Mahindra Bolero Pickup is an undisputed leader when anyone talks about the Pickups in India and rightly called so. The Small Commercial Vehicles market majorly has two category nodes, one at sub 2 Ton GVW, primarily called the mini-trucks segment and the other at 3-3.5 Ton GVW, dominated by the Pickups.  

While Tata Motors is the market leader in the mini-trucks space with its Ace Series of vehicles (also referred to as Chota Hathi), Mahindra is the unchallenged leader when it comes to Pickups space, earlier with its Maxx PikUp and now with Mahindra Bolero Pickup over the past few years. In fact, Mahindra & Mahindra has taken their presence in the segment a step further by recently launching the Mahindra Maha Bolero PikUp Extra Long with 1700 Kg payload, a first in the segment.

While mini-trucks are mainly used for intra-city last mile distribution, whereas the Pickups are used for both intra city as well as short distance inter -city applications. A series of attempts have been made over the past decade, by big CV players like Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland to take some share of the market from Mahindra, but with no or very little success. While Tata Motors has launched a series of vehicles over the years, ranging from Tata 207 to Tata Xenon to the recently launched Tata Xenon Yodha Plus 1500, Ashok Leyland had launched Dost earlier and recently the new Ashok Leyland Dost Plus. But why has no-one been able to dethrone Mahindra in this segment and what are the real reasons behind Mahindra Bolero Pickup’s success, so to say presently.

We went down to meet a few owners of these vehicles, across geographies, to hear from the horse’s mouth and the facts came out to be very basics – Powerful and sturdy (rough & tough), low maintenance and resale value to name a few.

1. Overloading capability – Rough & Tough to deal with all kinds of loads and roads

The strong aggregates allowed the owners to take on any load without any double thoughts in the minds of driver (drivers in majority cases are also owners in this segment). This is the reason why usually one can find Mahindra Bolero Pickup carrying even 2.5 Tons of load easily. And grain traders in rural areas love their Mahindra Bolero Pickup for this overloading capacity.

2. Lower Maintenance Cost

Mahindra Bolero Pickup, including its predecessors, has come only with rigid front axle having semi-elliptical leaf springs. As against this, Tata Motors launched Xenon with independent suspension to offer better comfort compared to Mahindra Bolero Pickup. But this actually led to the need for regular wheel alignment and thus higher maintenance cost. As a learning from this mistake, the front suspension was shifted to rigid, semi-elliptical leaf springs in the successor models including Tata Xenon Yodha, which is doing considerably well from Tata Motors’ stable. Ashok Leyland which entered the segment with Dost, initially came up with Transverse leaf spring concept, but again the same learning which forced Ashok Leyland to launch rigid front suspension in its latest models like Ashok Leyland Dost Plus.

3. Ease of repair

Until recently when the M2DICR engine with common rail pump was being introduced, all the predecessors came with DI (Direct Injection) engine, which is perceived to be requiring low maintenance and ease of reparability at local garages. The introduction of recent M2DICR electronic engine in the latest Mahindra Bolero Pickup along with its siblings like Mahindra Maxi Trucks and Mahindra Big Bolero Pickup has created little bit of a dis-satisfaction and dis-comfort to the new owners. This is exactly the reason for growth in numbers of Tata Yodha in the pickups segment. And none-the-less, this has disturbed Mahindra & Mahindra to the extent that Mahindra had to launch an aggressive advertising campaign with Manoj Bajpai promising 4 Lakh guaranteed resale buy back value after 4 years along with maintenance free AMC for 2 years.

A few people also attribute their bias towards Mahindra Bolero Pickup for safety in case of accidents on account of semi-forward cabin. This type of cabin is not present in the smaller competitors like Tata Super Ace Mint, Tata Mega and Ashok Leyland Dost which have a fully forward cabin, as against Mahindra Bolero Maxi Truck.

All these factors not only helped gain volumes rapidly but even resulted in better resale value for Mahindra Bolero Pickup and its successors.

In a market where the Pickups industry is growing much more faster than the mini-trucks, all manufacturers are leaving no stone unturned to make their mark in this segment and Mahindra is trying hard to retain its mammoth market share.