BHPian Pancham recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Here is the star of the thread! Isn't he handsome?

To start off, I want to keep this thread simple so please do not expect a masterpiece. The last time I wrote a proper review was back in 2011 for my i20. So it's been a long time. The intent of this thread is to share my overall experience (with lots of pictures) with the Jeep which I intend to keep for a long time.

So how does it starts?

I distinctly remember that evening. At around 5 pm, I snuck out of the office to check out the newly launched Jeep Compass. The showroom was nearby - a mere 10-minute walk from my office. It was located in a nice neighbourhood in Kolkata and had a pleasant feel to it. As I entered the showroom and marched towards a red Compass, a sales advisor (SA) approached me and started explaining the features. I sat inside the car for a good 5 minutes. It felt different. There were similar-sized SUVs perhaps in the same segment but the Compass felt like a car that was built differently - had a very solid feel to it. I started taking in the new car smell. Yum. I secretly fell in love with the overall package. And then the SA decided to bring me back to reality by handing over the price list. Sigh! Not that I was not aware of the price but plonking in 18-20L for a car in my 20s was a complete no-no. I took the price list, folded it neatly, placed it inside the brochure, thanked her and left. This was 2017.

The car had a desirability factor to it. Period. I was not madly in love with it but there was something about it that lingered on.

My beloved i20 Asta (Petrol) had turned 9 and there is no denying the fact that Hyundai's cars do not age well. There were several issues with it (steering module, rusting had started in a few places) and I was spending a lot of money every year to keep it running well. Regardless, I loved the car to bits. But it was time to be realistic. With the 10-year mark approaching, I had around 35K to pay for road tax, around 5K for a new battery and another 8-9K for insurance. So buying a new car was always at the back of my mind. BUT, there wasn't a single car out there that I 'absolutely' wanted. Not a single car that had me daydreaming about it. Not until August 15, 2020.

Do you know what happened on August 15, 2020? Mahindra launched the Thar. After many many years, there was finally a car that actually pulled the right strings. I have never needed the rear seats, the price was right, it could go anywhere and it was a car that had both beauty and beast packed into one. This along with watching hours and hours of Spiti, Leh and Zanskar vlogs on Youtube had me hooked and how. So how 'hooked' were you Pancham if you may ask? I booked the Thar in November 2020 and waited till October 2021 for delivery. Yes, 11 hopeless months of continuous follow-ups and expectations. When I say continuous follow-ups - I mean speaking to the RSA and SA every single week. What did I get? Nada. Mahindra failed to allocate a damn Thar to me. Funnily, the car was always in an 'arriving state' - "sir, next week it's coming", "sir, your wait is over - next month for sure". The SA and I befriended each other on Facebook. It was not until late September 2021 that I realized that I am not getting my Thar. My Facebook friend had betrayed me. It was so hard for me to be mad at him when you see pictures of him cuddling his 2-year-old every day - Awww! So, the heartbroken me had to unfriend him on social media even before cancelling the booking. Sigh (again)! Alright, I will stop being so dramatic. I really liked the Thar but let bygones be bygones. This thread is not about the Thar - this is about my Jeep. (Sounds quite funny when you say that in one sentence).

Coming back to the Jeep: given that the Compass was always at the back of my mind, I test drove it quite a few times in between. And as the 2nd generation millennials (I consider myself a first-gen by the way) would say, 'I did it just for the LOLs'. I wanted to buy it but was not able to convince my inner self to spend double the cash just because Mahindra would not allocate me a Thar on time. Regardless, I got my first test drive experience with the pre-facelift version in December 2020. It was a diesel auto 4X4. The test drive was quite underwhelming. The SA was nice. He gave me a decently long test drive but the car was not in the best shape. It had run 19K and was quite noisy. I said goodbye but we kept in touch. Nope, this time I had learned my lesson and I did not want to see his cuddly cute timeline of personal pictures on social media - so no Facebook.

A few weeks later, he shared pictures of the facelifted Compass. Man!! The changes were radical. The much-needed upgrade to the interiors had teleported the Compass to a different segment. But I was still patiently waiting for the Thar. In the meantime, I sold my i20 to the Mahindra dealer for a decent price (not a post-pandemic decent price though - the used car prices have gone really gone up since). The process was super smooth and they got the transfer done in 15-20 days. Here is a picture of my mother handing over the keys (clicked for proof of delivery).

Months went by and with no news of the Thar, I started thinking about the Compass again. My head kept saying I could get two Thars for one Compass - the price difference was that huge (top end vs. top end). Also, let's be honest, the two cars are not comparable. The Thar is a go-anywhere 4X4. The Compass was a comfortable 4X4 which can cocoon me after a hectic day in the office. My mother hated the Thar - she said she could not see me go to the office in 'that'. Haha. Also, she said if I am buying a car I should get the nicer one and keep it for a long time. With my mother's ashirvaad, I started looking at the lower variants of the Compass:

Diesel Manual - Longitude or Limited.

(Picture is that of a petrol auto variant, btw)

There is only one thing I can say about the diesel manual. It pulls like a train. It's that good. Also, the Longitude variant was super value for money (VFM). It was around 22L on road at that time with all the right features you 'need' and a solid diesel engine. But the Limited had more goodies - goodies that I wanted and perhaps not needed (except the 6 airbags, of course). If I had a one rupee coin for every time I texted my SA that I am ready to book a diesel manual, I would have been able to afford their overpriced Accessories Kit with a leather tissue box that Jeep is offering. I had 'almost' booked this variant a zillion times. But then I kept backing off as it was a compromise. My heart was never set on this variant. And I did not want a manual. I wanted to graduate from auto and let my left knee live a little longer. The clutch travel was long in this one. Also, there was no 4X4 - I did not absolutely need it but I wanted one - for my Zanskar, Spiti and Leh trips. I don't think I would have been happy with the Longitude Diesel manual in the long run. My SA was fed up with me after a point (I think) and he stopped following up. Perhaps, he realized I will never actually buy the car.

In between, I drove a bunch of other variants too - including the Petrol Manual. I liked them all but could not fully convince myself to spend so much and then compromise on the overall package.

Just to touch on the petrol manual variant - I think it is one of the most underrated and underbought variants of the Compass. The engine was smooth and the clutch was very light. This one came to around 18L on road in mid-2021 and had decent features too. But, in life you hardly fall for VFM - you fall for another VFM - Vanity for Money. I was drawn to the higher variants because I wanted to keep this car for long and I wanted all the goodies - everything. Every square inch of a digital screen, every semiconductor chip that was built for this car, everything.

Then I made a new friend

In all of this, I met Deep. A fellow Bhpian (handle Slipstream11) from Pune/Kolkata was also waiting for his Thar as well. We booked on the same day and he got his car in July 2021. We made plans to go to Zanskar in Sept 2021. All this while, I chewed up his head about this dilemma of whether or not to take the leap - from a Mahindra to a Jeep. He was perhaps the only guy patiently listening to me - everyone else literally abandoned me. I was so indecisive. Our Zanskar plans have now shifted to July 2022 and hopefully will materialize this time.

What was I driving all this while?

After selling off the i20 in January, I started using the Santro that I had bought for my mother in November 2019. Cute little car and great for city runabouts.

What other cars did I check out

Honestly, I think when you are in the market to buy a car it's actually a great opportunity to go out and test drive all the different cars out there. You may not buy that car but at least you are in the market and you are looking at your options. This is what I always felt but when the time came I did quite the opposite. The only other car which I checked out was the 2021 Octavia. Boy o boy. Octavia has been one of my all-time favourites and this new one has taken things up a notch. The car was so good. And the power - oof! But the sales experience was a bit dull. Before the test drive, there was one SA who was following up relentlessly. So on one Sunday, we set up a test drive and I texted him the location. He said he will come by 2 pm but called me to tell me that he will be late. I said okay and then, he never turned up. Did not answer my calls either. After a week he called me to say there was an accident and if he could bring the car again. I said ok and we fixed a time. He did not turn up, again.

I reached out to another branch of the same showroom in the city. This SA was not very enthusiastic and he clearly mentioned that there were no offers on the car (although people in other cities were getting a decent amount off the sticker price). He came over in an L&K for the test drive. It was good. I asked him if I could see the Style variant in person. He said there was one in the showroom and asked me to come over. So on a Saturday, I called the showroom up (not the SA, for some reason I do not remember) and asked if I could come over - someone picked up and said yes. I was just excited to see the car so I did not really care if the SA was there in the showroom as long as the car was. I reached only to realize that the showroom was closed. The car was in the showroom. I told the security guard that I had called 30 min back to check if I could drop by and someone said yes but he did not believe me. Fair enough but that was more or less it for me. I decided to drop it. Perhaps it was a miscommunication but overall, it was a meh experience.

Mid-2021 till Sept 2021 was spent killing brain cells on whether to retain the Thar booking or just get the Compass.

A test drive that cost me 2.5Lakhs - Time a for a full Send

By late September, I had started to detest Mahindra's overall conduct and attitude towards the Thar bookings. I had started making up my mind to go once and go big - buy the Compass and call it a day. I test drove the petrol auto and thought the performance was just about adequate. The fuel efficiency figures were dismal but then I had to compromise somewhere. No 4X4 either so perhaps I won't be able to do Zanskar but daily office rides will be fun. The on-road price of the Limited variant was coming to around INR 26 Lakhs. No discounts at all. A big stretch but I was ready. I asked my SA for one final test drive - a long one for the petrol auto and a short one with the diesel auto - just for a quick comparison to see how big a difference is there (drivability wise) between the two. And that, my dear friends, was a mistake - I did a back to back test drive and by the time I finished I knew what I wanted - the diesel auto. That test drive cost me INR 2.5L as I mentally upgraded from a petrol auto to a diesel auto almost immediately.

Having said that, the diesel came with its own set of challenges - DPF, 10 year limit in NCR might be implemented in other cities, price, price and price. The price was way above my initial budget. The Thar was 15L, diesel manual Compass (Longitude) was 22L, Petrol auto (Limited) Compass was 26ish and now this - 28.XXL. But I realized I will not be happy if I go with anything else so I went for it - a diesel auto 4X4. Full Send!

(note: Technically, full send would mean going for A Model S Diesel 4X4 - But I went for the Limited variant)

I checked with the SA for colour options. He confirmed that there was one Black 4X4 in transit. I checked the VIN and it was an Aug 2021 manufactured car. We were in October so I thought 2 months should be fine. I took a few days to decide and on October 5 (which also happened to be my birthday), I went ahead and booked that goddamn Compass I have been secretly wanting all this while. A black Diesel Auto (Limited) 4X4. After more than a year of racking my brain, annoying the hell out of my friends and family I finally booked the car I wanted.

The next month was a bit choppy - I spent a lot of time being anxious than excited.

It took me some time but after about a week it hit me that I was actually spending a lot to buy a car. I thought I should cancel - but then I somehow hung in. It was once in a decade purchase and I held onto the i20 for a long time so perhaps it was ok. My mother encouraged me to keep at it. That helped.

In the meantime, my SA called me to say that the car has arrived and I can come and do a PDI. I wanted to go to the stockyard - just because there would be so many Compass' to ogle at. Regardless, he got the car to the showroom. I took a break from work and reached the showroom at 4 pm. Here is a tip that you might already know - the showroom is not a great place for PDI. There are a lot of thoroughfares and you just don't have the peace of mind to go through everything on the list.

Here are some pictures from the PDI (the first time I saw the car):

The overall buying experience at the Kolkata dealership was just about alright. The staff were nice and patient. The SA I was dealing with initially had moved out for his MBA. So I was dealing with another guy. Overall, they were polite and answered all my queries. I pushed them to take out the handling charges. They offered to adjust the amount with the accessories instead. In the end, they could not deliver the boot mats and refunded me the money.

I got the floor slush mats and mud flaps from the showroom. Later got the boot slush mats from Landmark Delhi Gurgaon.

Continue reading BHPian Pancham's Jeep Compass for more insights and information.

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