Hello everyone,
I finally got my membership approved recently and am very happy to be writing my first post.
Got my Moondust Silver XUV 500 W10 home on 1 April this year. It's been a thorough pleasure driving this beast around. Have already done a few of outside city trips and clocked about 3500 KMs so far. While I don't get to drive within the city much, as my office is close by, I do keep looking for opportunities to take the car out.
Nevertheless, I wanted to share some of my experiences so far and will be glad to obtain feedback and comments! Please excuse any oversights as this is my first attempt!
1. Purchase and delivery
I had my eyes on this car for some time but the real tipping point was the year end discount during the March period as well as the fact that the new 1.99 L option had started selling in the NCR region. I took the test drive and was quite happy with the experience and handling, putting to rest any apprehensions due to the smaller engine. The car felt peppy and quite responsive. Indeed, the experience continues after the delivery as well. I went ahead and made the booking around 20th March.
The dealer's team (Sterling Mahindra, Gurgaon) were quick to inform me that they have a W10 available and since the payment was already done to them as the car is on company lease, it was ready to be picked up. But I decided to take the delivery only upon final registration at RTO. On 30th March, I went for a PDI and with the help of the checklists available on TBHP, did a thorough inspection of the car. To my disappointment, I noticed a few defects.
- Front passenger window glass: There was a deformity on the top edge of the window glass (refer pic) and some sort of wavy haziness on the side of the glass (couldn't be captured in a pic) which wouldn't go with any sort of cleaning and wiping. Both of these clearly seemed to be manufacturing defects which had missed the dealer's inspection.
- the other two were clearly due to mishandling. One was a damage to the rubber gasket near the rear door as if it had been scratched against something (refer pic). And the other one was on the inside panels near front passenger seating. Again, as if scratched against something.
I was very disappointed due to these and since I had paid all the money and they had booked the car against my name, I didn't really have an option other than getting these replaced. After a lot of arguments with the dealer, we agreed to have these replaced on first service (free of cost to me) as I wasn't keen on letting the mechanics get their hands on a brand new car, especially to remove and refit the glass. A factory fit on any part cannot be matched by the service center.
Other than these aspects, everything else seemed to be fine and I took the beast home. I missed out on mentioning that I did get three accessories - a carrier, the side step and the rear bull guard. Sorry, I don't have a ready picture with these fitted to the car, but I hope to share one later.
Later I also noticed that someone had messed up the insurance policy as well. When I got it, I noticed that it incorrectly referenced 2.2 L as the engine capacity. Upon inquiring, I was informed that this was due to the insurance company not having the 1.99 L as an option in their system. This was truly unbelievable and on insisting, they have now obtained an endorsement on the policy which states the correct engine capacity. Phew!
2. Niggles
Like many BHPians have highlighted, while the car is a pleasure to drive, it isn't free of its niggles. In my short ownership tenure, I have come across a few already.
- Clanking noise from the front doors when the window glasses are down and the car goes over bumps. This has been highlighted in previous posts with a potential solution. I hope to get this rectified during the first service.
- Vibration of the gear when revving up on 4th gear at about 40 Kmph. Sometimes this results in the passenger glass also vibrating with noise. This has also been highlighted previously.
- Gear shift wasn't smooth in the first few days and moving from 3rd to 2nd or 2nd to 1st was a real task. There would always be some kind of slotting noise. Though this has gotten much easier now and I don't bother about it anymore.
- A 'thud-thud' kind of noise from the front tyres when going over potholes at medium speed. I read in one of the posts that this could be due to gas struts. But my theory is that this could be due to the panels covering the tyre cavity. If I hit the panels with hand on a stationary car, I can hear similar noise. I still need to investigate this more.
- Bluetooth issues. As mentioned by some members, this is a hit or a miss, especially on Android phones. I use a custom Rom on my phone and face similar issues, i.e., the voice doesn't come through from the car speakers while music is heard fine. I have a potential solution which I am trying out using an app and if anyone is interested I can share.
- Random reboots of the infotainment system when the car starts up. Have experienced this a few times, but doesn't really bother me much.
Well, that's about all I wanted to share in my first post. Thanks for reading. Hope you all find it useful. Now that I am a member after being a reader for so many years, I hope to contribute more! Cheers.