After an encouraging launch exactly a year ago, the Mahindra KUV100 has steadily lost ground ending the year with its lowest monthly sales of 1953 units in December 2016. It's an alarming drop from its peak of 5157 units in March 2016 despite huge discounts being doled out.
Though Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) calls the KUV100 a micro SUV, it’s essentially a pumped-up hatchback that’s competing in the brutally competitive compact car segment ruled by giants such as Maruti and Hyundai. It’s also a segment that’s largely petrol-driven and, in fact, 60 percent of KUV100 sales are for the 1.2 petrol mFalcon G80 motor – and that’s been the root of the problem.
Customers have complained of the petrol KUV100’s poor fuel efficiency and in a segment which is ultra-sensitive to the cost of ownership, this has scared away buyers. The officially certified figure of 18.23kpl (Petrol) is misleading as these figures were tested under laboratory conditions without using the air-conditioner. However, it’s the air-con with its over-specified compressor (for better cooling) that puts an excessive load on the small 1.2-litre motor and impacts real-world fuel efficiency. In fact, in our review of the KUV100, we pointed out that fuel consumption was an issue, especially with the air-conditioning on.
Hence, to reduce fuel consumption, M&M has reengineered the KUV’s air-con system and tweaked the Engine Control Unit and throttle map for better efficiency. It’s not clear, however, if the ‘Eco’ mode, which is available in the diesel KUV100, will be made available in the petrol variant.
Engine refinement is another issue, which we first highlighted in our detailed road test. KUV100 owners are giving similar feedback. Vibrations filter through the cabin, especially during idle and to counter this, M&M is changing the engine mounts by optimising their stiffness and ‘sheer’ characteristics.
Smoothening out the inherent imbalance of a three-cylinder engine is a tricky job, more so for M&M, which, with its first crack at developing a petrol engine in-house is at the beginning of a learning curve.
Other upgrades include a welcome move to larger wheels. The current 14-inch wheels look too puny for a car aspiring to be an SUV and an upgrade to 15-inch alloys will certainly give the KUV100 a better stance.
The upgraded KUV100 is expected to go on sale later this month and the company hopes that the improvements will help it fend off fierce competition from its most direct and powerful rival, the Maruti Ignis.
Dipan Sur
Viraaj Bhatnagar
Suraj Viswanathan
