pay my respect for the extensive research you have done, the only reason Mahindra has auto IRVM in only 400 and 3XO is because their other cars were either launched before auto IRVM became mainstream feature to bother about (Xuv 500, Scorpio N, Thar etc) or launched during/post covid times when electronics were scarce and sourcing of auto IRVM was kinda resource intensive.

Once both of these things settled, ie. carss launching well after the pandemic and it’s associated shortage was completely over (Read: 2024 onwards) they started giving auto IRVM in every car, regardless of its height, size, or stance. Case in point: Recently launched Thar Roxx with auto IRVM.

Please note my reply is not to debate with your theory of auto IRVM being useful or not (I shall cover it in a separate comment) but just to clarify that Mahindra’s decision of not including auto IRVM in their yesteryear’s cars was not some well planned, carefully thought move - it was just their lack of ability / attention to procure it.

[TheM0nk]

Two answers. Yes and yes. Have been driving for the better part of a decade, tilting the IRVM to avoid blinding lights, in the process losing out on the Rear view. Recently drove a friend's vehicle with Auto dimming IRVM and realized, i was a fool for not getting an aftermarket one for mine own. It is that Convenient and necessary.

[voldemort]

I'm having to manually toggle the mirror everyday multiple times. Hence I prefer my next car to have auto-dimming rear view mirror.

Where I'm at the buses not only simply turn the high beans beams on, but they keep doing the high-low-high-low-high-low cycle in rapid succession when they get impatient.

Even yesterday evening I remember thinking to myself that my next car should have auto-dimming IRVM.

Maybe as you said in taller Mahindra vehicles it might not be strictly necessary but I prefer it to be there nevertheless.

One of our cars do have auto-dimming IRVM and I think it subtly reduces the fatigue when driving in heavy traffic in the evening.

[asingh1977]

Not sure about other cities, but here everyone drives on HB. Including motorbikes. The sharp beams make it to the IRVM, and are blinding. I think the 3 level beam angle adjuster, most people leave it on the most-up angle, rather than inverted low. No vehicle can escape from the HB of Endeavor, Fortuner, or any M&M SUV. Cretas are just as worse. People are very inconsiderate and oblivious regarding, vehicles mannerisms and driving habits. Wrong side, phone usage, HB are the three worst manifestations of Indian drivers, respectively!

[Chetan_Rao]

I flip it once to dim mode to drive at nighttime, and flip it back when parking end-of-day. Don't need another electronic gizmo to save me that effort.

What I'd like more are dimmable ORVMs, to mitigate the nutcases in our country tailgating with high beams, and flashing furiously to express their anger in Morse code.

[vvs29]

I have experienced auto dimming IRVMs only on my Fronx. All other cars I drove at night had only manual dimming. And the Fronx's IRVM does not help. It does dim but it is nowhere enough to stop the blinding lights from affecting me. Maybe it is designed to keep some visibility. I much prefer the manual ones which are at least effective. I'll survive the inconvenience of having to flip it twice a day. So I'm in the bucket who want to actively avoid having an auto dimming IRVM.

[deepeshh]

I had the privilege of being invited to meet the top brasses of M&M, Mr Veejay Ram Nakra, Mr. pratap Bose and the group CFO.

I got the invite through my dealership and all these gentlemen were here in Kochi for the Thar ROXX launch. The invite was to have a casual interaction and also to garner opinions from consumers on what they are expecting from EV's.

Being a new XUV 700 owner myself, I had putforth my strong dislike for not adding IRVM even in the 2024 update of XUV 700, to which they commended "POINT WELL TAKEN". I forsee this being soon added to the XUV feature list as M&M has recently added it to Scorpio. So I've done my bit of noise making towards this aspect

[PrasannaDhana]

Definitely yes.


My ciaz had it and I regret not having it everytime I drive at night in my altroz, punch and celerio. It's a matter of a few seconds of flipping the IRVM. But if one is used to auto dimming mirror, it gets pretty irritating to use manual ones.

Autodimming mirrors should be made mandatory.

[shancz]

Originally Posted by vvs29

I much prefer the manual ones which are at least effective.

I haven't experienced an auto-dimming IRVM but my first concern was that will it dim enough and you've answered that partially. The other side of the story is that now how much an IRVM dims would be dependent on the manufacturer unless there are any protocols which I doubt.

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

What I'd like more are dimmable ORVMs

IMO this would go into the over-engineering cycle. The manual dimmability would have to be added to the auto-dimming functionality then someone would want to set limits of how much to dim and when someone would've to replace it, we will most likely have a "steep spare cost" post. IMO its easier to just have the single flip to day/night
Ditto for the ORVM dimmability, that's a major concern with no solution in sight.

[sandeepmdas]

Originally Posted by deepeshh

Being a new XUV 700 owner myself, I had putforth my strong dislike for not adding IRVM even in the 2024 update of XUV 700, to which they commended "POINT WELL TAKEN".

However, as a fellow 700 owner, I would have also asked them to include a way to permanently disable the stupid engine stop/start thing.

for being OT.

[Tensor]

The new Scorpio N which got updated recently also has Auto Dimming IRVM, by your logic it is the tallest car that Mahindra makes standing at 186cm and still gets it, so as now ScorpioN, XUV 3XO and 4OO gets it.

[Nav-i-gator]

I am OK if it is there, and equally OK with the manual flip switch. It's not too much of a hassle to operate it manually, it's pretty easy in-fact. And, one less reason to worry about something going wrong with the electronics. Plus, isn't it better to use your middle finger to flip the IRVM switch? that way, the driver of the car blinding you from behind might actually see you being angry

How far we want to go with such features though, that we don't want to move a finger?

[museycal]

Auto Dimming IRVM was the first accessory I installed in Swift LXi 13 years ago (it didn't even have music system, power windows, power adjustable ORVMs etc. back then), it was again the first accessory I installed in my Altroz XZ+.

Manual dimming is ok, but usually these are prismatic mirrors that you flip with a lever. Now if I change my driving posture even a slight bit, the angle of incidence and reflection of the light beams from the back changes and then have to adjust mirrors slightly. This goes on and on while driving long time in nights.

Further, the intensity of dimming is fixed with Manual dimming IRVMs, and sometimes they are quite dark. So the vehicles with relatively weaker lights don't register till they are quite close to you or they appear as literal candlelights!

So auto dimming IRVMs all the way for me.

[Adam]

I personally love auto IRVM, though the one provided by few OEM’s doesn’t dim properly and is slow in operation, but the one I am used to in VAG cars are decent enough and really helpful in city drives.
In my personal opinion Manual IRVM’s was never able to get me the proper view, either its too dark or too much glare and I always end up in flipping it frequently in my night drives.