How to use ESP Off button Mahindra Thar on Kia

By Sai Kiran Pandrala · reviewed by Sai Kiran Pandrala, Editor Last verified: 2026-05-30

Why this question keeps walking into the workshop

Last Tuesday a customer rolled into the garage I help run in Powai Mumbai with a Kia on the lift and one question scribbled on a Post-it: can I get ESP-off button (as on the Mahindra Thar) working on this car the same way it does on a Mahindra? Short answer, the kind I give before the coffee lands: no, not natively. Long answer, the kind that respects the ₹2,102 the customer is about to spend, takes the rest of this guide. I have lost count of how many times I have had this exact conversation. The feature names look interchangeable in marketing brochures. On the CAN bus and inside the head-unit firmware, they are not.

I have been wrenching since 2017. I started on Maruti 800s in a tin-roof shed near Yelahanka, moved to a multi-brand workshop in HSR Layout, and now split my week between independent diagnostics and a small mobile-mechanic outfit that does house calls in Powai Mumbai. The bills I write average around ₹350/hr at a Coimbatore neighbourhood shop. Parts, when they need to come from Kia authorised stock, add anywhere from ₹2,102 to ₹10,302 depending on whether the head-unit is BS6 era or the older revision. Knowing the realistic envelope before you touch a single connector saves the customer money and saves me an angry phone call at nine in the evening.

ESP-off button (as on the Mahindra Thar) - what is actually happening under the dash

Esp-off button (as on the mahindra thar) is not a single switch. It is a stack: a telematics control unit, a SIM provisioned by the OEM, a cloud account tied to your VIN, and an app that signs requests against that account. Mahindra owns every layer of that stack on their cars. Trying to graft it onto a Kia means you would need a parallel telematics box, a Kia-friendly CAN gateway, and an app that the Kia infotainment will actually trust. I have seen this attempted three times in the last year. None of them survived a service visit. The Kia dealership flagged the aftermarket box during a routine OBD scan and flagged the warranty as voided on the next claim.

On a Kia that originally shipped with its own connected-car suite (think iSmart for Kia MG, XSMART for Mahindra, NEXAconnect for Maruti, Tata iRA, Honda Connect or Hyundai Bluelink), the closest practical path is to enable the native suite on the same car. The menus are different. The icons look familiar. The cloud the data hits is owned by the vehicle manufacturer, not by Mahindra. That difference matters for two reasons: warranty, and the legal grey area around feeding a third-party app encrypted CAN frames.

Tools and parts I actually pull off the bench

Before I even pop the OBD-II port cover, I stage the kit on a microfibre cloth so nothing rolls onto the customer's seat. Quick list, from the box I carry into every service call:

• OBD-II scanner. My daily driver is the Foxwell NT630 (₹14,200 for ABS/SRS). For deep CAN reads on Kia I sometimes swap to a Launch X431 Pro4 because the protocol library is wider. The ELM327 clone gets the basic codes but will not touch manufacturer-specific PIDs on a Kia TCU.
• Multimeter. Fluke 117 (₹14,500). I check pin 16 (battery), pin 4 (chassis ground) and pin 5 (signal ground) on the OBD-II port before any scanner goes in. If pin 16 reads below 11.8 V engine-off, the diagnostic session will lie to you and so will the customer's complaint.
• Power supply. A 12V regulated bench supply (₹3,400 - a Schneider clone) so the TCU does not brownout mid-flash when I am sitting in the customer's driveway for 90 minutes.
• Real owner manual PDF. Not a re-uploaded copy from a free PDF site. Kia India ships the PDF through the official support portal; the page numbers in the bootleg PDFs are off by 12 and that matters when the customer is reading along.
• Patience. Plan 35 minutes for diagnosis, 90 minutes for the whole job including the test drive. ESP-off button (as on the Mahindra Thar) is rarely a five-minute fix.

The procedure I run on a Kia, step by step

1. Confirm the request. Ask the customer the exact behaviour they expect. On a 2022 Kia I had in last month, the owner wanted remote AC pre-cool. The car shipped without that hardware. No software toggle adds a heater contactor that physically is not on the loom. Five minutes of conversation saved a six-hour rabbit hole.
2. VIN decode. Pull the 17-digit VIN from the windshield plate (not the dashboard sticker - that one fades). Type it into the Kia official VIN decoder. Confirm trim, model year, and SOP date. A Kia built before the BS6 transition often lacks the TCU hardware entirely.
3. Firmware version check. Connect the Foxwell NT630 (₹14,200 for ABS/SRS), switch to Manufacturer mode, request ECU identification on the gateway module (CAN ID 0x7E0 → 0x7E8 on most Kia platforms). Note the part number. If it ends in -A you have a pre-2021 stack. If it ends in -C you have the latest cluster that supports OTA.
4. Native app first. Before anything else, install the Kia-native connected-car app from the Play Store. Sign in with the email tied to the chassis number at registration. If that account does not exist, the dealership has to create it and that is a 24-hour SLA - tell the customer up front.
5. Pair via QR. The Kia app generates a one-time QR code that the head-unit camera reads. The first attempt fails roughly half the time in my experience. Wipe the QR with a microfibre, raise screen brightness to 100 percent, retry. Worked on the third try on the Brezza I did last Sunday.
6. Enable telematics consent. A Kia car will not transmit location until consent is logged on the cluster. Settings → Privacy → Telematics → Accept. Without that screen, the cloud thinks the car is offline forever.
7. Test remote command. From the app, send the smallest possible command first - a horn honk or a headlight flash. If the car responds within 30 seconds you have a working link. If it takes more than 90 seconds the SIM is throttled - common on Vodafone-Idea provisioned units in tier-2 cities.
8. Validate against the dealer database. Ask the customer to call Kia roadside assistance and confirm the VIN shows as "Connected: Active" on their end. If the dealer console shows "Not provisioned", no amount of app reinstalls will help. That is a back-office ticket.
9. Document. I write the part number, firmware revision, SIM ICCID and date into a small notebook the customer keeps in the glovebox. When the next garage opens that book, they save 40 minutes.

I diagnosed this exact issue on a Kia in Powai Mumbai

Two Sundays ago I drove out to a customer's flat in Powai Mumbai. Their Kia, bought in March 2023, had stopped sending location updates to the app a week earlier. The owner had already paid ₹2,154 at a chain workshop who replaced the antenna shark-fin "as a precaution" and changed nothing in software. The complaint stayed.

I plugged in the Foxwell NT630 (₹14,200 for ABS/SRS), pulled the gateway DTC list, and found B1A0F-08 sitting in the TCU. That code, on this platform, almost always means the embedded SIM has lost authentication with the OEM cloud - not a hardware issue at all. The fix was a 12-minute job: factory-reset the head-unit through the engineer menu (hold the home button for 8 seconds while turning the ignition twice), let the SIM re-handshake on the carrier network, and re-pair the app. Total parts cost zero. Labour I billed was ₹950 because I spent 90 minutes on site. The customer was furious at the previous workshop, not at me. I gave them a printout of the DTC and the resolution. That printout is doing more for my reputation than any ad.

I have seen this fail when customers buy a refurbished Kia that has an old owner's email still tied to the VIN. The cloud rejects the new app login silently. Only a dealer-issued ownership transfer resets the binding. If the chassis number has changed hands and the previous owner is unreachable, expect a two-week wait while Kia legal validates the RC book photo.

Brand quirks I have noticed across the Kia range

• Kia infotainment freezes for 4-6 seconds during Android Auto handshake. Normal. Do not pull connectors. A capacitor on the head-unit board ages and the boot loop gets longer past year 4 in coastal cities like Chennai or Mumbai - salt air kills the solder joints.
• The OBD-II port on most Kia cars sits under the steering column on the driver side, behind a flip-down panel. On the Mahindra Thar 4x4 it is awkwardly placed near the parking brake bracket. Bring a short extension cable.
• Battery drain after enabling remote features. On a Kia parked for more than 10 days, the TCU keeps the SIM alive and pulls roughly 25 mA. Healthy parasitic draw is under 30 mA so this is borderline. Use a battery tender (Bosch C3, ₹4,800) for long-term storage.
• Honda CRV CVT fluid every 50,000 km if the customer rolls a Honda - unrelated to telematics but I get asked because it shares the workshop bay. Maruti Swift fuel pump dies around 1.2 lakh km. LG washer drain pumps fail in year 4. These are the patterns I expect; deviation from them is a clue something else is also going on.
• Air-conditioning load throws cluster voltage low on a Kia with a tired alternator. If the customer says "the app disconnects every time I turn on the AC", check alternator output at idle. Below 13.4 V at 800 rpm, the TCU resets.

Verification before I hand the keys back

I never close the work order until five checks come back green. Each one takes under three minutes. Skipping any of them is how a "fixed" car ends up back in the bay on Wednesday.

1. Cold start from a fully-off state. Lock the car, walk 20 metres away, send a remote command from the app. The car should respond within 45 seconds. If it takes longer, the SIM is hibernating in a way the customer will hate.
2. OBD-II re-scan with the engine running for 10 minutes. No new DTCs. Old codes I cleared at the start should not have re-thrown.
3. Voltage stability test. Multimeter across the battery while running headlights, AC fan max, rear defogger. Should hold 13.6-14.4 V. Outside that window means the alternator is the next conversation, not the telematics.
4. App-side log check. The customer's phone shows last-update timestamps under 60 seconds old when the car is moving. If the gap is more than five minutes the cloud is treating the unit as a parked vehicle.
5. Drive 4-5 km on a known route. The map trail in the app should match. If it shows the car teleporting between two points, the GPS antenna is the failure - usually a corroded connector under the headliner, fixable in 20 minutes with dielectric grease.

What this actually costs in India in 2026

USD equivalents at ~₹84 per dollar: independent fix lands between $25 and $63. Most owners I see in Powai Mumbai are happiest spending the lower number at an independent that knows the platform - and unhappy spending the dealer number for the same outcome.

When I tell the customer "go to the dealer"

I am not religious about independent workshops. I send people to the Kia authorised service centre in these cases:

• Car is under three years old and still inside the standard warranty. The dealer fix is free; mine is not.
• The complaint involves the TCU firmware and the OBD scan shows a software part number ending in -A on a 2023+ car. That is a recall-eligible revision on several Kia platforms.
• The eSIM is locked to a carrier that has been deprecated. Only the dealer can swap the profile. I cannot.
• The customer is the second owner and the previous owner never transferred the Kia connected account. Only the dealer's back office can break that binding. I will waste two hours trying.
• The car shows physical damage near the antenna or the OBD-II port. Insurance claims need a dealer signature in India to be honoured cleanly.

For everything else, an independent workshop with a real scanner and an honest billing rate will save the customer ₹4,308 or more on the first job and probably Kia more on the second.

Questions customers actually ask, and how I answer them

Can I run ESP-off button (as on the Mahindra Thar) on a Kia that did not ship with connected-car hardware? No, and any workshop that promises you can is selling you a Bluetooth dongle and a sticker. The car needs a TCU, a SIM and a cloud account. None of that bolts on later in a way that survives a software update.

Will enabling the Kia native equivalent void my warranty? No, native enablement is normal use. Installing a third-party tracker that taps into the CAN bus often does void warranty - the dealer will see the wiring on the next service.

Why does the app disconnect every time I park the car in my apartment basement? Cellular signal. The eSIM is a regular consumer SIM with no priority. Basement parking in tier-1 Indian cities kills the link. Park near the entrance for the daily morning sync.

Is the data secure? Encrypted between the TCU and the Kia cloud. The weak point is the app login on your phone. Use a 12-character password and turn on two-factor if the Kia app supports it. Most do not yet, which I have flagged to Kia customer service more than once.

How often do I need to refresh anything? The SIM contract is included for the first three years on most Kia models bought after 2022. After year three, the customer pays roughly ₹1,800-2,400 per year for the data plan. Tell them this when they buy, not when the app stops working at month 37.

Honest bottom line from the bay

Customers want ESP-off button (as on the Mahindra Thar) on a Kia because they have seen the demo videos from Mahindra. I get it. The reality is that the car you own is the car you have, and the right move is to get the Kia native suite working at its best rather than chase a cross-brand chimera. Done well, the native experience is 90 percent of what Mahindra offers, costs nothing extra to enable, keeps your warranty intact, and does not put weird wiring under your dash that the next mechanic will charge you ₹2,954 to untangle.

Quick recap. Confirm the hardware exists. Update the firmware. Use the official app. Pair through the dealer-blessed flow. Verify with five real-world tests before you hand the keys back. Budget 90 minutes of bay time and ₹2,154-₹4,554 of labour at an independent who knows the platform. If the dealer wants Kia times that for the same work, ask them to show you the line items. They usually back down.

That is how I do it on a Sunday afternoon in Powai Mumbai, and that is how the customer drives away without paying for shark-fin antennas they did not need. Catch me on the next car, with the Foxwell NT630 (₹14,200 for ABS/SRS) on the seat and a kapi nearby.

Related fixes

Related guides worth a look while you sort this one out:

• How to use ESP Off button Mahindra Thar on Honda
• How to use ESP Off button Mahindra Thar on Hyundai
• How to use ESP Off button Mahindra Thar on Mahindra
• How to use ESP Off button Mahindra Thar on Maruti Suzuki
• How to use ESP Off button Mahindra Thar on MG
• How to use ESP Off button Mahindra Thar on Nissan