BHPian desidino recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

There are times in one's life, when the car you buy, doesn't only fulfill your commuting requirements, but is essential to how you foresee your life unfolding before you. While I have bought cars earlier - mainly when moving countries - this was probably the first time in my life when the car to be bought had to be just the right one and not just one among the probable options.

Having said that, one has to be practical and obviously consider the financials. This was particularly important for me as, having taken a sabbatical, I was headed to probably the most important phase of my life wherein what I do with my life would be driven not mainly by responsibilities to fulfill or bank balance to build, but by what truly speaks to my soul (or at least attempt to find something that does).

While I am not yet sure what I would do for the rest of my life, I was sure that the next few years would involve traveling extensively through my home state of Uttarakhand and the rest of the country.

So, I needed a car that could take me and my family safely and comfortably across the mountains and plains of my Bharat. Dekho apna desh / dekho apna pradesh.

PS: I had bought the Tucson in December and had prepared first draft of this post in February, but something or other kept coming up. My apologies for the delay.

Given my requirements, I mainly considered the following vehicles:

In addition, I briefly considered waiting for Tiguan or Kodiaq, but the expected pricing would probably be significantly higher than the above and I needed the vehicle soon, as I wanted a ride of my own instead of using my father's Duster as he might need it. Thankfully the pricing of Tiguan and Kodiaq did turn out to be significantly higher than the above and over my stretched budget, so I did not miss out by not waiting for them.

Other cars that I could have considered, but were not part of my main selection list:

A rather short selection process:

Among the 5 main options (XUV 700, Safari, Tucson, Compass, Innova), I was once seriously considering Innova given how ubiquitous they are in the mountains and the unmatched Toyota reliability. However, during the selection process, my wife and I gradually veered towards wanting AWD/ 4X4 capability as a must-have.

That meant that Innova and Safari were out of consideration. I also read about Safari's safety concerns on the forum. And the Innova doesn't have a panoramic sunroof. Although, had Rs 25 lakhs been my hard limit, I would have gladly gone with either. No car is perfect and ultimately one has to go with realistic assessment of one's budget and how much one can stretch it. I could stretch it to around Rs. 30 lakhs and so now the XUV 700, Tucson and Compass were in the fray.

Even with concerns over initial niggles, I would have gone for XUV 700 if not for the waiting period of over 1 year. However, I could wait only for a maximum of 1 month or so.

It's absolutely phenomenal what Mahindra has achieved with the XUV 700. It caters for everything, even AWD. If only Tata had done better home work and equipped Safari with AWD/ 4X4.

As there was no way to get XUV 700 soon, I didn't even take a test drive.

Given that the Team-BHP official review and ownership reviews by LONG_TOURER and QuadraticAmoeba have done a fabulous job of enumerating the pros, cons and features of Tucson, I would not repeat the same and instead briefly cover the most critical pros and cons from my perspective during the test drive.

I took the test drive of the Compass after taking a test drive of the Tucson. While, interiors of the Compass are definitely better than the Tucson, we found Tucson to be as good as or better than Compass on all other requirements.

In fact, due to its smaller size, Compass felt almost a segment lower than Tucson.

Also, Jeep has only 1 service center in Uttarakhand in Dehradun.

Finally, I felt that the noise from the diesel engine in the Compass was perceptibly more than that in Tucson which took away from refinement of driving experience.

As for the gearbox, I did not find the shifts to be problematic as others have indicated on the forum. So, do take a test drive if that's the only factor preventing you from considering Compass.

We decided to go with the Tucson over the Compass primarily due to the smaller size of the latter.

PS: The absolutely shambolic tweet by Hyundai Pakistan followed by Hyundai India blocking users on twitter for pointing it out happened on February 6, 2022. Had it happened before my purchase, I would have seriously considered going with Compass instead. Global brands should know better than to involve themselves in sensitive geopolitical matters.

We bought the Tucson from DPM Hyundai Dehradun. They are the only dealer authorized to sell and service the Tucson in Uttarakhand.

Nothing much to complain about in terms of overall dealer experience. Although, as others have mentioned, there was no wow moment considering that this is Hyundai's flagship product in Bharat. Again, I don't mind it as long as things get done. After-all, Hyundai is in the volume game and we cannot compare it to the Big 3 Germans.

In fact, the dealership was very accommodating and let me take out the car (along with their driver) for pooja on December 19, 2021 (for auspicious reasons as the next auspicious day was after a month) even though I had not made the full payment. I had done partial payment of Rs. 8,75,000 by then though and purchased the insurance effective from December 19, 2021. I took the actual delivery on December 27, 2021 after having made all the necessary payments.

The total on road price including insurance (which covered basically everything including engine cover, return to invoice, etc.) came out to around Rs. 31 lakhs. Which amounts to a discount of around Rs. 1 lakh.

Dealer was able to provide the discount as the car was already in stock, but he was unable to promise discounts for January delivery and in fact mentioned that there might be a price hike in January. Given the current scenario in the automobile industry and worldwide semiconductor shortage and logistical bottlenecks, due to which price hikes and long delivery periods are the norm, I thought it best to book the Tucson in December itself. Since the dealer had only one 4WD model in stock, I did not have any choice regarding the color - Polar White.

I did not opt for any accessories. The dealer included car perfume, mud flaps and mats with the car.

In addition, I opted for the 5 years/ 140,000 km warranty which cost me Rs. 32,800. Do note that the Tucson comes with 3 years/ unlimited km, 4 years/ 60,000 km or 5 years/ 50,000 km warranty as standard.

Hyundai website itself mentions extended warranty information in case you wish to opt for warranty beyond the standard 3/4/5 years warranty.

Hyundai also provides Shield of Trust packages (service packages) for up to 5 years.

I did not opt for it as the 5 year package cost of Rs 78,000 seemed too steep, especially given that services up to 30,000 km are complementary.

We are loving our Tucson. As I type this, the Tucson has covered 10,500 km so far.

I got the first 1000 km free service done in February, which is basically a check to see whether everything is working fine. There were no issues.

10,000 km free service was done a few days back. Glad to report that there are no issues still.

We had gone on a long road trip of over 3,500 km in February/ March from Haridwar to Surat (via Pushkar and Udaipur) and the car performed flawlessly. It is ridiculous how quickly the 120 km/ hr warning alert comes up as the Tucson munches those highway miles effortlessly.

Other trips undertaken include Naukuchiatal and Uttarkashi apart from regular runs to Mussoorie. The only issue during hill driving that we face is that the car sometimes doesn't pick the right gear when it slows down while driving uphill. I have started using the Sports mode now during uphill driving and it does help to a large extent, although still there are occasions when pushing on the accelerator doesn't seem to urge the car on as desired.

While the car has been more or less free of any major dents which is a miracle given the driving conditions in Uttarakhand, I did face a scary situation when a drunk motorcycle rider came from the side out of nowhere. Without getting into further details, luckily nobody was hurt, but the front left bumper was hit due to which the bumper got dislodged a bit. Upon taking the car to the service center, I found out that the fog lamp lock was broken. Apparently, there is no way to replace the lock as it is part of the bumper itself, so the entire bumper would have to be replaced. Since, it is not a major issue, I discussed with the service center executive and have left it as it is.

There are no rattles yet. In fact, every time we faced rattles, it turned out that it was due to some loose items that we had put in the car.

The only glitch we faced is due to Apple CarPlay, but even that went away on its own. When playing Amazon Music on Apple CarPlay while using Google Maps, the music would not resume after the directions voiceover. Hopefully, the glitch doesn't return.

We absolutely love our Tucson. It has been a wonderful and dependable companion so far. Hoping for many more miles of niggle free experience.

I would like to leave you with some pictures of my Tucson.

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