I had the chance of getting my hands on the Xylo today, the dealer was also too enthusiastic to go for a test drive with me. I had my two daughters with me aged 7 & 2-1/2 years old. This is a big vehicle & definitely a big change from my old sedan, Hyundai Accent. I first thing I noticed was a big vehicle in all proportions, as big as Innova! Voluptuous!
From external inspection, I found lot of panel gaps, doors were rattling in brand new vehicle on display, front is quite aggressive but falls short of scorpio and even bolero (my personal favourite), side wise looks are not too great and rear is quite flat and boxy with relatively small rear wind shield. Getting in would be diffcult for children & old people but is also going to be tough for young people specially in front seats, I am 5 ft 6 inches tall and still I had to climb the side step and then my head bumped in to the upper edge of door way. Once I got in there was immediate vast expanse of space all around.
Driver seats are height adjustable too a great boon for short people like me who would like to see the bonnet lines and road ahead. Seat travel is good and after taking the driver seat fully forward there is enough legspace left for taller poeple. sets are vey comfy, arm rest for driver is also a good idea. Front seat can be made fully flat for sleeping like in business class airlines. Space between front and middle row, middle and last low is generous, though seats seemed to be cramped and do not provide enough thigh support specially the rear ones. The head room is also very less in third row, even my 7 year old child mentioned that, she could not stand fully without touching the roof, though getting in & out is OK. Finally I got the keays to demo car and first thing I noticed was a new type of key. starting of the engine was bit laboured with shuddering ( I hope this is how a diesel engine begings its work). Dash is not so great, all tell tale lights came to life, centre console is bit different with a info display on top. It indicates the present gear the vehicle in driving in which is good for novice drivers other wise it is useless. It also shows present speed. I did not check other info being displayed as I was occupied with driving and other stuff. Gears are bit hard & rubbery (like the ones in Wagon R), no clean shift. Engine noise in the cabin in high even when in neutral. Put the first gear and vehicle starts rolling. Steering is adequate with good accuracy. Pickup is good but engine roars like hell and nothing great is there to write about. Suspension seemed to be bit on softer side. There were 4 adults and 2 kids in the car when I was driving. There seemed to be a bit of roll (may be due to height), didn’t get much to drive hardly 2 kms in busy city roads, as the vehicle was not registered so far, even after having covered 2222 kms. braking seemed just adequate. One thing I forgot to mention, the AC is very effective, a bit noisy but does the job well, I had to close the vents on the driver side. I think this is the only vehicle after Innova to get AC vents & controls for all the three rows of seats, a great feature. I had to go back to the dealer as other people were in the queue for test drive. There are no safety features at all, no air bags, no ABS even oon E8 the top end version, typical of Indian company. Though it is a good effort by Mahindras to introduce such a vehicle at reasonable price. Overall a nice package however, inclusion of Safety features would have made this vehicle a great value for money. It competes well with Sumos, Traveras and the likes but it is far behind from Innova which is a different class in it self. Keeping legend of Mahindras and the kind of reliability in their genes, I think I can go for this vehicle as I was already thinking of moving to SUV / MUV class, my wife also mentioned Xylo today. It is another fact that my elder daughter was more impressed by Scorpio than Xylo (both were standing side by side in the showroom). Let us see how the things turn.