[Benoit]

Originally Posted by Benoit

My MX1 is still pending for delivery. Vehicle is ready, but registration is delayed. The approval for MX1 is pending from the RTO side, so registration cannot proceed. Wonder why such a thing exists. Not sure who is on fault.

Finally took delivery today. Drove home from the showroom. After a while, got the car to an accessory shop at Velachery, Chennai. Going to get the following things done. Please share your opinion :

[Sebring]

I would suggest you install a basic VIOFO dash cam. I had got one on sale for just 3K and it had a memory card inside too Thanks to a Tbhpian who alerted us on the Dashcam thread. The very next day a cop falsely accosted me of jumping a red light, and he let go after I reached for the cam. Fine would have been heavy

Originally Posted by kamathsonline

It is great that no dashcam is required but no one talks about this in any review or I am not able to find this info anywhere.

[Tensor]

Originally Posted by Benoit

Finally took delivery today. Drove home from the showroom. After a while, got the car to an accessory shop at Velachery, Chennai. Going to get the following things done. Please share your opinion :

Aren’t the seat covers overpriced as Mahindra Genuine seat covers (leatherette) cost less.

Also according to Mahindra only their genuine seat covers are airbag compatible so be careful with the warranty.

[kamathsonline]

Originally Posted by Benoit

Finally took delivery today. Drove home from the showroom. After a while, got the car to an accessory shop at Velachery, Chennai. Going to get the following things done. Please share your opinion :

Seats are cheaper at Mahindra, fog lamp will be slightly more but fit it at the showroom, other electrical fitments will be mentioned (Maruti does this) as after market and any issues with other electricals in the car could be linked to after market and "may not" be covered under warranty.

There are people seeing the car accessories shops saying coupler to coupler but at the same time cutting wires.

[Benoit]

The accessory shop guy claims these seat covers are airbag compatible. As explained by him, the material should be tear-able when air bag deploys. These Mongolian mapla covers can be torn. OE seat covers only come in white or black. I am going for tan brown. If Mahindra had some color options, I would've gone for it.

OE fog lamps are reflectors and are cheaper than this projector + LED bulb setup. Projectors offer more flexibility, so going with this.

I checked with the assistant sales manager asking about honoring warranty. He said that their service center usually approves warranty if there's no wire tampering. I have specifically mentioned this to the accessory shop guy.

[kamathsonline]

Originally Posted by Tensor

I Had posted this a while ago.

This could have been made simpler, opening up a new car

[TwinBishop]

Hello Team BHPians. This is the first time I have written about my experience with a new car.

I got our XUV 3XO AX5L AT petrol last Saturday and below are my initial impressions of the car and the buying experience.

The purchase decision and the buying experience:

We had been wanting to replace our Honda Jazz since 2022. We were on the lookout for a compact SUV automatic with some good features such as Auto dimming IRVM, TPMS, and 360 degree camera. Shortlisted Toyota Hyryder, Creta, Brezza, Sonet, Nexon, and later added Fronx to the list.

We found that Hyryder strong hybrid and Creta were well beyond our budget of around 17 lakhs. We felt that Brezza was overpriced for the feature set it offered and also did not find its looks attractive. Fronx was out the moment my daughter sat in the back and remarked about the lack of headroom and cramped feeling.

Nexon ticked all the boxes, but my wife was apprehensive was about a Tata car. We had owned Indica and Indigo Marina before for several years and the overall experience was not great.

The 2024 Sonet has a great feature list including an L1 ADAS and a good engine. I was attracted to it. However, after a trip in the back seat of a Venue for about 4 km I decided against it. The Sonet back row space was similar to that of the Venue and that was not acceptable to us. Also, the dark interiors were a put down for us.

We started despairing about finding a car which would satisfy us in the given budget. Around this time, I saw the news about XUV 3XO and was excited. The 3xo had all the features we wanted and some more! In addition to the features available in the top variant of Sonet, the AX5L variant had L2 ADAS with a radar in addition to a camera. I was thrilled when I saw this. And we did not know that it had EPB with auto hold when we booked it.

We visited the nearest dealer’s showroom, Mahindra PPS on Kanakapura road, and we all liked the car. Went for a test drive after a few days in an AX5 TCMPFI AT. I had no problems in driving the car even though I had not never driven a compact SUV or an automatic before. We booked the AX5L TDGI AT of nebula blue colour.

The buying experience was smooth. The PPS executives Mr Guruprasad and Ms Chaitra were always helpful, and the car was delivered within the promised 3 months – 11 weeks to be precise. The only jarring thing was the utter lack of information from Mahindra about what was happening during the waiting period. Mahindra must be more transparent in this age of online commerce.

We got the car on 3rd August. There was a small ceremony at the dealer’s place and after that we drove back home. The next day drove the car for about 80 km and yesterday drove it for about 120 odd km. The drives were a mix of using city roads and highways.

Some observations:

1. I read in a review and a few posts that the car sometimes lurches forward. I had this experience twice, once while starting from the showroom and again while starting from rest in the petrol bunk. This can be quite disconcerting as it is unexpected. Then I found that this happens when the electronic parking brake (EPB) is auto released by pressing the accelerator. If the EPB is released manually with the brake pedal pressed, then car creeps slowly upon taking the foot off the brake pedal. This way there is no lurching encountered and the car is completely in the driver’s control.
2. A smaller lurch happens when the auto hold is active, and you press the accelerator to drive away. This is not disconcerting. If needed this can be avoided by pressing the brake pedal, switching off auto hold and then releasing the foot brake.
3. Once when the car was accelerated was beyond 70 – 80 kmph and then decelerated during normal driving along the highway there was some noise, from transmission I think, for a few seconds. The noise did not recur. The car was driving fine.
4. ADAS has been non-intrusive so far. The executive from PPS asked me to leave the auto emergency braking on and I was a bit apprehensive of sudden braking happening. But no such event has happened over 200 km of driving including that in heavy traffic so far. There was a warning only once when a car before me braked but the warning stopped when I started braking.

Likes:

1. At the top is the engine. A very light foot is enough to accelerate this car and I love this. The Jazz would take some time to accelerate up an incline with the throttle pressed if there were four passengers in the car. No such problem for the 3xo. At low speeds the car goes over speed breakers with foot still on the brake pedal. It reaches high speeds without you even realising it.
2. Navigation display with Google maps is very good. A nice touch from Mahindra software team is that of showing the longer route on the infotainment screen while showing the immediate route on the driver console. This avoids the pinching and zooming we do usually to see where we are headed. Very useful.
3. Ride is comfortable even on bad roads. My wife sat in the back, and she felt fine even over some quite bad stretches.
4. The cabin is comfortable and roomy. Driving position is good.
5. Air conditioning is good. Much better than that of the Jazz.
6. Steering felt fine to me in the zap mode. This maybe because I come from Jazz which has a low effort steering. It weighs up well when speed crosses 30-40 kmph.
7. EPB with auto hold is a really nice feature to have.
8. The rain sensing wipers automatically adjust the frequency of wiping based on the intensity of rain. Great feature!
9. Love the nebula blue colour.
10. Like the looks of the car from behind and side. Front is okay and could have been better.
11. Build quality. Like the way the doors and bonnet close. Not tinny at all!

Dislikes:

1. The SVS (360-degree system) has not been calibrated. This is not a dislike of the car as such but the QA system of Mahindra. I am taking it to the dealer tomorrow to fix this.
2. When drive mode is changed using the hard button, the two displays take their own sweet time to show the changed drive mode. This is annoying. When a 20,000 rupee phone can work with zero lag why can’t a car system do that?
3. The idle-engine feature is active every ignition cycle and has to be switched off. Not a great feature as the engine shuts off even when you have stopped a few seconds in the traffic. The default should have been off.

To summarize the experience has been very good so far. Mahindra has done a great job with this car. It reminds one of what they did with XUV500 - giving many advanced features at a reasonable cost. As of now none of the competitors in this segment offer L2 ADAS and this powerful an engine. And none offer EPB with auto hold and auto dimming IRVM in a variant below the top variant. Great to see an Indian brand lead the way.

It is an easy car to drive. Parking in crowded basements is a bit difficult because of the car width and the steering radius. But that is more on me and will not be difficult for most other drivers.

Will post more details after driving some more.

Below are a few pictures of our nebula coloured hunk of a car.

[LiveToDrive2404]

Originally Posted by LiveToDrive2404

Just curios to know if anyone received AX7 Diesel Manual variant ?

If anyone got the delivery of Diesel AX7 / AX7L MT, please let us know

[ashkamath]

I just read somewhere down in a Hyundai thread where a contributor / member quoted supposedly from the Hyundai Venue owner's manual, the following about the quality of fuel to be used in the Turbo Charged engine (a 2022 post to be precise).

<Quote>
Do not use gasohol (mixture of petrol & ethanol) containing more than 10% ethanol, and do not use Petrol or gasohol containing any methanol. Either of these fuels may cause drivability problems and damage to the fuel system, engine control system and emission control system.

Discontinue using gasohol (mixture of petrol & ethanol) of any kind if drivability problems occur.
<Unquote>

I also checked the present ethanol blend by the various petroleum companies as per the directives from the Govt.

<Quote>
As of June 2024, India had achieved a 12.7% ethanol blend with petrol, and was targeting 15% for the year. The government has set a target of blending 20% ethanol with petrol by 2025, which would require 10.16 billion liters of ethanol
<Unquote>

Turbo Petrol engines are very sensitive to fuel quality and require higher octane petrol for smooth operation and I heard somewhere that the recomended grade is 95 octane and above (mentioned in owner's manual and on the inside of fuel lid) .

The present Speed from BPCL and Power from HPCL have octane number between 91-94. Lower octane fuel may result in knocking / pinging (Turbocharged engines typically operate at higher compression ratios, which can make them more prone to knocking or pinging if the octane rating of the fuel is too low) and pre-ignition (Pre-ignition is caused by piston compression of the fuel/air mixture in the combustion chamber causing the mixture to ignite before the end of the compression stroke when the sparking plug then fires; in other words, firing before the engine ignition timing says it should.) These phenomenon are detrimental to the life of the engine in the long run.

So, ideally the Turbo Petrol engine require either speed from BPCL, Power from HPCL or Premium from IOC (all have octane number between 91 - 94). There's still higher octane number petrol with these petroleum companies like Speed 97 or Power 99 etc which are not commonly available in all pumps due to their lesser demand. Infact even the 91-94 Octane - Speed, Power or Premium is not available with all petrol pumps due to their lesser demand. Only a few pumps store these higher octane number fuels.

Now, the 2 issues that I am concerned with, are

1. The Ethanol blending in the petrol is detrimental to Turbo Petrol engines and the Govt has sent target of 20% Ethanol blending by 2025 and is already at 12.7% as of June, 2024. Further I read somewhere in this forum (or in this thread) that Ethanol decomposes and water is released and this is detrimental to the engine. So, technically the fuel that is available generally among the pumps, i.e. 87 octane petrol with ethanol blend is detrimental to the Turbo charged engines.

2. Even if one decides to stick with higher octane number petrol like the Speed or Speed 97, it's not easily available. My local BPCL petrol pump earlier used to store speed petrol and now have stopped it due to less demand. So only 87 octane petrol is available with this pump. This issue is across the petrol pumps in Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities / towns while bigger cities / Tier 1 cities may have some pumps which store these higher octane fuel.

In the light of the above issues, would it be still prudent to buy a turbo petrol engine car? I am in the market and have booked a Turbo Petrol Mahindra XUV 3XO and now having second thoughts about the future maintenance / issues with the engine due to low grade fuel / ethanol blended fuel. How do I safe guard a Turbo Petrol engine car living in a Tier 2/3 city where high octane petrol is not available

I still have time to switch to the safer NA engine with a different brand or a diesel variant of 3XO and be safe from the vagaracies of a Turbo charged engine in future. Would that be a prudent choice?

I had owned a diesel car since last 2 decades and never had any such concerns. It appears with new technologies & new engines concerns are also increasing.

Mods: I had to use this thread to share my thoughts. Please relocate this post to an appropriate thread as this is a specific thread pertaining to review of Mahindra XUV 3XO.

[WinterDust]

Hi everyone,

I have a query. I went to a local service shop to get my 70mai dashcam installed. I wanted to hardwire it, but the mechanic told me to not get it done outside. Removing the fuse erases some settings and it is advisable to only get it done only in the service center.

My question is: Will the service center hardwire the dash cam if I asked them? Does hard wiring dash cam void warranty?

Thanks.

[250Nm]

Originally Posted by WinterDust

Removing the fuse erases some settings and it is advisable to only get it done only in the service center.

This is not true. In worst case, it may reset your ECU's cache which will be rebuilt as you drive the car.

Originally Posted by WinterDust

My question is: Will the service center hardwire the dash cam if I asked them? Does hard wiring dash cam void warranty?

Most service centers will not do it, as they are not authorized by manufacturers. Legally speaking, it does void warranty because you are altering the factory electrical setup. However, dashcams do not draw much current (unlike, say powerful headlight upgrades) to cause any harm. Make sure to tap the hardwire kit to a low priority fuse. It can also be removed without any trace in case you have to visit ASC for a warranty claim.

[kgt.v8]

Originally Posted by ashkamath

The present Speed from BPCL and Power from HPCL have octane number between 91-94. Lower octane fuel may result in knocking / pinging (Turbocharged engines typically operate at higher compression ratios, which can make them more prone to knocking or pinging if the octane rating of the fuel is too low) and pre-ignition (Pre-ignition is caused by piston compression of the fuel/air mixture in the combustion chamber causing the mixture to ignite before the end of the compression stroke when the sparking plug then fires; in other words, firing before the engine ignition timing says it should.) These phenomenon are detrimental to the life of the engine in the long run.

Originally Posted by ashkamath

1. The Ethanol blending in the petrol is detrimental to Turbo Petrol engines and the Govt has sent target of 20% Ethanol blending by 2025 and is already at 12.7% as of June, 2024. Further I read somewhere in this forum (or in this thread) that Ethanol decomposes and water is released and this is detrimental to the engine. So, technically the fuel that is available generally among the pumps, i.e. 87 octane petrol with ethanol blend is detrimental to the Turbo charged engines.

This is also my concern as government is pushing for higher Ethanol mix with Petrol and manufacturers are pushing for Turbo petrol engines.
If I buy a Turbo petrol today which is E20 compliant and is deemed good to run for next 15 years. Will my car's engine be able to run without critical component replacements if Ethanol blending goes beyond 20% in next 10 years of the car's lifecycle.

This is also one of the reasons I am still inclined towards Diesel cars and diesel as a fuel to keep my car's engine healthy. I want to test drive Diesel 3XO, but none of the dealership have a manual or AMT diesel for test drive even 3 months since launch

[krishnakumar]

Originally Posted by Benoit

approves warranty if there's no wire tampering. I have specifically mentioned this to the accessory shop guy.

You’ll have to do a 100% supervision of the work to ensure wire tampering is NOT done.

The average accessory shop technician doesn’t give two hoots about wire tampering or not. They might try without wire tampering and do it wherever it is easy or the accessory comes plug n play, but proper coupling requires a lot of work and attention to detail. With the pressure to “finish job fast so I can do more cars” will get to these guys and they’ll do that and hide it.

Honestly, there will be only a handful of folks who will not do wire tampering.

So irrespective of how good this accessory shop is or how well you know the shop owner, supervise with a hawkeye.

[ashkamath]

Originally Posted by kgt.v8

This is also my concern as government is pushing for higher Ethanol mix with Petrol and manufacturers are pushing for Turbo petrol engines.

If I buy a Turbo petrol today which is E20 compliant and is deemed good to run for next 15 years. Will my car's engine be able to run without critical component replacements if Ethanol bleunding goes beyond 20% in next 10 years of the car's lifecycle.

This is also one of the reasons I am still inclined towards Diesel cars and diesel as a fuel to keep my car's engine healthy. I want to test drive Diesel 3XO, but none of the dealership have a manual or AMT diesel for test drive even 3 months since launch

This is a very valid reason to go for a NA petrol or Diesel. My concern about diesel is the NGT rules. I wouldn't be least surprised if the NGT applies the 10 year diesel engine rules across the country.

Just a few days back, I watched a video of the glaciers melting at an extremely rapid rate in the Himalayas due to global warming. So the Govt thinktank could take some drastic measures to reduce the green gas emissions and the motorists could become easy target. Not blaming the Govt in any way. They got to do what they got to do, no second thoughts. However we should be alert & prepared for such possible intervention by the Govt and be ready for it

I am thinking of Naturally aspirated petrol manual transmission variant of the new Citroen Basalt against the Turbo petrol engine 3XO..The power and torque is much less, but perhaps I would bother much less about the engine and Govt regulations with NA engine compared to a Diesel engine or a TC petrol engine.

The EV scenario is not very exciting. It's great for daily city commute & as as a second car. But as a primary car and a traveling aspirational society, people tend to go on long drives much more than previous generations and with limited EV infrastructure, that's a drawback. Recent I read somewhere that 50% of EV car owners would like to revert to ICE cars due to various shortcomings such as limited infrastructure, range anxiety, sudden drop in range, un predictable resale value or battery life, problems in getting the EV car repaired at the FNG as they are not familiar with working of an EV and stuff like that.

Again with Citroen Basalt, the concerns are extremely limited dealers across the country and questionable/ very limited after sales spares and service network. I read that Mumbai has only 2 Citroen dealers and that's not comforting to potential customers from Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities like me.

Further it is understandable that car manufacturers are pushing for Turbo petrol engines because with a smaller engine they are able to extract more HP & Torque which otherwise wouldn't be possible with NA engines. The new BS6 emissions also play a role as the manufacturer can do only social much with the NA engine and thus Turbo petrol is the panache for all the drawbacks. But we have to remember that there's always a trade off. There's no free lunch. When the smaller Turbo petrol engine generates higher HP & Torque it also wears out fast, needs better quality fuel to run efficiently, better driving habits like idling for a minute or two in the morning before moving the car, better care & maintenance and additional cost on spares and repairs etc. So, there's always some give & take here and one should be aware of these factors before jumping in to the Turbo engine cars.

In my town, I don't get any 95RON fuels and only 87 RON is available (at least to my knowledge. Haven't checked around much). So getting good quality fuel repeatedly for the turbo petrol engine will be a real challenge for many owners including me, if I go ahead with my buying the 3XO

We have to wait and see, how things pan out in future. I have booked the 3XO, now going ahead with booking the NA engine Basalt. Will take a call on which brand /engine I shall go, in coming days.

[myavu]

Originally Posted by ashkamath

Again with Citroen Basalt, the concerns are extremely limited dealers across the country and questionable/ very limited after sales spares and service network. I read that Mumbai has only 2 Citroen dealers and that's not comforting to potential customers from Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities like me.

Why don't you try the Honda Elevate MT SV, which will be in the ballpark of 13.5 lakh?