[sleepyk]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

If anyone wants to do a #YOLO purchase this is the car to get.

Between the 2 door Thar, the Jimny and the soon to release 5 door Thar... Good and confusing time for prospective yolo purchase makers like me.

[boniver]

Saw this Thar with 5 spoke alloys and GTO's Thar was the first one that came to my mind!

[ex-innova-guy]

Originally Posted by boniver

Attachment 2554729

No tyre for the 5th alloy?

[dhanushs]

Originally Posted by boniver

Saw this Thar with 5 spoke alloys and GTO's Thar was the first one that came to my mind!

Attachment 2554729

An Offroader/SUV will always look good with higher profile tyres and a Sedan/Car will always look good in lower profile tyres.

Both cases the wheel well needs to be filled!

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by Ketan

Wouldn't it help if you run them more softer?
What settings are you running on your Thar during usual highway trips and during your off-road excursions?
Do you use different settings when fully loaded (luggage+2pax)?

I've got my AVO at around 8K kms and now I'm at 40K kms. I'm kind of got used to the bumpiness now. I'm on 14/15 clicks and only changed once during Zanskar trip.
As others mentioned, it's very useful on highway rides, pitching/nose diving almost gone, very less rolling and very good control, not even at high speeds, but even in the city where taking turns/corners are accurate and exactly follows the steering wheel movement. A lot better on those rumble strips for sure.
I'm only hoping it doesn't face any issues or require repair any soon. I had heated arguments with the Arka Bangalore contact to get my invoice (which I didn't get anyways) and not hoping that I'll get a good after sales service from Arka for my AVO suspension; unless, may be I go directly to Arka.

Sorry for the late reply. One day my friend Bibendum popped in and we test drove my Thar and his back to back. That day he suggested that the suspension was too soft for the city and needed to be tightened.

I tightened it by 2 clicks at the time. And I did two or three highway trips to Coorg and Madras and back.
I found the suspension somewhat bouncy after doing this since I drive alone most of the time with a very light load or no load so I went and softened the rear suspension by one more click.

His being a Feb 2023 Thar, has a much better stock suspension tune than my Feb 2021 Thar had when it came to me. Thats why I was an early adopter of AVO and indeed no regrets because it hugely improves handling and driving confidence.

I have subsequently again softened the rear by 1 more click recently when I took it for its 30K kms service and left the front at the earlier setting (problem is I have completely forgotten what exact setting it is on right now.)

But honestly it feels much better now on bumps, speed breakers and all. For two persons and mild luggage the settings I am presently on, work well both on highways and in the city. Im going to leave it as it is for now.

AVO worked well for those early Thars. But now it may no longer be necessary. The new Thars genuinely have better tuned suspension.

[rajeevsulu]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

So AVO worked well for those early Thars. But now it may no longer be necessary. The new Thars genuinely have better tuned suspension.

Mine is a March 23 Thar. Though the suspension tune is much better than the older Thars, it still left a lot to be desired on highway runs which are usually fast. The tune is much better for offroad, the Thar"s natural habitat, but, lacks on the highway. The Avo shines here. Taking corners is much more stable and the front does not dive. Based on one's usecase, the Avo can be a very good upgrade.
Cheers

[GTO]

Originally Posted by dhanushs

An Offroader/SUV will always look good with higher profile tyres and a Sedan/Car will always look good in lower profile tyres.

That is so well said & I 100% concur.

Originally Posted by rajeevsulu

Though the suspension tune is much better than the older Thars, it still left a lot to be desired on highway runs which are usually fast. The tune is much better for offroad, the Thar"s natural habitat, but, lacks on the highway. The Avo shines here. Taking corners is much more stable and the front does not dive.

I would disagree. Yes, the AVO improves behaviour at high speeds & its dynamics, but even with the AVO, the Thar still suffers extremely poor behaviour over 100+ kmph. I have encountered road undulations on the expressway and things got awfully scary! Yes, the AVO does make the corners better, yet the Thar isn't a corner carver at all.

The no.1 reason I went for the AVO was ride comfort and I am happy. However, the 2023 Thars ride better in stock form and I don't think the AVO upgrade is worth it anymore. The marginal improvement in handling & dynamics isn't worth the cost & effort (1-lakh rupees, installation etc. etc.). There are so many other modifications you can better spend that 1-lakh on.

[.anshuman]

Originally Posted by GTO

It's no longer worth it for anyone to spend 1-lakh on an AVO suspension or any after-market suspension.

The newer updated suspension on mid 2023 onwards cars is a lot better, mainly the cross-axle rebound and jerks are now fixed but still the ride comfort is far from perfect. No doubts Jimny rides lot better on bad roads but on road handling and steering of Thar is superior.

- The stock suspension is dirt cheap .

Yes it is cheap. I am in the process of reverting back to Mahindra OE suspension after having convinced everyone to buy AVO. Dampers each cost around 2-2.5k, less than 1k for springs.

- The AVO kit costs 1-lakh rupees. Then, at the 40000 - 50000 km mark, the AVO dampers apparently start leaking and need replacement. That is big bucks all over again.

At 20k kilometers the front dampers have lost all the pressure, the damping has become weird and dangerous. I also suspect they were also causing issues with the front drivetrain and a bracket because of uncontrolled wheel hop.

I have yet to drive the 2023 Thar on the highway, but based on a city drive, I think the suspension is now tolerable. I wouldn't spend the money on AVO if my car had come with the latest OEM suspension.

The updated OE suspension does not have the stability and composure of Avo tuned +2 or 3 on highways but the car does not crash in bumps like with Avo (at any setting).

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

On the AVO, Mr Leelakrishnan himself said that he would have the suspension serviced as needed if needed. My Thar has done about 27000kms. AVO does help as Ive documented earlier. And the lower tyre pressure of 28 psi also helps.

Rebuilding Avo dampers does not work. I am not counting the local dealer Phil who nevers answers anyone's phones, even if he does not deliver his promises. After contacting Mr. Leela directly we got a few pairs rebuilt over and over again. The rebuilt dampers don't work, some of them don't have enough damping force and others leak within first few thousand kilometers.

Removing Dampers from double wishbone setup and sending for repairs over to Coimbatore, waiting, coordinating and reinstalling is not worth the pain even if they promise (and deliver) lifetime of support.

We bought Avo for 5 out of 5 Thars in our small group.

Out of all 5 mine have lasted the longest duration and 20k kms. I don't use the car for bad road touring, expeditions or snow drives( I have Isuzu for that running Old Man Emu setup for 60-70k kms now yet all good). My car is used for either city runs daily use or sand dunes kind of offroading. The dampers lasted just 20k. ARB Old Man Emu, Ironman, Dobinsons etc last atleast 100k with far more abuse and are dependable.

I am now moving back to newer OE Mahindra suspension. Already swapped front, waiting for rear springs and dampers. Part numbers are same just newer ones have some internal updates, since I don't know and could not dig out what all is changed, I am changing all 4 dampers and springs.

Other cars have had far too many leakages, rebuilds, trouble.. Everyone barring one car have removed the Avo's. Front dampers on the last remaining car make squeaking noise.

The AVO improves the Thar's high speed manners for sure. I cruise at 120 kmph where I wouldn't go over 100 kmph in the stock Thar. That being said, the Thar is still a horrible handler and gets especially scary over road dips.

With Avo's (when they worked) the Thar has excellent high speed manners, stability and overall handling. Works best at +2-3 clicks but ride becomes crashy with such stiffness. Overall ride comfort improved a lot mostly on good road as all the bounce was eliminated. Bad road soaking ability especially sharp edged potholes, rumble strips and expansion joints still remained far from perfect.

The handling improvement worked wonders for us in higher speed sand dunes offroading making the car lot more predictable and composed. The adjustable damping gave us the flexibility to have softer comfortable on road ride and sharp handling for offroad use.

[NajSaf]

Based on the earlier reading, I was planning to replace my 2021 Thar shockers with AVOs...
Now, I won't.
Thank you BHPians --> You guys saved me a lot of money...

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by .anshuman

At 20k kilometers the front dampers have lost all the pressure, the damping has become weird and dangerous. I also suspect they were also causing issues with the front drivetrain and a bracket because of uncontrolled wheel hop.

We bought Avo for 5 out of 5 Thars in our small group.

Just for the record:
My Thar is a Feb 2021 copy. The vehicle and the AVO’s are almost 30K Kms done and are in excellent shape. My driving is mostly highway and city. Occasional runs to friend’s estates in Coorg or Ooty. And some trail drives around there. Never any major leisure or recreational off-roading, never any recreational rock crawling, slush and mud baths and water plunging. And never any forest-tree-root marauding.

Just mostly normal use. And our roads here in KA / Blr are like off road tracks anyway. Even large portions of the Madras Bangalore highway are pitted and broken and potholed. My AVO’s have lasted through multiple trips on all this. I keep a tyre pressure of 28psi all round which is 4 points lower than recommended. This adds to the comfortable ride. Im still on my OEM Ceat Czar tyres and they are in good shape because I regularly balance and rotate them and align the wheels.

But it is an inescapable fact that the SWB Thar, being a high-set body-on-frame beast, has a jiggly ride by nature. Nothing one can do to change that. But AVO’s definitely help to mitigate the uncomfortable ride on the earlier Thars.

[ph03n!x]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

Just for the record:
My Thar is a Feb 2021 copy. The vehicle and the AVO’s are almost 30K Kms done and are in excellent shape. My driving is mostly highway and city. Occasional runs to friend’s estates in Coorg or Ooty. And some trail drives around there. Never any major leisure or recreational off-roading, never any recreational rock crawling, slush and mud baths and water plunging. And never any forest-tree-root marauding.

Just mostly normal use. And our roads here in KA / Blr are like off road tracks anyway. Even large portions of the Madras Bangalore highway are pitted and broken and potholed. My AVO’s have lasted through multiple trips on all this. I keep a tyre pressure of 28psi all round which is 4 points lower than recommended. This adds to the comfortable ride. Im still on my OEM Ceat Czar tyres and they are in good shape because I regularly balance and rotate them and align the wheels.

But it is an inescapable fact that the SWB Thar, being a high-set body-on-frame beast, has a jiggly ride by nature. Nothing one can do to change that. But AVO’s definitely help to mitigate the uncomfortable ride on the earlier Thars.

+1

My Nov '20 Thar has had AVO from 18k on the clock and is currently at 64k KMs. No leakages, in spite of some serious off-roading (no often, but gets bad when I do it - rocks, slush, water bodies...).

Makes driving 950 KM from Coimbatore to Hyderabad in day possible - and I'm not even tired after 14 hours on the road.

I'm not sure why some Thars are facing leaks, it's been a while since I dropped in to Arka motorsports (wanted their rock slider foot steps), will have a word on this topic when I go in...

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by ph03n!x

+1

it's been a while since I dropped in to Arka motorsports (wanted their rock slider foot steps), will have a word on this topic when I go in...

Truth be told those rock slider footsteps are absolutely solid. Ive had them since the beginning. They are expensive but worth it in my book.
An alternative is to buy the normal Mahindra Thar AX Tubular Steel footsteps which do the job more or less as well, but at a much lesser price.

[sgmuser]

AVO isn't cheap for an after market suspension. But the negative feedback above is concerning. AVO makes the Thar livable. Yesterday I was doing decent speeds due to empty Chennai outskirts (almost half of the population vacated the city for Pongal holidays) and the vehicle was composed and stable in straight line which isn't possible with the 2023 OEM shocks. I have been driving for almost 15000 kms now and so far so good. I'm having confidence in British engineering. OEM Gabriel suspension cannot match what AVO has to offer. I believe being suspension as their bread and butter for AVO that too not as a performance upgrade but rather as an improvement upgrade I really would like to believe they do something about the issues.

[Turbolove]

I also agree with this, had the AVO suspension on my Thar for 18k kms. Had the mounting pin go bad for one of the front shocks, took almost 45 days to get the replacement and had to send both front shocks, local dealer was nice enough to lend stock shocks so I could keep using the car. The shocks damping had also worsened a bit over time.

While Arka provides complete support in repairing/rebuilding them, its difficult to get it done with their local dealers (assuming they even do it), couriering it to Arka and getting it back just takes super long and is a hassle since the replacements have to come in from UK.

[Amrit@wheels]

Recently drove a 2023 dec 4x2 base variant with steel wheels. The ride quality was noticeably better than what I remember when I first drove the current-gen Thar top model with 18" alloys. For anyone looking to improve the ride quality without altering the suspension, my advice is to downsize your wheels and go for higher side-profile tyres. Go for 2XX/70/16 tyres and you will have a very liveable setup. I don't recommending changing OEM suspension to our local brands, only go for reliable brands like ARB, OME, Ironman, etc.