My impressions: Driving the Mahindra XUV700 petrol AT

Coming to the drive itself, It is nothing short of brilliant! The way this motor pulls such a huge vehicle is art in itself.

BHPian DVK recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

So I had the opportunity to drive the new XUV700 in the P AT for a couple of airport runs in Hyderabad. I am not sure which variant it was but it had the 360 degree camera.

My impressions:

• The first touch point that anyone comes across is the new door handles. Though it looked cool, I am not sure if I would prefer it in the longer run. My hands slipped at times from the edges while opening the door, which resulted in an unergonomic motion of opening and closing the doors.
• Does it not come with a request sensor with on/off feature? I did not pay much attention to the feature specs since I was in a hurry for most of the time. But even if there is a request/proximity sensor, I was not able to figure it out quickly enough apparently.
• The next bit you notice is how high you sit! I absolutely loved the commanding view.
• The seats slide backward to allow you to sit more comfortably without the steering fouling with your legs. This is a brilliant feature and super convenient to use! You do not notice it when climbing up and sitting down, but you do tend to notice when switching off the vehicle and getting down.
• Next, the tech overload! The screen is huge and was not too laggy as the others who had driven this car had mentioned. Perhaps there was an update rolled out? I am not too sure, have not been following too keenly about the vehicle.
• While the joined screen looks good at night, when the sunlight hits the panels, it is easy to see that digital instrument cluster is quite small in width and height. Do not get me wrong, it is quite sharp even when direct sunlight hits it. But the size itself could have been tad bigger since there is a lot of information to go through.
• Another “gimmick” I liked was the real time torque and power figures which can be displayed both on the central screen and the instrument cluster. Neat little trick, but again, seems a bit laggy.
• The ADAS system is absolutely brilliant to use on the ORR as well as when there is little to no traffic around you (I tried it post midnight). Just set a comfortable speed and let the system work it’s magic. Brilliant when you are relatively tired, and would like your hands to rest. You absolutely do need to maintain situational awareness though.
• I think there is also an auto braking feature enabled. When in traffic, I was a little hesitant to brake when the vehicle in front of me was slowing down quite a bit and the system beeped and hit the brakes in a mild manner, this was also accompanied with some juddering of the pedals. Pretty cool!
• The quality of 360 camera along with the lane watch camera seemed very average. The integration with the indicators seemed great and without lag, but due to a small size of the instrument cluster, I found myself looking away from the road and at the camera feed. While this was okay on the ORR, I would not really advise to rely on this in the city traffic. Maybe it is something one would get used to, but it is not entirely user friendly from the get go.
• Coming to the drive itself, It is nothing short of brilliant! The way this motor pulls such a huge vehicle is art in itself. You have loads of power on tap and the gearbox responds pretty well to aggressive throttle inputs.
• The fuel efficiency was a bit of a shocker for me. It displayed less than 9.2 kpl on most of the runs. But maybe it makes sense considering it is such a huge vehicle.
• The engine is pretty silent on the move when driven sedately. The only irritating noise that you will hear in the cabin is the turn signals! I am not sure if they are configurable, but I would have much preferred the standard ones than some jingle that was in the vehicle I was driving.
• I am not sure again, if this vehicle has drive modes, and if it did, how to change it. But the mode I was driving in, the steering was very very light. It makes the car feel smaller than it is and the city traffic can be handed with a breeze.
• My daily ride is a Creta, but in the last couple of days I was switching between Creta, Amaze, Altis and 700. Amongst these, Amaze had the lightest steering followed by 700, Creta and the Altis.
• The suspension is brilliantly tuned, there is some amount of body roll but it is not something that you can not live without. The chassis and suspension combination is brilliant resulting in not noticing minor dips and such in the highway or flyover ramps. I like it! I think it is softer than the Creta, but still very practical for when you want to push.
• The lights were great at night and the high beams are good enough in the city. Another aspect much better than the Creta.
• The horn sounds very premium, more like an Audi and less like the sharpness of the Creta.

Overall, it seems like a great car and Mahindra has really stepped up it’s game from the times of Bolero and Scorpio. If the service centre are as competent as the car, I think this should be the most value for money car out in the market as of now. With respect to the wait times, I now understand why there is such a huge demand! It absolutely makes sense, and worth the wait.

Keyword: My impressions: Driving the Mahindra XUV700 petrol AT