[abirnale]

I just got this video done from my friend based on all the pictures and videos we captured during the recent Monsoon Drive with other friends to MSH4:

https://youtu.be/XAyjhYvE1y0

Another weekend Monsoon Drive:

When it rains, we love to travel. Blessed to have companions who join me on my travel and an extraordinary family who doesn't bitch about me going with friends

The last weekend was spent with some buddies exploring the Malendau region. The stretches around Devarmane, and Kudremukh were beautiful. Heavy rains, narrow roads, slushy paths, beautiful tea gardens and homestays, time with friends, sipping a hot cup of tea, eating local food... what else do you want for the Monsoon Drive?

The attraction of the drive was, two Red XUVs AX7L AWD! A close friend had booked XUV with me and his car got delivered at the end of March while mine was in Feb. The sight was fantastic to see on the road - felt like seeing my own car with the difference of dual colour! We did explore the tea estates and slippery roads. The cars did fantastically. Due to the rains couldn't capture many videos though.

Here are some clicks from the drive:

















































And this was the sight at one place - this must be a MID calculation error or just while I was descending the ghat roads!



An by the way, Google keeps reminding me with the old and new car pics too!



Service Action Note:
While on this drive, I got a call from my ASC that there is a rear suspension-related check to be done. Hence I went to Chrome Motors and as usual they did fantastic - within 30 mins I was out. The issue to be checked is on the rear suspension spring coil, if there are any unevenness on the coils. This may be due to the episode of Tilted Car Stance thing. I don't know but my car was checked and there is no work needed. So out within 30 mins and back on road - where the car belongs!

See you next week with more updates!

[abirnale]

Another great weekend - we are in revenge travel mode!

My elder one just completed sweet 16 and a celebration is must for the young lady. To add to it, she comfortably moved onto the PU school. What better way than heading out into our own little world on four wheels? As a family, we love exploring, driving, listening to good music, tasting lip-smacking food, learning about people and geography. The little one has picked up the interest in birding. And this just adds to the reason or excuses to travel. I am not even talking about “need to unwind to escape the work.”

Over the weekend, after the school hours, we headed into our favourite place near Chikmagalur - The Halli Berri Cottages and Coffee Barn Cafe. The place is beautiful, may be a little costly, and greatly maintained. They have great staff, caring people around and perfectly isolated rooms to give that privacy - my daughter likes this place of all the ones we have visited. So we booked two rooms with them for Saturday night. Knowing its birthday girl’s choice, our hosts went out of the way to ensure we have the entire experience to be the best! We had great food, specially cooked fish that we love, great chocolate cake as surprise, and good arrangement for our “we” time to celebrate and connect.

The overall experience was amazing. We used the onward route via Yediyur - Arasikere - Kadur and broken roads through semi-jungle rural stretch into Athigiri side. The rains to accompany, a lot of rare birds to see in the last stretch, and greenery all around - it felt like traveling through the paradise. For the Sunday, we drove aimlessly in the nearby areas, clicked tons of pictures, soaked in the rain and returned to Coffee Barn cafe for cutlet sandwiches. And then straight exit via CKM - Belur - Hassan - Kunigal - Nelmangal. With only the exception of traffic jams at the entry of Nelmangala Yashwantpur elevated stretch, everything was fun.

Here are some pictures form the trip:







































The Red Sparkle continues to serve us without any issues and turning into another fine trustworthy steed to have owned. We have clocked about 18,475 Kms till date and aim to cross over to third free service in a few more week’s time. And maybe by the time, the much awaited Apple CarPlay comes to life!

The car is hasn’t even got a chance to get cleaned for a long time - we just continue to use it without giving it a much needed TLC. I am hopeful of getting it thoroughly cleaned this week (interior as well as exterior).

And then be ready for another drive, another weekend, another memorable day! Stay tuned for more updates as we spend more time together.

[abirnale]

This is going to be a slow weekend - finally I will be grounded :( No trips this weekend, no outstation ones to say the least. The most awaited Ladakh trip I was planning with some XUV owners, is happening and I am not joining - blaming it on to work and other commitments.

Anyway, I could sneak into an hour yesterday and visited CarzSpa for a quick wash. They did a fantastic job (except my OCD). The interiors were wiped clean, exterior were shining red. They dressed the tires and all black cladding portions on the exterior. Loved their TLC - It was worth visiting them in HSR layout. This is the outlet I am referring to - CarzSpa Bangalore HSR layout (https://goo.gl/maps/3gkTRUGXfG5WGLyc8) The only wish list item is to get the underbody washed by lifting it up. But i think that is best done at FNG someday later.

I was very impressed with their work and totally missed clicking the pic out in the shining sun. But here is one while the final drying was in progress:



Stay tuned for more exciting updates after another week!

[abirnale]

The front right tyre, the TPMS is constantly showing less air from last week or so. I filled air to 34 and after a 2-3 days gap its again showing 29. It is either a puncture or slow leak from the valve itself. While I am continuing to drive as-is, this waring popped up yesterday: Tyre Pressure Imbalance.



It seems like if the constant difference between two front tyres is more than 5 psi, the warning comes up! Nice to see this happening and car telling me that it is about to look like Pushpa at the front tyre level I am going to monitor this for entire week and check if its a puncture or something else.

Lake Hopping continues:
And as usual, a quick lake hopping around Bengaluru on Sunday evening in the drizzle was fun. We drove through some unpaved roads, potholes and slushy/ slipper lake bund. Car did just fantastic - no drama, no issues. We continue to make beautiful memories and capture them in digital format too:















And a random auto-edit by GoPro app produced this fine clip too:

https://youtu.be/SXi6Mr5BK80

The Red Sparkle is just about 1300kms away from 20K mark and third free service. Stay tuned for more updates as we sail through the work week.

[abirnale]

20,000 Kms, in exactly 6 months! As I crossed the Belgavi on NH48 this Tuesday morning, the odometer crossed 20K mark! Something to ascertain how much The Red Sparkle has been running around. The time we reached back home, the Odometers had crossed 20550 Kms.

The weekend was spent connecting with my post graduation buddies - some of us meeting after 20 years. Since most of us are in three cities - BLR, HYD and PNE, we needed to find some place central to meet. An idea about meeting at Jog falls was well accepted by everyone and we charted a path to meet, drive around, spend some time together sharing our experiences form corporate life and talk uncensored.

The 9 of us were bundled into two SUVs - one Tata Safari from Pune and the Red Sparkle from Bangalore. With two desi SUVs, the boys set out on the aimless drive around Jog falls. We visited other falls around, strayed onto the unknown roads, ferry, forests, behaved crazy and went off grid from our connected world, Took the slushy roads, bad roads, great smooth tarmac, did some soft-roading on the lush green hills, clicked some awesome pictures, sighted a Bison crossing our path, a fox jumping across the bushes, a deer watching us from the banks of the road… all in a area that is not a Safari. We took turns of driving at each other’s car and appreciated, blamed for the package we are enjoying!

We took all the white lines we saw around our homestay Gundi Mane and Jog Falls. On Monday we decided to go to Tilari Ghats and Forest, something we had visited long time ago as friends together.

Happy to report that Tata Safari and Mahindra XUV 7OO did fantastic to haul large crew, take all kind of roads and never gave even a slightest chance to doubt. I made some observations while driving Safari and XUV7OO:

• The Safari headlights are not as powerful as XUV7OO but the fog lamps of XUV7OO sucks big time. Case in point, we were driving through the thick fog and clouds at the peak of Tilari and RedSparkle while leading the drive had almost zero visibility. Roads were bad too. I literally drove the at about 10 kmph speed. When I took the steering of Safari, I felt much better with its fog lamp setup.
• The Safari did everything that RedSparkle did despite being just FWD. Must appreciate the driver and the vehicle capability. We climbed a hill together without a fuss. When we were taking a 45 degree climb on the bank of the canal towards Swapnvel view point, Safari kept spinning it’s wheel whereas RedSparkle did not show any signs of weakness. Safari with it’s original driver attempted the climb with momentum and it was absolutely fine - no drama at all.
• The Safari suspension is somehow far better on bad roads than XUV7OO. I don’t know the technical details but I felt much better while cruising over the bad roads than my XUV7OO.
• After having used XUV7OO for such a long time, I did not feel excited or connected with the Safari at first - the dash experience wasn’t at par. Neither was the highway speed manners.
• The Safari engine isn’t as much peppy as XUV7OO. It was easier to loose the Safari in IRVM whenever I wanted to.
• The thing I still admire today is Safari still looks and behaves like an SUV whereas XUV7OO despite being a real SUV (with AWD), behaves like a car. Now that’s neither a plus nor a minus - depends on what you are looking at in the car and looks are always subjective anyway. I loved the dancing ability of XUV7OO on highway whereas lusted over the rough road ease of driving on the Safari.

Looking back, I think I would have happily picked up Safari had it been a true SUV with AWD or 4WD capability - it suits all my needs including price and space and capability.

Here are some pictures from our drive:











































Stay tuned as I report back the Third Free Service/ 20K Kms updates later this week.

[amahale]

Wonderful posts and pictures!! One question, what drone camera do you use for the arial photos?

[vegitakarthik]

Originally Posted by abirnale

20,000 Kms, in exactly 6 months! As I crossed the Belgavi on NH48 this Tuesday morning, the odometer crossed 20K mark!
=====
Stay tuned as I report back the Third Free Service/ 20K Kms updates later this week.

Fantastic machines and pics . Thanks for your perspective. I am one of those many who booked XUV 700 but ended up with Tata Safari. Loving the beast but still look at XUV 700 with envy, especially the red color.

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by amahale

Wonderful posts and pictures!! One question, what drone camera do you use for the arial photos?

Thanks @amahale. I use DJI Mini 2.

Originally Posted by vegitakarthik

Loving the beast but still look at XUV 700 with envy, especially the red color.

Thanks @vegitakarthik - let me put it on records, If Safari would have been offered in AWD or even Harrier, I would have bought it long ago. Thats the only deal breaker for me while everything else is manageable. And you should see the Harrier dark edition or the red dual tone with black roof - I still lust over it! Again, thats personal preference but having experienced both the cars, they do have their strengths and weakness. There is no perfect car or perfect driver!

Some more points that should have added to earlier post about comparing with Safari:

• The Safari seats aren’t as comfy as XUV7OO but’s second row adjustability helps make third row occupants bear with torture!
• The Safari I drove was AT, top end. The Gear shifting is seamless. Whatever tuning Tata has done, is good enough for most conditions. According to my buddy, he gets good mileage too. He is very conservative driver and cautious. Never gets carried away and may be the reason why his mileage numbers are always better than XUV7OO!
• I saw that when XUV7OO is loaded to the brim with weight (luggage or people or both) the rear appears to be going lower than normal. It feels as-if the GC is super low. The car behaves well and didn’t face any issues with underbody clearance or so but it just looks weird when seen from the rear. I forgot to check the GC of the car loaded - should do this sometime.
• The Safari and XUV7OO features are in general comparable with a few misses on both the sides. I loved the auto-dimming IRVM in Safari. Huge difference in the manual IRVM in 7OO and Safari when driving at night.

20K Kms Service Update:

• - It is the last free service. Typically expected towards end of second year ownership. (assuming average of 10K a year.)
• - In this service Only Inspections is done, and the cabin air filter is replaced. And if there are any open service actions/ recalls, they are addressed. So ideally not more than 2 hours service.
• On Red Sparkle, there were some software flashing related service actions.
• Since M&M uses the normal semi-synth oil (MaxiMile), I requested the ASC to change oil and oil filter at every 10K Kms. I keep the car running, idling a lot and distance will not really be indicator of this milestone. And it doesn’t cost big hole in pocket anyway. I will continue to do this until 50k and then switch to synthetic ones we all use. I am hesitant to touch the car for any modifications (other than look and feel) that are related to any mechanical and electrical parts. Without some confidence form ASC or M&M, I will hold on these.
• During inspection, we found that rear brake pads are at their limit, have to be replaced. This is shocking as 5OO rear brake pads used to last for about 40k and front for about 22K. This one is eating pads like nobody’s business! Front pads at 17K and rear at 20.5K! Anyway, this is must and one cant run car without brake pads, so be it.

I made some observations during the service today:

• Changing rear brake pad isn’t as easy as a non EPB car. This one needs to exercise a lot of caution and additional steps to change rear brake pads. I suspect of the roadside tyre shop or a FNG can do this. Someone like Bosch can for sure.
• The cabin Air filter is behind the glove box on passenger side. Easy to remove and replace if you know how to open the back of glovebox. There are a few push pins and soft closing plastic rails that help operate the glovebox. That rail is flimsy - you can easily break it or loose the wheel/ pulley or whatever that thing is and then it can be a big task to get it back in working condition. You may just end up opening the dash on passenger side to fix it! Even though there was once this dash was opened for fixing the Silverbox to investigate on ESP issue, I don’t see any rattles so far. Hope to see it staying like this for longer.
• There is no Apple CarPlay yet! I mean after six months, 20K kms, M&M is struggling to give a feature they promised and I seriously look forward to. How hard can it be when it’s already in the Thar?
• There is a minor glitch on the rear left door handle. It sometimes doesn’t retract completely in when locked. ASC has opened the TAR with M&M and seems like we may need a warranty replacement on that handle alone.
• The ESP blinking issue while crossing over the medium to large size hump seldom seen. There is still no word on when this will be fixed.

With all service and actions completed, car was out before lunch. I love this planned service visits at Chrome - takes quick actions, no fuss, nothing being pushed unnecessarily and everything works like a perfect predictable play. Here is the final bill including oil change as well as rear brake pad changes:



Thanks for reading and stay tuned for further updates.

[aveoman19]

Originally Posted by abirnale

20,000 Kms, in exactly 6 months! As I crossed the Belgavi on NH48 this Tuesday morning, the odometer crossed 20K mark! Something to ascertain how much The Red Sparkle has been running around. The time we reached back home, the Odometers had crossed 20550 Kms.

Stay tuned as I report back the Third Free Service/ 20K Kms updates later this week.

20000 Kms in just 6 months! Very happy to be part of this wonderful forum where members actually take interest in driving more than anything else. I always believd that petrolheads are the last of a dying breed. If not for Team-Bhp, I'm not sure how in this increasingly mechanical new world of ours, the flame of petrolheads could be kept alive! Here's wishing you many more happy and Safe Miles on your beautiful XUV 700!

[nerd1200]

Originally Posted by abirnale

20,000 Kms, in exactly 6 months!

You sure are taking the "Live Young, Live Free" tag very seriously!! Kudos.

Originally Posted by abirnale

[*]The Safari did everything that RedSparkle did despite being just FWD. Must appreciate the driver and the vehicle capability.

Looking back, I think I would have happily picked up Safari had it been a true SUV with AWD or 4WD capability - it suits all my needs including price and space and capability.

That's a praise indeed coming from an XUV700 owner. Tata has calibrated the TCS very well to mitigate, as far as possible, the absence of AWD.

Originally Posted by abirnale

[*]The Safari I drove was AT, top end. The Gear shifting is seamless. Whatever tuning Tata has done, is good enough for most conditions.

I should say Hyundai should get half the praise in this regard, the gearbox is awesome. Very quick shifts, almost always in the right gear. 700 feels a bit confused at lower speeds and when you demand brisk acceleration. However the shift quality improves significantly later in the revv band.

Originally Posted by abirnale

[*]I saw that when XUV7OO is loaded to the brim with weight (luggage or people or both) the rear appears to be going lower than normal. It feels as-if the GC is super low. The car behaves well and didn’t face any issues with underbody clearance or so but it just looks weird when seen from the rear. I forgot to check the GC of the car loaded - should do this sometime.

adneo reported this issue (along with some other suspension related errors) and they changed his springs all round. Now the car doesn't have this excessive sagging. However, the ride quality is now stiffer. Looks like it's a win some, lose some proposition.

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by aveoman19

20000 Kms in just 6 months!…. Here's wishing you many more happy and Safe Miles on your beautiful XUV 700!

Thanks @aveoman19 This is the combination of revenge travel phenomenon and car just adds fuel to that desire. It’s a great mile muncher. Effortless and energetic drives. I am confident of driving everyday 750-800 kms for many days in a row without any trouble.

Originally Posted by nerd1200

You sure are taking the "Live Young, Live Free" tag very seriously!! Kudos.
….
adneo reported this issue (along with some other suspension related errors) and they changed his springs all round. Now the car doesn't have this excessive sagging. However, the ride quality is now stiffer. Looks like it's a win some, lose some proposition.

Thanks @nerd1200. The problem there was imbalance on left vs right. And I think that is the reason why M&M issued the service action to check the spring coil loops on all cars on rear suspension. I had measured the exact height as was done there and provided that info to @adneo. It was/ is uniform. So, my car isn’t suffering from the same issue.

My comment is more from perspective of - the way car appears when loaded. It feels as-if the GC of a laden car is much lower than unladen! When we had 6 adults on board with some luggage, it appears like car lost its GC advantage. I have not come across a XUV with loaded stuff and probably did not observe this before. When I drove behind my own car, in another car, with my car full of load, it definitely felt to have lost the GC. During the service, we did check the suspension and there is nothing wrong there too.

[Evyas]

'Revenge travel' is the phrase of the year for me!

Firstly: Congratulations to you and Sabertooth for completing in 6 months what once took me 3 years!!

My wife and I discussed that 'revenge travel' is what's going to happen with us too. Since the lockdown we have been without a car and have been itching to get a new ride. Mahindra-willing, the waiting periods will go down from the '80 weeks' and maybe then we will plan on the XUV 700 because your ownership review and this thread has been such a joy to read. M&M should put you on their PR team

Also wanted to say that your travelogues are outstanding to read because they are accompanied by some of the finest photography I have seen on TeamBHP. The advantage of having a red car is that it will always stand out in any terrain, more so if the backdrop is green like in most of your pictures recently. But you have a wonderful eye for framing and composition and a great sense of dramatic staging - your non-car pictures are testament to your skills.

As a trained (though not very active) photographer, let me say - the IT sector's gain.. is photography's loss. Though you're now making up for it.

And finally also wanted to complement you on your fitness journey, based on a few old pictures I saw. People usually say it's hard to do as you near your 40s so kudos to you for getting fitter with age. More power to you.

Here's hoping we get to meet on one of our 'revenge travel' journeys in the future when we are in Bengaluru visiting old friends - or on the way to further adventures.

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by Evyas

Firstly: Congratulations to you and Sabertooth for completing in 6 months what once took me 3 years!!

Thanks you @Evyas for all the kind words! I wish you were my boss at work - I would have received a hefty raise!

The Red Sparkle gets new shoes!
Yep, you read it right!

On the last week’s jog falls drive, car picked up a puncture. It was due to a sharp mid size gravel piece. Sized about an inch. By the time i realised the puncture and found a place to pull over, change to spare etc, air had leaked by about 10 PSI. And when we checked, the size of puncture, the plugging it was almost impossible. So we simply changed to “Spare”. And if you recall, the Red Sparkle has a full size alloy with a yoko V rated tire! Without any interruptions, we carried on with our drive.

Come this week, I got car cleaned, and went to Tyre Professionals (sister concern of Madhus Tyre Center, closer to my work place and less crowded, in the middle of residential place full of canopy trees! I love that location!) for a WA/ WB and puncture repairs. We noted that the puncture on the changed spare is a write-off. cant be repaired. And other two tires have one nail each on them, not loosing air though. I clearly need at least one tire. Technically should buy at least two. Going with MRF is not an option - V rating is minimum I would want on my car. I would love to have A/T that is great performer and silent. Not that there are many readily available stocks and options, I decided to keep three MRF spares in garage (for whatever I could do with them or until home minister summons me to sleep in garage itself) and buy four new tires. I was supposed to do this at around 30K anyway. I could manage for 3-5 months more but alas… I gave into the desire to go for better tires and ended up buying the Continental ContiSportContact 5 tires in stock sizes.

Done with WA/ WA, new shoes, took the three 30% life left MRF wanderers and back to work in about 2 hours! The staff at TP did quick job and helped with some discount as well - this spend may have been delayed a little in the hindsight. I had tried to exchange the stock tires at the time of delivery, but those days were different. Not much hopes and not so good financial sense, exchange was not done.

Here is the report for alignment, the old tires and the new set!

The actual puncture that destroyed the tire, or helped expedite the tire change decision!


The old MRF set still has good 10K or so life left on them.


The new shoes are always shiny!




The alignment report:


I have to now go back to ASC and get the steering calibration restored.

Let’s burn some more rubber!

[mtnrajdeep]

Originally Posted by abirnale

I have to now go back to ASC and get the steering calibration restored.

Let’s burn some more rubber!

Just curious, why steering calibration after changing tyres? Is it something specific to XUV700 or was it required for XUV500 as well?

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by mtnrajdeep

Just curious, why steering calibration after changing tyres? Is it something specific to XUV700 or was it required for XUV500 as well?

This is specific to XUV7OO only. The ADAS features like Lane Keep Assist needs the steering calibration to be precise. Not sure what exactly does that mean but with every WA, they ensure that steering related calibrations are restored/ reset. The ASC refers to it as SS calibration. My interpretation of this is related to steering adjustment - 7OO has EPS steering. It does a lot of goofy stuff like vibrating when drifting from the lane without giving turn signal, much like how phone vibrates on notifications! Last time and even now, after the WA/WB, I did not find any change with or without calibration - I don’t use LKA assist features much - just the warning in highways and not complete LKA.

Maybe the next time I visit the ASC, I will ask more questions and try to learn about this thingie. Hope this helps.