THAR V SONET
The Kia Sonet and the Mahindra Thar are selling like hotcakes. Which one of these two vastly different SUVs should you buy?
In the market for a new SUV? Should you be sensible and get the Kia Sonet? Or should you let your emotions get the better of you and pick the new Mahindra Thar? We find out here!
LLINING THESE TWO UP SIDE BY SIDE WAS DOWNRIGHT ridiculous. They couldn’t be more at odds with each other — the Mahindra Thar with decades of legacy and heritage, elbowing its way in to the 21st century. Meanwhile, the Kia Sonet is at the bleeding edge of India’s obsession with ‘more for less,’ cramming everything from Bose speakers to a sunroof and ventilated seats into its tiny footprint. At first glance, there seems to be little in common with them save for the fact that they both roll down the road on four wheels. But look closer, and you will start drawing parallels. They’re both under four metres in length. They sit in a similar price bracket. They have got massive waiting periods. That last bit is crucial — both the Thar and the Sonet have managed to command attention from the market like few other cars have in the last year. Spec to spec, there’s no comparing them but plenty of people walking into Kia showrooms have the modernised Thar on their shortlist. And the other way around. It’s a head or heart decision on the face of it, but being the dedicated journalists that we are, we brought them both together to investigate.
The Sonet has been built on a formula that I am a little too familiar with. There’s been an onslaught of compact SUVs of late, and every time a new one is launched, we dutifully drive the whole lot together to see if the goal posts have been moved forward. The last one to make any real headway was the Sonet, inching ahead of its cousin, the Hyundai Venue. So it stands here today, repping the compact SUV segment against a challenger that is unperturbed by the obsessions of said segment. Fancy features? The Thar just shrugs and engages 4WD. Nevertheless, the Thar is doing enough to break into the mainstream — a factory-fitted hard top, a modern turbo-petrol, automatic transmissions, forward-facing rear seats, CarPlay — it’s almost like it wants to compete with this lot. Now is a good time to mention that in the company of the Thar, you might want to take the Sonet’s ‘SUV’ tag with a pinch of salt.
You have to break it down to the absolute fundamentals with these two. Take something as simple as getting in. With the Sonet, it is muscle memory. Open door, one leg in, plonk butt, other leg in,
THE KIA SONET IS AT THE BLEEDING EDGE OF INDIA’S OBSESSION WITH MORE FOR LESS
close door. The seat isn’t too high or too low — it’s just right. Sure, the guys at the back have to deal with a small door aperture — one of the many casualties of the short wheelbase — but one look at the Thar and they’ll be thankful they’re getting doors at all. Speaking of the Thar, you don’t get into it as much as you climb in. The first time may involve some uncomfortable calisthenics as you hoist yourself into the cabin, but you should figure out a semi-graceful manoeuvre soon enough. The same can’t be said about getting into the back — every attempt is a reminder of why you should’ve signed up for that yoga class. But once there, space is actually generous and you may not even mind the fact that the windows don’t roll down. This new Thar covers massive ground from where it used to be — it is way more convenient than it has ever been in the past, and yet the Sonet remains easier to live with.
You have to commend the engineers at Mahindra for how far they have evolved the driving experience. The old Thar bordered on agricultural, but the combination of these new engines, the updated rear suspension and the liveable interiors make a massive difference to the way it feels. The old Thar would buck and kick over bumpy roads — the leaf springs simply unable to deliver the ride sophistication that a car you use daily would need. But the new multilink suspension with coil springs does that. It soaks up bad roads without passing too much of it into the cabin, and has acceptable high-speed manners. We drove 4000km to the Thar desert and back late last year and most of those miles were done at speeds we wouldn’t dare push the old Thar to. I remember barrelling into corners on the expressway with the speedo flashing triple digits, and not once feeling like the Thar was getting away from me. There’s generous body roll but compared to modern-day body-on-frame SUVs it is calm, composed and sorted.
The Sonet, with its monocoque chassis, provides a vastly different driving experience. The whole car — and it feels like a car, not an SUV — feels more settled out on the highway, and driving it at speed requires less concentration. There’s a slight firmness to the suspension, particularly at low speeds but the whole thing feels less busy. The Thar still sends a noticeable pitter-patter that creeps into the cabin as the surface of the road changes, and it takes a little longer to settle down when it hits a bump. Meanwhile, the Sonet isolates you better from what’s going on outside. Even the steering is electrically assisted and feels more oily as you dial in lock. As a
driver, you’ve got to do less from behind the ’wheel of the Sonet to cover the same amount of ground. But should the road surface deteriorate, the Sonet will force you to slow down while the Thar will bludgeon the road into submission. In the city, it is hard to call. I love the fact that you feel like a king in the Thar and can bully everyone around, while the Sonet is far easier to drive and more effective at finding gaps and darting into them.
The Thar flips the bird to India’s sub four-metre regulations. It doesn’t bother with a small engine to corner tax breaks — a 2.2-litre diesel and 2-litre turbo-petrol serving the off-roader’s core purpose more appropriately. It moves the Thar along confidently on the road and the refinement will have you doubting its origins (considering past experience). Meanwhile, the Sonet sticks to the rules and keeps its (diesel) engine a shade under 1.5 litres. With a variable geometry turbo hooked up to it (the only one in this class to get a VGT), the Sonet feels properly punchy. With the Thar’s extra weight, there’s not much in it between them but a casual drag race at the lights saw the Sonet’s nose in front, if just by a small margin.
One of the biggest criticisms we levied at the Thar while driving it halfway across the country was the noise inside the cabin. I honestly believe that Mahindra should include a box of earplugs as standard equipment with the soft-top. Jokes aside, this is something to be worked upon in the first Thar update. You see the hard top isn’t bad, but I don’t remember it being great. ‘Don’t remember’ doesn’t cut it for this test, though. We pulled out a sound level meter to get some hard data, and the results genuinely surprised us. The Thar was a mere 2dB more than the Sonet at 90kmph, which is actually impressive since it has the aerodynamic efficiency of a brick while running all-terrain tyres. Where it got really loud was over 120kmph, making conversations a shouting affair. But at those speeds, you should be more worried about the proliferation of speed cameras than wind noise.
I’m not going to bother with weighing in on the off-road capabilities. It’s a no-brainer. If someone actually cared about offroad ability they wouldn’t even consider the Sonet. Sure, it has ‘Terrain modes’, but apart from fattening up the features list to oneup its rivals, they do little else. The Thar, with its selectable-4WD, low-range gearbox, Eaton M Locker on the rear axle and e-diff on the front axle has an arsenal of off-road equipment to take you to the ends of the Earth. From mud-plugging at the fag end of the
monsoon to surfing the dunes in the desert, we’ve really taken the new Thar far off road. And every single time, the limiting factor has been the same. The monkey behind the ’wheel.
As for the features, the Thar does just about enough to get by. You get a touchscreen infotainment system with the requisite mobile phone connectivity, speakers, cruise control and a USB charger. You also get parking sensors, but no camera. It’s like that kid that never flunked his exam, but passed if only by a whisker. Meanwhile, the Sonet sits at the top of the class. Wireless charger, in-built navigation, massive digital real estate, a parking camera, driving modes, cooled seats, SOS functions, an app on the phone that lets you start and pre-cool the car, even geo-fence it and the like, it gets the works. The seats are more comfortable and the cabin is better finished. There’s no denying that if you want a space that pampers you, the Sonet does a better job.
Everything so far has been an objective analysis of these two.
But there’s a subjective side that can’t be ignored. The intangibles. How they make you feel. The Sonet sits in a segment strangled by regulations. Puny engines. Tiny footprint. Tall stance. On paper, it is Frankenstein’s creation that should be horrendous to drive, and yet it is exciting. Kia’s designers have styled it brilliantly. It carries the GT badge with pride. The engine with its VGT packs a punch. It will actually handle a set of corners well. And the interiors feel lavish — more upmarket than anything else in its class, and even better than some in the class above. Climb inside the Sonet and you can see where your money has gone. It feels purpose-built for our cities, can do the highway cruise, and never feels like a compromise.
Meanwhile, the Thar evokes a completely different emotional response. It tugs at your heartstrings like few other cars can. There is compromise built into its very DNA — a tug-of-war match between its off-road capability and on-road usability — but you don’t mind living with it at all. If anything, those quirks add character to the whole experience. It draws envious glances, plenty of thumbs ups and many, many inquisitive questions. It looks incredibly cool, and feels indestructible from behind the ’wheel. You may not be scraping a tenth of its ability in everyday driving, but the very sight of the 4x4 lever next to your knee is empowering.
Then there’s the small matter of pricing. The Sonet, at `13.19 lakh (ex-showroom), is more affordable by a lakh of rupees. It’s hard to point out the one that offers more value because they both approach the same problem — of moving us, both physically and emotionally — from such different angles. Yes, the head versus heart argument will be the first basis for your decision but there are other factors you should consider. Is this going to be your only car? Are more than two people going to be using the SUV regularly? Do you have ageing parents at home? If two or more of those answers are yes, I would recommend the Sonet. Me? I’d get the Thar. ⌧
I LOVE THE FACT THAT YOU FEEL LIKE A KING IN THE THAR AND CAN BULLY EVERYONE AROUND