You get used to the long clutch throws and it doesn’t feel inconvenient. The only thing to be careful about is fuel efficiency.
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2nd Free Service Update (9,000 km) – Mostly good and some bad news
The car is now about ten months and 9,100 km old. Almost time for the second free service.
AC Troubles
I understand that the AC on the XUV300 in general (not just the TurboSport) isn’t exactly the best in the segment. My family began complaining about it in particular in the month or so before the service. Things seemed to get worse as the blower speed reduced significantly. It appeared to me to be an AC filter issue. It was diagnosed as such and the AC filter was replaced in the second free service. Subject to correction, the part number appears to be S1203C010161N and it costs ₹272.50 including GST. The AC works fine now. No complaints.
Follow-up
In my 5,750-km update, I made some observations under 13 heads. Nothing has changed in respect of all those observations except the following.
Rattling, fit and finish
The rattling I observed from the dashboard is actually even less than what I’d pointed out earlier. Some of the sound, I discovered, was actually coming from things placed in the glovebox. I must re-iterate how impressed I am by the fit, finish, insulation, etc.
Link Rod
Following the replacement of the link rod, there has been no trouble or sound from the suspension thus far.
RC Smartcard
PPS Motors acted extremely slowly and irresponsibly on this issue. At long last, sometime in the month of August 2023 (I bought the car in November 2022), my SA, on repeated telephonic follow-ups, informed me that the record on the register in the RTO’s office had been changed, and sent me an extract evidencing this which he described as the ‘B extract.’
At the same time, he had the gall to claim that the smartcard could not be changed at all. That resulted in some more time wasted as I had to visit the showroom, put a little bit of pressure on his immediate superior, and had to pay them (in cash) the fee of ₹2,000 which they ought to have borne as the error was theirs to get the smartcard replaced.
They didn’t ask for it, but I was tired of waiting and knew what would get the gears turning. The replaced smartcard then came about two weeks later. I am disappointed with PPS Motors Indiranagar on this.
Accident
Let me begin by clarifying that there was no personal injury but that there was damage to the car. No more than 3 days after I got my Wheels Wisdom subscription, I met with a minor accident. At a large roundabout with traffic signals at all exits, my signal was green. I proceeded into the roundabout entering almost in a straight line, preparing to take an exit that would put me in a 2 o’clock direction from the point of entry into the roundabout. The exit was some distance away, so I was roughly where the middle lane would be (lanes weren’t marked, if my memory serves me right).
At this point, a young man on a motorbike had entered the roundabout apparently from (on the same figurative clock) a 3 or 4 o’clock position, intending to exit onto the same road I was heading towards. The roundabout is so large that it has a playground with walls in the middle with even a cricket academy in it. I was driving at about 25 kmph. From beyond my line of sight on the right, he approached at speed (I suspect ~40 kmph) and hit the front right fender of my car.
He ought to have been on the right lane from which he began his turn, but somehow cut across a lane and a half to my position – on the (imaginary) middle lane – resulting in the collision. It appears that he was intending to cut across to the left lane in preparation for his exit. It seemed to be rather irresponsible and somewhat aggressive driving.
I can’t think of anything more I could have done to prevent this. My instinctive checks of looking around just at or before the stop line at the signal didn’t show his entry. Obviously not, because he would have passed in front of me, had he been visible then.
The collision had resulted in the sidewall of the tyre tearing, all the air escaping from the wheel. There was even a small scratch on the alloy. The panel above the wheel arch had a few dents and scratches.
In any case, my parents and I were in the car. We are not interested in confrontations or arguments, and, in circumstances like this, are happier to ensure that peace ensues rather than fight over who was right or fight over who pays for what.
After about two minutes of talking, the rider of the bike began crying a little. He was a Zomato delivery guy and seemed like he was on the first few days of his job. He also seemed like he was new to the city. His bike had an L-sticker and I suspected that he didn’t have a licence. He kept saying “what to do now” and asked why I hadn’t put my indicator on. I kindly pointed out to him that I was going in a straight line at that point and asked what indicator I could have put on, that my signal was green, and that he cut across a lane or two and was fast.
I quickly realised that he wasn’t of the unruly goonda breed who would call fifteen friends and threaten violence. At that point, since we were en route to a hospital with more important tasks to achieve, I let my parents continue the conversation with him. My priority then was to change the front right wheel. I spent about 10 minutes changing to the smaller steel spare wheel, and then went about the rest of my day.
Repairs and Service
The accident occurred on one Saturday. It made sense to get the second service done as well. On the same day, I booked an appointment on Wheels Wisdom for the following Monday (two days later) on which day the car was picked up. The Wheels Wisdom guy came to pick up the car with the insurance claim form in hand. The survey was conducted on Tuesday and the work was complete by that Friday.
The only time-consuming task in the repair work was the painting and curing of the new panel. By Friday evening, the second free service was also complete. The car was, however, with the service station until Tuesday as there was some delay in the correspondence between the service station and my insurer to issue the liability letter which sets out how much I would have to pay and how much the insurer would bear.
Besides this delay, I had no hassle whatsoever with the insurance claim. The only minor complaint I had with Wheels Wisdom was that on my asking 3 times, I was told by my point-of-contact not to speak to the insurer at my end to hasten the process on the liability letter. His superior later told me I could do so. Once I reached out to my insurer thereafter, things worked very quickly. I could have saved a couple of days if I was properly advised.
The bill for the second service was ₹3,001 contributed to primarily by engine oil (₹1,915.98).
For the repairs, the total cost was ₹29,041 of which I had to pay ₹1,000. The alloy (₹11,938), the tyre (₹8,840), labour (₹4,661) and the fender (₹1,950) were the main contributors. The other replacements were the TPMS sensor and the wheel arch. All figures include GST.
The service station concerned was the India Garage at ITPL. Thanks to Wheels Wisdom, I didn’t really have to deal with them directly except for the fact that, amusingly, I got three calls from them on Friday, Saturday and Monday asking how the car was performing after the service. I kindly informed them each time that the car was still with them.
Building Communities
In some considerably happier news, sometime in May, I noticed a TurboSport parked in front of a set of apartments across the road from where I live. After thinking about it a few times and wondering whether I was getting myself into something unnecessary, I left the following note under the wiper of that car. Forgive the poor photo quality, please.
About three months later, my mother (not a petrolhead at all) pointed out that she might have seen a brand new XUV300 in that apartment building. A week thereafter, we found the following letter in our postbox.
Of course, I made a couple of new friends. He tells me that he had also read this thread before his purchase.
Wheels Wisdom
The second free service had been on my mind since I saw the odometer tick past 8,500 km. I thought I would wait for at least 9,300-9,500 km until going in for the second service. In the meantime, I got an email from Wheels Wisdom that their Gold Membership with service at the authorised service centres was back. While the brands covered by this included Mahindra, when I logged in, I found that the XUV300 was not one of the models offered.
So I wrote to customer care asking if the XUV300 could not be serviced. A day later, they got back to me saying that the XUV300 wasn’t on offer, but that they could make an exception in my particular case. So I must thank Wheels Wisdom for that act of kindness. I got the Wheels Wisdom subscription for a price of ₹11,800 (including GST) for one year. At this point, besides their expertise and their integrity, I am now paying also for their time. I find it difficult to set aside time to spend arguing things aimlessly with service centre folk (in general, not complaining about any particular brand here) as they try to hoodwink you in a hundred different ways. Wheels Wisdom’s fees are, that way entirely worth it.
Useful Miscellany
In these 9,000+ kilometres, I have driven it sufficiently both within the city (including all kinds of traffic levels in Bengaluru) and on the highways.
Inside the city, the automatic/idling start-stop can get a bit annoying. This is particularly because once the engine turns off, and you restart the car by depressing the clutch, it won’t automatically turn off again until (apparently) you at least once completely release the clutch when the car is in gear. Often, in stop-go traffic, this doesn’t happen at all. Typically, therefore, if you’ve moved quite a bit and the traffic has come to a halt at a signal, if you release the clutch, the vehicle turns off. Thereafter, if the vehicles at the signal move that 3 feet forward, if you depress the clutch to turn on the car, you can’t release the clutch fully because you don’t need that much speed or distance. Theraefter, the engine won’t automatically turn off.
You get used to the clutch’s long throws and it doesn’t feel inconvenient. The clutch is light. The mildly notchy feeling in the shifting isn’t the best, but to complain about it would be to nitpick. The only thing to be careful about is fuel efficiency. It is probably best to throw economy and environmentalism to the wind: You will thus leave many things in the wind behind you. It is not a car that performs badly in conservative, fuel-efficient driving at all. But I wonder whether it is healthy to drive a small-capacity turbocharged petrol engine that way, and it certainly isn’t easy to restrain yourself that way.
On the highways, I have done Bengaluru – Gokarna – Mangalore – Bengaluru (the Mangaluru- Bengaluru leg was through the Bisle Ghat route, which is a rather engaging drive), Bengaluru – Trichy – Karur – Bengaluru, Bengaluru – Chennai more than once, and Bengaluru – Nilambur (in Malappuram district of Kerala) – Mysuru – Bengaluru. In fact, the pictures on the first post on this thread were taken en route Kallanai Dam from Trichy at around sunrise. For a car of its dimensions and height, it will pleasantly surprise you around the curves in the ghats. I think I like (or respect) the ride-handling balance now more than I did in my initial days with the car.
It follows from the above that I can’t but express my appreciation for SsangYong’s X100 platform. In the accident too, although the impact wasn’t very harsh, the car remained absolutely stable and didn’t sway to one side. It is generally very confidence-inspiring, although some of that confidence is taken away by the lacklustre steering.
So far, so good.
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