Mahindra XUV 500 2016 Review

Mahindra XUV 500 500 W8 auto
Road Test

Indian manufacturer Mahindra is upping its game in Australia by launching an automatic version of the XUV500 W8 medium SUV. It’s an important step considering the vast majority of SUV buyers prefer autos to the hard slog of manuals. Sourced from Aisin, the gearbox is mated to the familiar 2.2-litre turbo-diesel engine and available with either the front or all-wheel drive versions of the XUV. Pricing is very competitive, so no doubt more potential buyers are going to be headed for Mahindra showrooms to check out the XUV500. What will they find?

The folks at Mahindra Automotive Australia are pretty excited about the arrival of an automatic version of the XUV500 W8 wagon. That’s understandable considering 90 per cent of Aussie SUV sales are automatics. So the new Aisin-sourced six-speed autobox certainly opens the Indian manufacturer’s wagon up to a whole bunch more potential buyers.

Here we’re testing the front-wheel drive version of the automatic XUV500 W8. This will be by far the biggest seller in the range. Priced at $31,990 drive-away, it’s $2000 above the facelifted manual with ‘fang’ grille introduced in February. If you want all-wheel drive that adds $3000 to either model.

For that low cost you get seven seats, a 2.2-litre turbo-diesel four-cylinder engine that produces 103kW and 330Nm, 702 litre of luggage space with the third row folded down and a solid 2.5-tonne braked towing capacity.

The XUV is the first Mahindra constructed around a car-like monocoque chassis. It has the same 2700mm wheelbase as a Mazda CX-5 and the same 4585mm length as a Honda CR-V. Its luggage capacity, which expands to 1512 litres with the second row folded, is larger than either of those two big-sellers.

There are six airbags including side curtains, but they only cover the first two seat rows. There’s also a reversing camera with active guidelines, tyre pressure monitoring for all five tyres (yes, including the spare), bi-xenon headlights with static bending function, electronic stability control with rollover mitigation, anti-lock brakes with electronic brake-force distribution, hill-hold, hill descent control and three Isofix child seat anchorages.

But note, the XUV500 comes only with a four star ANCAP independent crash test rating. And that comes from 2012 when standards were less stringent than they are today.

Comfort equipment includes 7.0-inch infotainment touch-screen, black leather upholstery, scuff plates for the door sills, eight LED interior lights, satellite-navigation with speed alert and point-of-interest functionality, air-conditioning, Bluetooth audio streaming and address book functions, an electronic vehicle manual with instructional videos and service scheduling. The spare tyre is full-size.

There’s no doubt the auto is a big step forward for the drivetrain. It teams well with the ‘mHAWK 140’ engine, which gets up and going enthusiastically, making peak torque between 1600-2800rpm. That means there is plenty of response for overtaking and tackling hills.

The auto is a smooth shifter that flattens out any turbo lag. But it also likes to shift up early and hang in tall gears as much as possible, which helps explain the excellent claimed 7.4L/100km consumption rate. And we slightly undercut that in our driving.

Combined with a 70 litre tank, the range for the XUV500 is getting up toward 1000km.

The auto has a manual function which is operated by a switch on the lever, rather than simply pushing the lever itself or paddles. You get used to it after a while, but as the transmission changes up by itself anyway there’s little point to it.

The downsides of the engine are the pretty unpleasant ‘soundtrack’ and the unacceptable level of vibration at idle. The noise is never less than obvious and becomes intrusively loud and raucous when revved hard. But the idle vibration is worse. The steering wheel can be seen and heard shaking in a manner that most people only familiar with modern vehicles would have never experienced.

There was never as much feedback through the pedals or seat and it does smooth out as revs increase. But it never goes away.

The Mahindra’s combination of McPherson struts and multi-links tends to cope reasonably with lumpy roads. It takes two or three movements to deal with a big issue. The body rolls a fair bit and also dives forward under brakes.

The all-disc brake set-up did pull the car up well on bitumen and gravel surfaces.

Once you start dealing with corners severe shortcomings in the XUV500 chassis become obvious. There is violent kickback up the steering column on even moderately bumpy corners and the propensity for the front wheels to slide into understeer at quite moderate speeds is pronounced – and accentuated by the howl of 17-inch Bridgestone Dueler tyres.

It’s all amusingly retro, yet horrendous at the same time.

The XUV is better around town where the moderate 11.2m turning circle, light steering, big windows and reversing camera help make maneuvering quite straight forward.

Like its on-road behaviour, the cabin of the XUV500 is a combination of good and bad.

First, the good: space. The second row is great for adults and the third row livable -- it also offers each passenger back in the rear a cupholder, a string net and air-con vents. But note, if you use all three rows there is virtually no luggage space left in the boot.

In row two there are also long and narrow door pockets, properly useable door grabs (yay!) and a flop-down armrest that houses two cupholders. There’s even adjustable air-con vents mounted in the B-pillar at chest level just like in a luxury car.

Up-front there are door pockets, a convex pop-down mirror that enables you to keep an eye on the kids without swivelling your head, a deep lidded centre bin that include a cooling function, a dashboard-top storage compartment and a double glove box, which includes space to accommodate a 15-inch laptop.

It’s intriguing how well damped the opening and closing of the various compartment lids is executed. Intriguing? Because so many other elements of the interior are poorly executed.

Clamber in and the chemical smell of the interior is really off-putting. First impressions are important and that’s not a good one.

Some of the variable panel gaps around the dashboard are horrendous – you could jam a 20 cent piece into the space where two pieces of plastic trim are meant to join on the transmission tunnel. There are also multiple trim grains to chose from across the dash and doors. The naked screw heads on the steering column cover are not a good look. It would also be nice if that column adjusted for reach as well as rake.

The front seats are quite commodious but the padding is soft and there is little support.

Instrumentation and centre stack controls work quite logically, but there is small, almost invisible labelling on some of the buttons. The infotainment touchscreen is also pretty clunky. The graphics are difficult to read and archaically presented compared to some we are seeing now.

Love the dramatic music every time the ignition key is cranked though… very exciting.

But the question is… Should we be excited by this car? Not really, no.

If you go and look at and test drive the XUV500 and it stays on your shopping list, then you are a pragmatist on a budget. There’s no Euro badge prestige here, no Japanese or Korean build quality. You are getting affordable transportation and that’s it.

Mahindra XUV 500 W8 auto price and specifications:
Price: $31,990 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 2.2-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel
Outputs: 103kW/330Nm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic transmission
Fuel: 7.4L/100km (ADR combined)
CO2: 196g/km (ADR combined)
Safety Rating: Four star (ANCAP)

Also consider:
Fiat Freemont (from $32,000)
Holden Captiva 7 (from $30,490)
SsangYong Rexton (from $39,990)