2020 New Mahindra Thar Petrol First Drive Review

Regardless of whether one is driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic, puttering around aimlessly or for an errand, or even while out on the highway, driving the petrol Thar is an effortless affair since the motor seamlessly pumps out the horses as the gearbox leisurely shifts cogs. To set the record straight, although 0-100kmph comes up in a swift 10.17 seconds, it surprisingly doesn’t feel so rapid.

Similarly, overtaking is quick too, which is proved in our 20-80 and 40-100kmph runs that took just 5.80 and 7.80 seconds. As for the gear lever, the good thing is that it has a smooth shifting actuation with defined gates that’s accompanied by a positive release button, which makes shifting in a hurry, like reversing, possible.

Now, although gearshifts are reasonably smooth and intuitive (as per throttle input), we only felt that it could have been quicker to match the motor’s enthusiasm. You see, when you floor the throttle on the go, the system takes a noticeable pause to kick-down and offer you the best response to race to the 4500rpm redline in auto mode.

But isn’t that too restricted for a petrol? So, I slotted it into manual mode and stamped the throttle, only to see that the revs were held at the 5500rpm redline. Nice! Now, although we weren’t able to do our regular fuel efficiency run, the instrumentation kept reading around 10kmpl on an average with a light foot. This dropped to around 7.7kmpl while performing the speed runs.

But that's it. There's no suspension noise and it feels as rugged or bullet proof as maybe, the ‘Hulk’. For all you know it could even compete with the Moon/Mars rovers! In short, although the experience has moved up a few notches, it can’t match the driving comfort of say a Hyundai Creta or the likes. What we would have loved is a quicker steering. But with three and one quarter turns from lock to lock, it’s quite the opposite.

Plus, it feels slightly heavy at slow speeds. These traits coupled with a relatively large turning circle translates into an arm-job to park in tighter spaces. Thankfully, it frees up as the speed increases but what we really took to is the lack of vibrations on the steering regardless of the terrain we treaded upon. As expected, it clambered over rocks and gulped everything the beaten path threw at it, but you will just have to wait for a full-fledged off-road review to know more.

Thankfully, the view out of the side windows isn’t as restrained, the large door mirrors functioning well here too. But I really can’t say the same about the tiny inner-rear-view mirror as it severely lacked angle-adjustments. Adding to the agony is the fact that the spare wheel hinders the view out the back, and although a camera would have been perfect, sensors is what you get.

For the jeep lovers, there’s bucket-loads of traditional bits that you can rave about when raising a toast at the bar. You get a fuel lid that only opens by sliding the key in, fasteners for the bonnet, door restraints in fabric/rexin, and enough Thar badging all across to rub it into your soul.

Which brings me to the front seat. Since its almost hugging the floor, you can forget about any thigh support. The seat squab itself is actually tiny and tries to hold you on via lateral supports that could shame a sports car. I don’t blame the engineers because there wasn’t much space to play around with in the first place, but having my buttocks squeezed together for a three hour long drive wasn’t exactly comforting.

The front backrest though is an altogether different story. There’s good back and lateral support along with adjustable lumbar support. I’d be picky to say that I’d love more shoulder support, but needless to say headroom is tremendous, and shoulder room is generous too. As for the rear, the front-facing twin-seats (foldable), whose backrest angle can be adjusted, can easily seat two without a fuss.

What’s nice is that they are offset (in the centre), so the rear occupants don't need to peep to catch a view out the front. Also, while legroom and headroom is good, shoulder room is superb thanks to the prominent wheel wells that also double up as fake armrests. Having said that though, the seats could have had more cushioning; especially better back and thigh support. Even foot room should have been less restrictive.

When it comes to the boot, it’s basically a split-gate that comprises of a metal sideways opening door and a glass portion that opens upwards with separate twin-dampers. Really snazzy to say, but once open, the tiny boot enclosure can only hold a few sleek soft bags at best.

As for the six-speaker touchscreen infotainment system with bluesense app connectivity, it is reasonably okay in terms of bare-basic graphics and screen frame rates. But it could have definitely been snappier. Additionally, it displays all the off-and-on road info too, like pitch, roll, g-monitor and wheel angle in addition to power, torque and speed to name a few.