New Age Mahindra XUV500 AT: A Perfect Urban SUV

"Make In India" - Can a product by an Indian company make this mark be as good as say "Made in Japan" (Highest Quality) or say "Made in USA" (Most Creative and High Performance). The new age Mahindra XUV500 AT tries to come as close as possible to establish a new niche for such home grown products as the "Highest Value for Money". The keyword being "Value" and not to be confused with being "cheap". Let me try and establish the two claims being made by me here about XUV 500 AT -

a. "Highest Value for Money"

b. "A Perfect Urban SUV / Best Daily Commute City Car"

1. Background / Purchase decision -

Around 6 months (May'16) back, I finally decided to let go of my 2005 model Santro, which I had continued to use even after we had a second car (Honda City) given the firm belief that small cars are best for city commute and Santro's tall boy design allows me (around 6 Ft) maximum comfort possible. It was not an easy choice and I tried many of the available small cars to the more expensive alternatives. Mahindra XUV 500 AT was added to the list as an after-thought to at-least try the behavior of the new Automatic transmission.

+Positives

a. When compared to manual variant, the Automatic variant of XUV 500 was more responsive and easiest to drive. (Unlike the likes of Hyundia Creta, Renault Duster etc. where the Automatic variants (AMTs are worst) behave worse to the manual counterparts).

b. Handling - It is simply superb for Mahindra XUV. Even after 6 month and nearly 10K KM after I still get amazed by how I am able to park the "Beast" (My car name) in tight places.

c. Absolute Value For Money - At an on-road price of lesser then comparable Hyundai Creta, XUV W6 AT has everything that you expect from an high end XUV

- A responsive Engine with Automatic transmission,

- City Mileage of 10~11 Kmpl,

- Great Handling/Maneuverability for city traffic and tight parking spots),

- Almost all safety features including traction and hill descent control), and

- Great looks and street presence

Negatives (Only one)

- Mahindra Legacy Sales & Services Agencies - Many suffer from low end service delivery quality and kind of awkward to deal with. Hopefully someone in Mahindra will think of doing a Nexa like re-branding and come with better partners for higher end models like XUV & Rexton for improved ownership experience.

Summary

If you are in the market of buying a daily use city car that can be good as an individual to a complete family car and can easily double up for a all long distance holiday drives then look no further. Mahindra XUV Automatic is the perfect blend of everything - making it the most value for money car out there and the icing on the cake being the fact that it is made by an Indian manufacturer who is trying to transform the meaning of "Make In India" globally.