I bought the new Mahindra Bolero, 2.5 Ltr DI Turbo Engine, which was launched on April this year. The performance of the vehicle is really satisfactory so far, it’s been around 6 months, done around 10k kms.
The performance is really good, the mileage, driving comfort. Though the leg room is not that great for the rear seat passengers, it does gives you a feel of comfort. In case the front seat is pushed little behind, then it’s really horrible. I bought the top end model SLX, which has power windows and beige interiors. Sorry, I’m not that impressed with the interiors, Mahindra could have done much better job, atleast for the top end model. The seat could been little more soft, will provide more comfort. AC is a excellent one. No complaints on that. But could have provided a additional vents for the rear seat passengers and more blower control options which are available on all cars these days.
One more important thing, which I don’t like, which is very critical during rainy and foggy seasons, front defogger, missing:-( I don’t understand this, how could Mahindra can miss this? These days it’s a default one in every car in the market. Mahindra are you guys think about this? Atleast it should have been provided in the top end model. And a rear wiper makes life easier on the rainy days.
Actually I like the vehicle and it’s performance, it’s really a wonderful vehicle in terms of riding comfort, mileage(Highway Driving) and easy ride in City traffic, with adequate torque to pull, less gear shifts.
I too have some problem with the dealer, Rajarajan Motors, Pondy. I want to forget that experience, horrible.
The main reason for this review is about a vibration which I’m getting in my vehicle, the vibration is really annoying and horrible, when you have more than 3 adults, I mean with a decent load. When I drive on 4th gear, about 50-60 Kms/H(1500 rpm), the whole body was vibrating. The same vibration was there, when the vehicle was doing about 60-70 KMS/H on 5th gear. If you want to avoid this vibration, then you need pull about 70 Kms/H on 4th gear and then shift to the 5th gear. I can do this only when I’m driving on NH from Bangalore to Chennai, not on other roads. So 60-70 is the typical speed you can maintain on our normal road conditions.
Luckily my friend has introduced me to Sireesh Auto, Bangalore. When I approached them, they imm’ly offered me help. Their response was pretty impressive. And finally they have narrow down the problem and fixed some issues, by changing the body mountings. Even the Mahindra Engineers were really supportive. Once they changed the body mountings and drive shaft, the vibration on the vehicle’s body got fixed. But still the same vibration can be felt on the floor, I mean, the vibration similar to the one when you have flat tyres, it’s really horrible when you have full load, that’s about more than 3 adults. When the vehicle slows down and picking up the speed, this vibration is really annoying. IMP: this vibration is there in all the new Boleros. It;s NOT ONLY to vehicle. I was asked to check couple of new vehicles, all the new Boleros has this exact problem.
So the Mahindra Service engineers promptly escalated the issue to R& D engineers. I got a call after about a month, from their Nasik plant, one of the R&D engineer spoke to me and told me that this is not a problem, that’s the characteristics of vehicle. He gave me some technical details about why this vibration is observed. Finally what I understand is that I need to live with this, it’s kind of a issue which cannot be fixed, b’cos it requires more changes in the design itself:-( Yep forgot to mention, they will give their best to fix this problem, but no guarantee or time frame:-(
Wondering how could Mahindra claims that Boleros has low NVH level in that segment. I’m not sure whether any of you have seen this problem. Not sure what to do next.