2020 Mahindra Thar diesel AT: Ownership update after 25000 km

Can be your daily driver to work and back – in ishtyle. Have a sedan or “pseudo-SUV” for those family trips with >2 people.

BHPian ph03n!x recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

So this came up on 13th March, under 16 months from the day we started:

Now is as good a time as any to pen down some positives and negatives, no? Here are 25 pointers, split into + and -.

Positives:

• Looks and presence. ‘Nuf said. Even after 18 months, there is at least one stranger a week who’d pick up a conversation with you about your ride. Even after almost 500 days, I always look back and admire the jeep. This one is a keeper!
• Can be your daily driver to work and back – in ishtyle. Have a sedan or “pseudo-SUV” for those family trips with >2 people.
• ZERO DEF issues. Repeat after me slowly – “D E F – – i s s u e s – – a r e – – o v e r h y p e d!!!” Never seen a regen alert in 25k KM. DEF fluid low alert came up once, with a heads-up of 2,400 KM to top it up before getting stranded.
• 14 service actions, excellent workmanship by my MASS. What more can you expect? Hats off, M&M and CAI Mahindra!
• No serious, or even moderately bothersome, niggle in the last 23,000 KM, after the only one I had was fixed at ~2000 KM.
• Voice command button on the steering does not get “activated” accidentally like in the XUV5OO.
• Cruise control is a boon, and I drive with one finger (toggling with two buttons (OFF and RES)) and one leg (ready to brake) even in state highways. Unlike XUV3OO or 5OO, resuming cruise does not cause mad acceleration (which is actually fun on open roads, but not ideal when you want to jus’ cruise!) but gets you to your set speed gracefully – cruises there! But that mad acceleration is some what fun.
• The TPMS is a blessing – it has alerted me of punctures twice, and all I had to do was top up the air with my Windtek, and get the puncture fixed at my tyre shop. It does not learn a tyre rotation automatically, but can learn a single-wheel-to-spare-wheel swap on its own.
• The AVO suspension is a pretty good investment – this is what makes #2 more comfortable. I have tuned them to be a little softer than the recommendation (12 and 14), and they are damn good!
• The ARKA underbody plates ensure I do not have to worry about damages to the transmission or underbody anymore – and they cover the fuel tank, unlike a few other that need a separate protection for the tank.I am awaiting for their diff. guard.
• The Osram nightbreakers have a much, much better low beam throw than the stock lights. But both the nightbreakers and the Philips Xtreme Vision bulbs have this blue coating to make the high beams whitish – which makes them irritatingly useless unless you are driving in the dark. A 4300K HID is on my wishlist, but I do not want to spoil the stock “jeep” look.
• PPF on the body is a boon – I don’t worry about thorny shrubs anymore, and have changed the PPF on the fenders for a pittance when they got themselves badly damaged. While you may argue that PPF is costlier than painting the whole vehicle, how many times will you paint the whole vehicle in its life time? Compared to that, I can keep replacing a damaged PPF piece for a fraction of the cost!
• Pretty happy with the speaker mod – disconnecting the stock tweeter, having a pair of components with the highs positioned (double-side taped) at the bottom corners of the A pillars. While it is adequate, real lows are definitely missing – but I do not intend to do anything about it!
• The Bimbra front and rear armrest are good. The front armrest does sway a little bit if you push/ pull it – nothing irritating though.
• The 70mai dual channel IRVM mounted rear-view dashcam is now gonna be an essential part of my vehicles. One of those things that are not really a must-have, but once you have it, you cannot un-have it!
• The wind-in-the-air open top is a hit with kids of all ages in the family (6 to 70!), and removing the CT completely makes the jeep S E X Y! Strategic “mods” that I have listed through this thread makes the roof’s flapping covered non/ barely-existent, till at least 80 KMPH. And the noise doesn’t bother me anymore – heck even helps mask the 80/ 120 KMPH beeps pretty well!

• Negatives:

• The seats definitely need more under-thigh support, esp. for long tangdi kababs like me.
• Driver side AC vent positioning – a peeve I have in many a vehicles. It is at a height where the air flow hits your fingers in the 2 o’ clock position, making them go numb – unless you point it towards the window pane, or close it.
• The windshield is a stone/ chipping magnet! This will be the first vehicle I’ve owned to have a windshield replaced so early in its life!! I have started driving further away from heavy vehicles, much slower on bad roads, etc. But I keep accumulating battle scars! I am looking at films like Clearplex to protect the new windshield whenever I replace this.
• Android Auto/ Car Play frequent disconnects – tried a flippity gillion cables, and different phones. After about an hour’s drive, it starts to disconnect and reconnects after 3 to 5 seconds. Can only presume that something in the USB port or the HU is heating up and “turning off”
• Fogging of the windshield during humid conditions. Worked around it by having those non-slipping rubber mats on the vents. Not too keen in having the dashboard opened up to fix this.
• The driver console – speedo, tacho, MID et all “restarts” while am driving – though very rarely. It is “blink and you miss” when both the meters go to zero, backlights switch off. And almost instantly they are back – the needles quickly climb to whatever speeds and rpm you were at, backlighting coming back on. Noticed this twice in 25k KM.
• When there is a warning or info shown in the MID, you cannot cancel it, and navigate it to something else. Eg. it is showing the degree of the front wheel’s turn, and you want to reset the DTE after tanking up – you have to wait until the info or warning has made its point.
• The Bimbra dead pedal, IMHO, is at an uncomfortably steep angle. When combined with poor under-thigh support – I have played with height, fore-aft of the seat, etc. but yet get a seething pain in my left leg at times. I might try driving a bit without the dead pedal to see if my leg likes it better.
• The bumpers are not 3-piece units like the prev. gen. Thar. Be prepared to pay for whole bumper if you nudge something that wouldn’t budge!

• Kitna deti hai?

The overall mileage is 11.93 KMPL/ 25103 KM – with 70% highways (where I try to maintain ~90 KMPH on cruise, and have blasts to 120 KMPH as required/ road permits), 24% is city driving, and 6% is hills/ off-road.

The average variance with MID is +1.3 KMPL, MID being optimistic!

So what do I think, after a quarter lakh on the clock?

NO regrets! This is the perfect SUV for daily onr oad use, as well as proper off-roads. I initially bought this as a secondary vehicle – but by the looks of it, this will be my primary – with a secondary family vehicle when we do our road-trippin’.

Coveting other vehicles?

The Force Gurkha – and reviews by our BHPians @Trojan, @Manuuj, @vigneshkumar31, @MohammedEza, and the official review thread that follow closely – is quite tempting. It is a pretty capable vehicle, and its all-metal shell makes it a very competent, go-anywhere overlander.

But I don’t think it is for me – I would pick an Endy 3.2 for overlanding. Horses for courses – the Thar perfectly fits into the lifestyle vehicle I want – an open top jeep, right proportions (for me), and the go-anywhere ability.

This is what I need, won’t have it another way.

Keyword: 2020 Mahindra Thar diesel AT: Ownership update after 25000 km