  We study cold strange quark stars employing an enhanced version of the
quark-mass density-dependent model which incorporates excluded volume effects
to address non-perturbative QCD repulsive interactions. We provide a
comparative analysis of our mass formula parametrization with previous models
from the literature. We identify the regions within the parameter space where
three-flavor quark matter is more stable than the most tightly bound atomic
nucleus (stability window). Specifically, we show that excluded volume effects
do not change the Gibbs free energy per baryon at zero pressure, rendering the
stability window unaffected. The curves of pressure versus energy density
exhibit various shapes -- convex upward, concave downward, or nearly linear --
depending on the mass parametrization. This behavior results in different
patterns of increase, decrease, or constancy in the speed of sound as a
function of baryon number density. We analyze the mass-radius relationship of
strange quark stars, revealing a significant increase in maximum gravitational
mass and a shift in the curves towards larger radii as the excluded volume
effect intensifies. Excluded volume effects render our models compatible with
all modern astrophysical constraints, including the properties of the recently
observed low-mass compact object HESSJ1731.
