I recently went to India for a month with my family and was handed over a surprise gift at the Delhi Airport - Keys to the new Bolero top of the range latest version (bought march 07). Last time when I visited for about three weeks, I had the older version of Bolero to drive.
First of all the key in itself was very stylish, what you get in Europe these days.
I drove from Delhi to Chandigarh Non Stop after a long flight, and the ride was not tiring at all.
The DI Turbo engine is good, very good. Pick was great.
To the day I left India I had done 6500 kilometres and to cut the long story short, I was quite satisfied specially if you compare the cost of around 600K for the jeep.
To sum up the goods I would list them as under: -
Engine, Space, AC
But I would like to recommend some improvements via this platform as well as under:
M&M spent time and thought to change the interiors specially the dashboard, but it is a bit dissappointing I would say, they should definitely consider improving the quality asap. The plastic around the gear lever is also very cheap (looks very cheap) and so is the finish of the dashboard.
No one really wants the light and wiper control levers on either sides of the steering wheel from a maruti car - it is very disappointing - specially when both of them are so hard to use. If the items were to be borrowed from the maruti, they should have borrowed the whole mechanism, as having used both maruti and zen in the past, it was definitely easier to use those levers in their own vehicles.
Steering wheel and the gear lever need to be replaed with a at least a little bit of better quality alternatives - one would expect a bit of class in their top of the range model.
They should seriously discuss the quality of material used on the seats and change the same with immediate effect.
Seat belts on the front seats need a bit of a thought, not comfortable.
It appears that the seats on the miidle seat are only there as they had to be there, very uncomfortable.
The door locks - oh my god - two of them were broken by my friend while trying to open the doors.
One the lock is designed to be opening the other way round - opposite from the other vehicles - which means that you are ok when it is you and your family - but as soon as someone else comes in and you lock the doors with the central locking facility, they will try and open the door using the very very flimsy lever as it would appear to them that the lock is open you know it is going to break with a very little of force. The replacement is not available in Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh & Delhi.
M&M should have considered changing the shape of the windscreen area when they changed the front grill and the headlamps, it still looks like a jeep with a proprtionately small height of the windscreen installed at an angle of about 105 degrees.
Similarly the rear jeep look could improve with a little bit of redesign.
I am told that the power steering does not comes with an auto cut when the vehicle goes above 100km per hour - which is a bit worrying.
The turbo charge makes a little bit of a gearry noise if you pay attention.
But overall, I would say ot was a quite satisfying experience and I should give it 8 marks out of 10. It is our own M&M and we are all sure they will definitely improve the quality they deliver in future, If we keep on supporting them and give them adequate feedback.
All the best