[krishnakumar]

The Rise of Yoda

This thread will chronicle my companionship with Yoda, a Mahindra XUV300. Yoda joined our family of 2 (my wife and I) on Nov 5th, 2021. He's our first car and needless to say, we love him to the depths of our hearts.

My aim is to keep this thread as lively and succinct as possible so that not only can enthusiasts enjoy his stories but also gain some information (especially for folks who are looking at the XUV300 as a potential buy).

Without any further ado, let me introduce you to the protagonist of this story, Yoda!

Yoda enroute to Kanyakumari - this was a detour from Nagercoil due to the floods blocking the roads to Trivandrum


Yoda overlooking the Cape of Comorin


Somewhere along the NH44


This is Yoda's sleeping spot. Behind him to his left you can see his brother, Mantis, a KTM 390Adventure



The posts are structured as below for ease of reference (if you'd like to jump to a section):

• The Selection Process

• Sales Process, PDI and Delivery

• Initial Ownership Review

[krishnakumar]

The Requirements

My one-line requirement was this:

A car that'll get us around safely and comfortably on highways and broken roads for long road trips and weekend mall crawls.

Armed with this statement we set out to find the perfect car for our needs. While I haven't owned a car myself, I have been driving a variety of cars for ~12 years. The learnings from all those years combined with the hours spent on TBHP certainly helped us list down a few critical parameters that would swing the buy for us.

We jotted down our non-negotiable requirements as below:

• High on safety
• Great highway stability and comfort on broken roads
• Good performance; I'm an enthusiast - I LOVE driving. The last thing I wanted was a car that doesn't excite me
• High ground clearance to have a stress-free trip on roads less taken (essentially ruling out sedans and hatchbacks)
• A few creature comforts that enhances road-trip experience like cruise control, practical storages inside the cabin, good AC, good boot space etc.

A detailed budgeting exercise allocated 15-16L for the purchase of a car. Therefore, we were essentially looking at the sub-4m compact SUV segment. We decided to go with a diesel powertrain because (a) we had an annual expected mileage of 15,000km (b) I loved the diesel grunt (probably the biggest contributing factor).

We did not consider the mid-variants of higher segment cars because of a few reasons like (a) we weren't really in need of a bigger car than a CSUV (b) some of the mid-variants were lacking essential active safety kits like ESC (c) my wife needs practice driving; therefore, a smaller car would be far less daunting for her to start off.

Used cars were a strict no from my wife while I still toyed with the idea for a bit. However, we disregarded this eventually since we felt that our first car should be new.

The Contenders

To help me decide on the car I had started a thread - (Tata Nexon vs. Mahindra XUV300 vs. Kia Sonet | Which car should I get for 15 Lakhs?) If someone is interested to go through the entire process, please feel free to click away Initially, we had shortlisted only the Nexon and Sonet. We had not considered the XUV300 for 2 specific reasons (a) small boot space (b) lack of rear AC vents. The XUV300 was a wild card entry thanks to BHPians pouring in their advice on the thread linked earlier.

For the more busier folks, I'll try to summarize the process here. All the cars were in their Diesel MT powertrain:

1. Tata Nexon XZ+ (S)
2. Kia Sonet GTX+
3. Mahindra XUV300 W8(O)

Tata Nexon XZ+(S)

What we liked

• Solid build quality, nice heft to the doors and you feel safe sitting inside the car
• Excellent ride quality on highways and broken roads; the suspension just smothers everything. Also, the only car in this segment to get a semi-independent suspension at the rear
• Good enough grunt in the diesel engine; will definitely put a smile on your face
• The best handler in terms of steering feedback; it just felt natural to me and you can easily carve corners
• Best in class rear seat comfort (according to me)

What we didn't like

• Impractical cabin spaces. The Nexon has "everything" if you were to make a checklist of items on offer. Therefore in a comparison sheet it'll definitely score well. However, they have thought little to nothing about the UX. A few examples:
  • there is simply no space to put your phone while its connected to Android Auto/Apple Carplay
  • the bottle holders are at an acute angle making it a little cumbersome to stow/retrieve bottle
  • while there is "center armrest storage" the shape of the space is such that nothing much comes there in an organized way
  Needless to say, folks will mostly get used to these quirks as part of their ownership and find customizations around them. However, the fact that the UX was poor was something that we didn't like.
  
• Dark interiors and swooping roof-line meant that we were feeling a bit claustrophobic
• Engine refinement was not great (compared to the other 2); it wasn't bothersome but still could've been better

Kia Sonet GTX+

What we liked

• The cabin experience; we had all the bells and whistles that we were probably never going to explore in its lifetime. However, I want to point out certain features like the ventilated seats which I find VERY useful in Indian climate
• Most refined engine among the 3; there was barely any noise coming inside the cabin and the engine felt smooth across the power band

What we didn't like

• The questionable safety quotient of Kia cars. While not officially tested for safety ratings, what we had for the closest reference was that of Seltos. That combined with the deep dive done on this thread - (Kia Seltos body structure facts & comparison with the Hyundai Creta), we expected the Sonet to perform poorly in a crash test. Needless to say, the lack of any crash test rating itself showed poor confidence on the manufacturer's part and we took this very seriously
• VERY stiff ride quality for our liking. Some of the potholes/humps were handled so poorly that you have to tread over them very carefully
• Dealer overconfidence and outright denial to match insurance or take financing from outside. I found this to be very off-putting. The Kia SA was also the only one who was hesitant to allow PDI at stockyard (before full payment) while all others readily agreed

Mahindra XUV300 W8(O)

What we liked

• The reassuring thuds and a solid build quality. It is built like a tank. All the doors, including the bonnet and the boot, have a good heft and feel extremely solid (point to note that in Nexon, the rear doors felt considerably lighter than the front doors. But not in XUV300)
• A very powerful and refined engine; there is always a good reserve of grunt available on tap
• Excellent ride quality; though not to Nexon levels, it does smother most of the broken patches and provides great high-speed stability
• Cabin that is thoughtfully put together with many "attention-to-detail" functional features. While the fit and finish isn't Korean twins level, everything was nice to touch, excellent damping to buttons, solid door handles etc. More than any of this, the practicality of the cabin is so good that I'd rate this higher than Sonet. I'll cover all of these in my detailed review of our car but Mahindra has really put UX first instead of stuffing in features. We liked this a lot.

What we didn't like

• Addressing the elephant in the room - the small boot space. This was one of the 2 factors because of which we had earlier not shortlisted XUV300. However, on one of the TDs we asked the SA to bring the car to our house and we put our luggage in different configurations. The boot would suffice 90% of our needs without any compromise. So it no longer became a problem.
• Least amount of rear seat comfort among the 3; this is a highly debatable topic because many consider this to be a strong-point for XUV300. While this is the widest in the segment (easily accommodating 3 adults in the rear seat) and having excellent legroom, the under-thigh support is lacking. That along with the lack of rear AC vents means that it is not the best place to be in for long journeys.
• Mahindra silently deleting features while increasing the prices. This was more emotional than logical because Mahindra has been smart in deleting the features - removing only those features which will not make this sub-par compared to competition. However, this was still off-putting for us.

The Verdict

We struck off Sonet from the list straightaway due to two major factors: (1) Lack of confidence regarding its safety (2) Stiff ride quality. Compared to the Nexon and XUV300, the Sonet just didn't feel like something that's providing a lot more extra (in terms of mechanical robustness). We weren't in on this for the gadgets, so off the Sonet went.

Now that we were down to two contenders, the battle was very intense. The factors considered are captured on this post from the same thread posted earlier - (Tata Nexon vs. Mahindra XUV300 vs. Kia Sonet | Which car should I get for 15 Lakhs?)

Without going into too many details, let me summarize how the two stacked up on 5 broad parameters:

Safety: XUV300 > Nexon
While the Nexon and XUV300 are both 5-star rated by GNCAP, the XUV300 scores higher in terms of adult occupant safety and overall score. Even if I were to ignore that, XUV300 in its W8(O) form gets 6 airbags over the 2 airbags in Nexon. This tilted our scores in favour of the XUV300. Apart from that, since this was a close battle, I was also going to add things like auto-dimming IRVM, places to put your phone away, physical buttons for everything on the dash as "safety" features because, hey, anything that makes the driver less distracted should be counted as "safety".

Performance: XUV300 > Nexon
On the road, both Nexon and XUV300 would satisfy my needs. Both of them will put a smile on my face. However, if I were to be very critical I'd score the XUV300 higher but only ever so slightly.

Handling and Comfort: Nexon > XUV300
Here, the Nexon wins the match. The steering setup is confidence inspiring and I can feel connected to the road. The same cannot be said about XUV300, although it isn't too far behind. In terms of overall ride comfort as well, the Nexon is just setup better than XUV300 - again only by a small margin. However, with a pair of critical lenses the Nexon outscores XUV300.

Cabin Experience: XUV300 >> Nexon
On long road-trips, the cabin experience becomes important as well. The XUV300 easily wins this game. Boasting some best in-class features like Dual Zone ACC, an excellent practical cabin and not to mention, the umpteen amount of attention-to-detail features, XUV300 outscores Nexon by a good margin. While the smaller boot space and a less ideal rear seat should've set things back, our evaluation revealed that it is just about right for a family of 2 (+1 child) and hence didn't make a difference to the outcome.

After Sales and Softer elements: XUV300 > Nexon
Between Tata and Mahindra, we heard better things about Mahindra overall in terms of ASS. While it is generally a concern for both, we were willing to punt on Mahindra more. Moreover, we could see Nexon everywhere. During our evaluation period, we would count how many Nexons/XUV300 we saw on the road wherever we were going. Nexons easily outnumbered XUV300s. Somewhere in our heart we wanted something a little bit exclusive. The XUV300 fit this bill. I also personally felt (after multiple TDs) that the XUV300 is a highly underrated car. I wanted to own one to tell the world that this car is worth it. Stupid? Maybe. But like I said, softer elements. The XUV300 also had the shortest waiting period so that was a plus for us.

And that was that. We finalized that the Mahindra XUV300 W8(O) Diesel MT shall be our first car to own. My wife wanted the car to be in the Aqua Marine color scheme and I agreed - it looked the best in this color to our eyes.

[krishnakumar]

Sales Process and PDI

Sales and negotiations
I had been in touch with 3 Mahindra dealerships in Bangalore which were: (1) Sireesh Auto Silk Board (2) Anant Cars Marathahalli and (3) India Garage Whitefield.

Initially I had contacted both Anant Cars and Sireesh Auto for XUV700 since we were interested to see how the AX3/AX5 variants would turn out (when the cracker pricing announcement was done). Immediately after the launch we dropped this plan altogether since (a) the mid-variants were too bare bones (b) we expected LONG waiting periods and dealer high-handedness.

Until this point, we weren't considering the XUV300 and its addition to our shortlist almost coincided with us dropping the XUV700. So when the SAs from both dealerships started following up with me on my interest in XUV700, I asked them to get me a TD of XUV300 instead.

It was only Mr. Mahesh from Sireesh Silk Board who continued to follow-up my change in interest to XUV300. There was no word from Anant Cars after I shifted and I followed up once or twice and did not bother to follow up with them again. I had reached out to India Garage Whitefield primarily to get an additional TD of the vehicle and also to get a quote so that I have leverage. The SA (Mr. Arwind) denied a possibility of stockyard PDI and I told him that no booking shall be made since it's a non-negotiable requirement. He didn't seem to be too bothered by it as well.

Therefore we decided to stick with Sireesh Silk Board and started our sales process. I want to compliment Mr. Mahesh on being diligent and professional throughout the process. Later, Mr. Srinivas (team lead at Sireesh) also joined in on the process. They gave me a quote of Rs. 15.52L, the break-up as follows:

Ex-Showroom: 12,64,112
Cash Discount: 13,000
Corp Discount: 4,000
Net Invoice: 12,47,112
TCS (@1% Net Invoice): 12,471
Road Tax (@18.87%): 2,38,538 (17% of ex-showroom + 1.1% of tax as cess charges)
Reg Charges: 1,800 (without hypothecation)
Fastag: 500
Incidental: 7080
Insurance quoted: 33,000
Extended warranty+RSA: 11,460

Total: Rs. 15,51,961

We booked the car on Oct 24th, 2021 by paying Rs.11,000 so that we could kickstart the allocation process while we negotiate further on the final OTR price. I was very clear with the dealership that full payment will be done only after doing a detailed PDI at their stockyard. They readily agreed and said that they don't do it any other way. Good!

They weren't willing on reducing the invoice value any further and said that the Rs. 17,000 discount is the best they could do. However, they were willing to match the insurance. I was able to retrieve quotes ranging from Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 30,000 from different insurers which I shared with Srinivas and requested for a discussion with their Insurance Executive, Mr. Ravi. After a further round of negotiation, I was able to bring down the insurance quote to Rs. 29,484 for Nil-Dep B2B 1 year comprehensive plan + 3 years of TPA. The insurance is from Mahindra which is offered by Edelweiss and offers cashless claims across their network.

This brought down the final OTR price to Rs. 15,48,445. We were okay with this and didn't want to stretch the discussions any further.

The Surprise Allocation
At the time of TD and booking, it was told to us that the delivery timeline is 6-8weeks for our variant+colour combo. However, 2 days after booking on Oct 26th I got a call from Sireesh's finance department regarding vehicle allocation and asking for my financing option. I was totally caught by surprise and asked the lady who called me to confirm via mail regarding the booking since I had received no official communication (no OTF etc.) from Mahindra or the dealer.

The next day Mahesh called me and confirmed that the vehicle is indeed allocated and is in-transit from their Nashik factory and would be at the stockyard in 3 days. I was SOO excited!

We were planning to go to my hometown for Diwali and were going to book our tickets for the same. We dropped the plan and decided to take the delivery if the PDI goes well. I insisted on getting the PDI done on the same day the vehicle arrives and Mahesh managed to get that arranged.

Taking learnings from TBHP's official PDI checklist, I prepared a more detailed one (attached below if anyone wants to use it) and went to the stockyard on Oct 30th. Everything was in order except for a few minor issues. The car was manufactured in Oct'21 when decoded from the VIN and the ODO stood at just 4km. Sweet!!

XUV300 PDI Checklist.pdf

A few pictures from the PDI.












I mailed them regarding the issues that were to be fixed. Once we ensured that mail communications captured everything (PDI issues, delivery dates, negotiated final price etc.) we made the payments and shared the transaction details.

Delivery

The delivery was fixed for the day after Diwali, that is Nov 5th 2021. Our parents had prescribed the auspicious time as 1.45-2.45pm. I'm not a believer myself but my wife and parents are, so I respected that. Mahesh asked me to come by the showroom at around 1pm and assured everything would be in order.

However, knowing the horror stories from TBHP I decided to show up a little earlier unannounced, just to check on how things were shaping up.

We arrived at the showroom at around 12.30pm and I was pleasantly surprised to find the car, all ready, behind the curtain. We went inside the showroom and Mahesh had already prepared all the documents necessary. We were assisted by Mr. Suresh, the Delivery Manager, for the documentation process. Every document was in order so only my signatures were pending. They asked if we wanted to check on the issues which were reported before we do the documentation and I agreed. We inspected the car again and all the issues reported were resolved. I checked the ODO and it stood at 12km (showroom was exactly 8km from stockyard which I had checked earlier), the VIN and engine numbers matched as well. We went back and finished the document formalities.

We were done with everything by 1pm!! We had a whole 1 hour to spare before we could take the delivery within the auspicious time window. I was randomly walking around the showroom just to pass time, a lot of it spent inside the Thar, which I definitely enjoyed.

Once the clock struck 2pm, we asked for the delivery process to begin. Photos and videos were taken. And with that, by 2.30pm we were out of the showroom with Yoda!!

[krishnakumar]

Initial Ownership Review

The XUV300 is one of the most underrated cars in my opinion. It has the most powerful engine in the segment, tough build quality and a great cabin experience.

As I write this review, I have already completed 1300+ km with Yoda. Almost all of it was on highways. We also took Yoda to an extreme stress test while coming to Trivandrum via Nagercoil during the second week of November'21. The southern tip of India was battered with incessant rains and the Tamiraparani river that flows through Nagercoil was overflowing because dams upstream had to be opened. We took village routes, off-roaded a bit, took it through narrow winding streets, climbed steep inclines and even crossed through flowing water (the river was flowing over the road but it was thankfully below the recommended wading depth). Yoda took it all like a champ, after all, he is a master of The Force!

Needless to say, it reinforced our faith in Yoda. It's a car that we can now take anywhere and perfectly fits our one-liner requirement that we started our search with.

Things that I absolutely cherish

• They say beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. To me the car looks timeless and classy. It has nice creases and sculpts across the body work, strong shoulders and a really neat, clean face. The only unflattering angle is from the sides where the abruptly ending rear takes a little away from an otherwise well-proportioned car. At the rear, the designers have done a decent job to reduce the visual bulk. With the DRLs on, the car definitely turns eyes.

• That powerful engine with 115 bhp and 300 Nm of torque. The peak power output is at 3750 rpm which is well beyond reach in most cases. However, the meaty torque lies between 1500-2500 rpm which is addictive. There is a bit of turbo lag but with good footwork it is easy to get a nice linear pull. This is where Yoda gets his name. Diminutive in size but very strong with "The Force". In highways, I can see even bigger cars tailgating and lining up at the chicanes wanting to overtake. Even with a light tap on the throttle, the XUV300 pulls ahead leaving the others chasing. I settle at around 90-100kmph and have no desire to take it any further while the others slowly catch up. Even at the 6th gear if I want to move ahead a slow moving truck quickly, a little push on the lever is all that's required to spur the engine and overtake.

• The excellent ride quality. At the time of TD, we didn't have enough opportunity to test out every road condition. However, now that we have covered 1000+ km, I can easily say that the car offers excellent ride quality. Highway stability is great and rough patches are absolutely smothered while the suspensions work silently. Rumble strips and expansion joints are decimated - you barely hear any noise which makes the drive very peaceful and comfortable. On broken village roads, it rounds off potholes and rough patches so well. Ride is very supple except for a slight roughness due to the 17". But you'll find none of your passengers complaining. No "Oohh"s and "Uff"s will be heard from anyone in the cabin. It's one of those things you start appreciating only when you experience it. Most importantly, you don't need to slow down which is something everyone seeks on long highway runs.

• A no compromises front cabin. Everything is nice to touch and solidly put together. The fit and finish is good but not excellent - you'll not find yourself complaining. If you're buying a car primarily for 2 people then look no further. For the driver and the shotgun, there is everything that's needed up front, hosting some excellent attention to detail features (covered in detail later in this post) which makes for a very nice cabin experience!

Things that leave me wanting

• For a car with such lip-smacking performance, it was imperative to give it nothing short of an excellent handling setup too. However, Mahindra has missed the mark here. The steering doesn't really make you feel fully connected to the road. In wide open corners, one has to make minute adjustments to keep it pointed the same way. The MRF tyres don't help either. On winding roads, especially when slightly damp, the tyres show their limitation and you can feel the road slipping away. I'm planning to upgrade to better tyres at some point later.

• The driver seat comfort isn't one of XUV300's forte. Firstly, there is no dead pedal in the manual version so I'm constantly having to shift my left foot. I'm just surprised why they didn't think of that. Secondly, lack of reach adjustment for the steering wheel means that I can't really rest my elbows while driving.

• The brakes feel a bit spongy and the initial bite is lacking. This is how it felt in two other test drive cars as well so I'm assuming it's standard. Do note that the brakes function quite well and stops the car quickly. But since the feedback (in terms of bite) is lacking, it makes it difficult to gauge what level of application you're at. Learning to drive on non-ABS vehicles, I practiced threshold braking and for that the initial bite is critical. With that bite lacking, it just doesn't feel natural to me. It needs a little getting used to.

Things that I can live with

• The dated interiors. This is one of the oft-quoted criticisms for the XUV300 when it comes to interiors. Personally, I really don't mind that the screen has low resolution and that it's only 7". I'm buying a car not a phone! Even the reverse camera is only used when necessary just to get an overall guidance; for the rest, I'm relying mostly on the ORVMs and parking sensors (call me old school). As for the dated HVAC, well, thank you Mahindra for choosing to put physical buttons for AC controls. I'm really not in favour of removing physical buttons for essential functions like HVAC and I don't care if they look dated. I'm not looking at them while driving. And thanks to the buttons, I don't have to look at them while driving which is what matters to me. I'd have certainly liked a slightly different button for the temperature control so that I can distinguish it better, but I guess with a few more hours of driving it'll get embedded in my muscle memory.

• Rear boot space. It fits our needs, more than sufficiently. So that's that. Tip for potential XUV300 buyers, do not get a parcel tray. We thought about it strong and we really couldn't find much use for it.

Enough with the words, some pictures of Yoda, shall we?

This has to be the best angle for XUV300 - the car just looks super smart, No excessive gaudy chrome anywhere - just the right amount!



The rear looks really good, especially with those LED brake lamps lit up. They have managed really well to reduce the visual bulk without making it too gaudy or vanilla



The side profile isn't the best and it resembles more of a hatchback. The rear dropping-off doesn't suit the rest of the body proportions. However, it does gain back some points with those fabulous 17" alloys.



Woohoo!! 1000km up. It was mostly uneventful. This milestone would have gone unnoticed if not for the low fuel warning - we took this after giving Yoda a nice drink at the fuel station.



Those AMAZING attention-to-detail features

Important caveats: Some of these features may be (1) exclusive to the W8(O) variant (2) available in other cars as well. The below list isn't an attempt to downplay other cars or portray the XUV300 as unique. Rather, these are just a list of features that I found to be great and useful.

• The center armrest storage has an opening at front. This helps in two ways (1) allows larger phones/tablets to be fit inside (2) you can take the wire out without having to fiddle with the closing mechanism. Safely putting away your phone while it's still connected to the ICE is essential for a safe driving in my opinion. I immediately loved this feature when I saw it.

• There are two bottle holders on the front door. One for a small bottle (100-250ml) and another for a big bottle (500ml-1L) - so no more fitment issues and small bottle rattling about in a big space. To add to that, the bottle holders are upright and at an arms-length which makes for easy stowing and retrieval. Neat!

• This open stowaway shelf for the shotgun. This shelf is slant towards the front so when you accelerate, the stuff that you put there (mostly the shotgun's phone) isn't going to slide back and fall down.

• The glovebox is DEEP. This means you can easily put your laptop inside if you'd want to. The laptop in the picture below is a 14" HP Elitebook, it slightly extends out but you can close the door without any trouble. A 13" Macbook will be a snug fit inside.

• XUV300 has an adjustable boot floor. So when you fold your seats flat, you can raise the floor to match the seats and get a flat surface. Wait wait. The story doesn't just end there. This is where it gets interesting. If you were wondering whether the shelf would cave with the load then thankfully the engineers thought of that too. The toolkit organizer can also be raised using a spacer to provide a stable foundation for the raised boot floor!

• The driver side has two pins on the floor where the mats can lock in. No more sliding mats and fiddling around with your feet. The driver's feet has enough work cut out so the pins are there to ensure nothing additional comes by.

• There is good amount of insulation material throughout the car. This helps a lot in providing great NVH levels inside the cabin. Example below, insulating polystyrene-like material that can be seen behind the A pillar section.

• The rear wheel claddings have an integrated splashguard in the form of a minor bump. And yes, this is functional! Officially tested on Kerala's muddy roads, it keeps most of the mud-splash away from the paint. Neat!

• The light stalk on the steering column gets this grey dummy button just so that it is symmetric to the wiper stalk. I'm sure this went through the eyes of someone with OCD. Does that button really matter? No. But that minor cosmetic treatment somehow makes it look a little more appealing.

• Both the driver and co-driver get their vanity mirrors WITH LIGHTS.

• When you open the bonnet, the hazard lights turn on by default. You can turn this off by pressing the hazard light button. However, do note that there is no option to turn this off permanently. I can see some people finding this annoying but I found this to be useful.

• When the driver opens their locked door, they don't have to unlock the car first. Just opening the latch would unlock the central locking for all doors. Similarly, turning the engine off unlocks all doors. Although I found these two features to be neat, many have called it out as a safety concern which I completely understand. These are some of those things that are useful 99/100 times but that 1 time you may wish otherwise.

Niggles Reported

Well after all, this is a Mahindra. So some niggles are expected. We have observed the following issues and I'm planning to get them resolved in the first service:

• There is some bug in the Bluetooth connectivity and it keeps failing randomly. I have explained the bug in detail in this post for folks who are interested to read - (Mahindra XUV300 : Official Review)
• The co-driver side sun visor hook is a bit too loose. While it does snap fit into the hook, it's a little too free for a new car. Nothing major to report though but thinking of getting it fixed.

Apart from the above everything is solid about this car.

Accessories/Mods Fitted and Planned

Complimentary accessories given by the dealer

• Floor mats
• Magnetic window sunshades (this was taken instead of the parcel tray which was first offered)
• Mud-flaps for all wheels

Other accessories/mods fitted

• Full-body PPF and interior coating done from Krithi Car Care in Bangalore. Detailed post on this here -
• Viofo A129 Duo dashcam, hardwired via fusetaps - I did this as a DIY project. A post on this will be coming up soon!

Accessories/mods planned for future

• A DIY project to fix a boot lamp. Mahindra deleted this feature some time ago. My plan is to add a push-button LED lamp which can be hardwired via fusetaps to the domelights.
• OBD2 scanner
• A better horn!
• Spruce-up the audio system by getting some better quality speakers at a later point

That's all folks. Stay tuned for more stories on my adventures with Yoda!

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Reviews section. Thanks for sharing!

Going to our homepage today

[Vijin]

Congratulations, and thank you for such a thorough thread. Here's to many more miles filled with joy!

[NagaBond]

Extremely well written, Krishna. I can see your joy in every sentence in the post. Looks like you have successfully converted some fence sitters towards Mahindra! Congratulations on your new car and I am eagerly waiting for more travel posts from you.

[ramnaresh_2000]

Congratulations XUV300 is one competent vehicle and very well written review. I toyed around the idea of getting one for myself last year, but was disappointed with boot space, chopped off rear design and retro dashboard layout.

I was blown away by the heft when I lifted the bonet in the showroom. I then visited Nexa to checkout Scross and the bonet felt really light.

I hope you have taken extended warranty. Wishing you happy miles.

[Dr.AD]

Congratulations on your XUV300. It is a very good car, and one of the better Mahindra products in recent times. Wish you a very happy ownership and many happy miles on this car.

Originally Posted by krishnakumar

Woohoo!! 1000km up. It was mostly uneventful. This milestone would have gone unnoticed if not for the low fuel warning - we took this after giving Yoda a nice drink at the fuel station.

Congratulations on reaching 1000km, and good to see you are doing plenty of long drives! That is the best way to enjoy these cars. However, sorry for nit-picking, but if I may, let me say that please do not wait till you get low fuel warnings in future. Since you mentioned this is your first car, it is important to get into a habit of refueling when the fuel tank reaches about 30% level. Fuel going so low that your car has to show low fuel warning is potentially harmful to the fuel system in the car. Further, in some rare cases, this can put you in trouble when unexpectedly you do not get fuel when needed the most. For both car's and your safety (specially during outstation drives), the best habit is to refuel before letting the fuel level go below 30%.

[petrogeek]

What a crisp and well compiled post. Congratulations on your first ride and well chosen, i must say. I keep telling folks who are considering a sub compact SUV to strongly consider the XUV 300, for the reasons that you mentioned - great engine, high on safety and good features. Granted it may not have many of the little bells and whistles which the Kias, Hyundais, Nissans may have but it is as you said a SOLID offering from the Mahindra stable. Perhaps a little facelift on some features will bring it on par with the other compact SUVs out there.

Here's wishing you happy motoring with Yoda!

[Abhikumar629]

Very well written. Congrats for getting a new member to the family.

XUV300 is indeed a competent offering. Sad to see that it is not always a part of the so called comparisons. It still has enough tricks up its sleeve to give the competition a run for its money. The only sad part is that Mahindra is busy making it lighter in weight (removing features) which I feel will kill the USP of this package.

[krishnakumar]

Thank you all for the kind words! Needless to say, my inspiration for the ownership review has been the many exemplary ownership threads on this forum. The bar is really set high and I'm trying my best to meet it.

Originally Posted by Vijin

Congratulations, and thank you for such a thorough thread. Here's to many more miles filled with joy!

Thanks Vijin! Whenever both of us are in Trivandrum, we should introduce our cars to each other.

Originally Posted by NagaBond

I am eagerly waiting for more travel posts from you.

Most definitely! I'll do my best to share Yoda's stories.

Originally Posted by ramnaresh_2000

I hope you have taken extended warranty. Wishing you happy miles.

Yes!! Extended Warranty and 1 year additional Roadside Assistance has been taken. Although, these are yet to reflect in the system. The dealer said there is some issue with Mahindra's DMS because of which these are pending.

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

However, sorry for nit-picking, but if I may, let me say that please do not wait till you get low fuel warnings in future. Since you mentioned this is your first car, it is important to get into a habit of refueling when the fuel tank reaches about 30% level.

Thank you sir! Fully agree with your feedback.

However, I have to say that this particular exercise was more deliberate to check the MID warnings, Distance To Empty etc. I was also waiting for a fuel station with a relatively better rating. Needless to say, this shan't be repeated!

I had cultivated a bad habit, over a decade ago, of leaving as little fuel as possible in my FZ because chaps would steal petrol from my bike (in college campus). It took a long time for me to get out of this habit when I started getting secured parking.

Originally Posted by petrogeek

I keep telling folks who are considering a sub compact SUV to strongly consider the XUV 300, for the reasons that you mentioned - great engine, high on safety and good features.

Thank you petrogeek! Yes, for a small family, this car gives an excellent driving experience.

[Turbo_Lawyer]

Congratulations! Glad to see you have actually taken the suggestions for the XUV 3OO on your earlier post seriously.

As a fellow owner, I'm glad that you actually find that the boot is not actually as bad as what people make of it. You'd feel the lack of space maybe 2/10 times but its not usually a deal breaker otherwise. I believe that main reason this car did not sell very high numbers was primarily because of how people felt that they could not even fit two bags in the trunk.

Also, doesn't the torque rush between 1500-2500rpm put a big smile on your face?

[amay1283]

Great review KrishnaKumar. Wish you many happy miles and rattle free journeys.

I took the delivery of my XUV 300 W8 (O) petrol autoshift on 4th Nov from India Garage Whitefield. The same SA, Arvind, however was ok with me doing a PDI prior to payment. But in other aspects I guess Sireesh sounds way better than India Garage. One question to you on the extended warranty. Is the 11460 that you paid, for the 4th year extended warranty alone or also includes the RSA upto 4 years?

[quattroa4]

Congratulations to you and your Yoda ! Great choice of colour for this solidly built tank none the less.