The XUV500 is Mahindra's trump card!

The XUV500 is Mahindra's trump card!

The fact that Mahindra & Mahindra knows Indian tarmac better than its competitors is clearly evident from the looks, performance and styling of the cheetah inspired XUV500. The car not only boasts of aggressiveness but stands apart from its competition with its bold styling (aerodynamics), powerful mHawk engine and its beast like looks.To start with, the car offers features like tyretronics and in-built touchscreen GPS navigation that do not come as standard offerings with other vehicles in this segment at the offered price. On the performance front, an engine that is so sporty with an excellent torque of from the lower end of the rev range is always a good sign for a driving fanatic. The mileage in the city is around 10kmpl and the car offers an excellent 12kmpl on highways. Overall, the transmission is smooth and the cabin doesn't feel noisy like it does in the Terrano. The pickup is smooth and one actually needs to look at the speedometer to know how calmly the engine goes to speeds of 130kmph. The suspension is not too stiff and thus the car overcomes small pieces of stone and gravel without giving bumps or tossing the customer up from his seat on bad sections of the road. The front and mid rows offer ample space to seat 5 comfortably but the last row is not that comfortable for adults and tall people. Overall visibility and headroom is perfect for the passengers and the drivers thanks to the height adjustable seat.The build of the car is quite sturdy and there is no vibration of the dashboard even at high speeds. Customers are offered features like voice command, steering mounted controls and cruise control so that they do not have to keep their eyes off the road, ensuring safety at all times. Thw W8 variant comes with 6 airbags, hill decent control and speed warning beeps as safety check features apart from the standard ABS, EBD and ESP which comes standard in most vehicles these days.On the interior, plastic quality could have been better. This is an area, where Mahindra needs to buck up. Apart from this, Mahindra offers good amount of bottle and cup holders for all passengers. 2 USB ports and 3 electric charging ports are offered in the car for charging electronic devices. There is a cooled storage, dual glove boxes, sun-glass holder and arm rest for the passengers to travel comfortably on long journeys.My car has completed 4 years today. My usage is mostly in the city but I have taken my car on long road trips as well. I have covered 236000 kms in these 4 years and absolutely love the car. There is complain regarding service and the car is not very difficult or costly to maintain. I would recommend people to buy the SHIELD extended warranty when they purchase the car as most parts of the car are covered under AMC for 2 years post the initial 2 years of service provided by the company. The AMC is quite reasonable and I had clubbed it with a road side assistance package. The company offered me a standby car when my car was in service and thus the service experience with Mahindra has always been a delight. The car comes with other convenient specifications like auto headlights and auto wipers which are common today but were a novelty back in 2012. I am more than satisfied with the vehicle as a long term review giver and would recommend the vehicle to family and friend without hesitation. Few new features like daytime running lamps, chrome inserts and sun glass has been updated in the facelift version so going by the feature offerings, Mahindra never runs behind competition. I am a admirer of this vehicle and soon planning to trade in my W8 as an exchange or the new W10 variant.