[arsh9191]

This is my first detailed post on this forum. Although I initially wanted it to be about a superb road trip, I was compelled to write about the extremely poor service I received for my XUV700 at the Mahindra dealership twice within a couple of weeks. Fair warning: this will be a long read, but I feel the need to share my experience here because I have received very little support elsewhere.

1st Event:

Day 1: I sent my car in for its 10K service at Arav Mahindra Service, which was supposed to be a routine service with no complaints, except for updating the infotainment software. They promised to return the car by 5 pm, but I didn't get it back until 8 pm. I had to call and follow up with the Service Advisor and the CRM head at the service center almost 20-30 times. When I finally received my car, I was appalled by its condition. The car was not cleaned at all; there were layers of dust both on the outside and inside. At that moment, with the car already delivered late, I decided to clean it myself and not waste more time at the Service Centre. However, what shocked me was when I realized why they wanted to deliver the car to me in the dark. As soon as I took the car to a well-lit area, I saw that both front seats were completely stained with blue ink all over and in multiple places. I couldn't believe they had ruined the seats of my 4-month-old car, especially after charging me for seat covers that they didn't even bother to use. I reached out to the GM that night, sharing pictures of the stains and the condition of the car. Initially, he was responsive and said they would arrange an early pick-up of the car the next day with a promise to fix everything. He asked me not to file a complaint with WYH as he believed he could resolve the issue the following day, so I complied.







Day 2: The car was picked up in the morning for cleaning and stain removal from the seats. The Service Advisor called to say they had thoroughly cleaned the car and sent it for a wash, promising delivery within an hour. I was relieved, thinking they had removed the stains from the seats. However, when the car was delivered around 4 pm, I was shocked to see that the ink stains on the seats remained. I called the Service Advisor, who informed me that they were unable to remove the stains and claimed they would fade with time. Frustrated, I called the GM of the service center, who began blaming me for the stains, suggesting that I had caused them. He even denied the use of blue uniforms or blue pens at the service station (which later proved to be false). After a heated argument, he said he would send the head of his cleaning department to my place to address the issue.
It was at this point that I decided to lodge a complaint with the WYH helpline, which promised to investigate and have a local area manager call me back soon. After waiting for two hours, the cleaning team arrived, but as expected, they couldn't remove the stains. I called the GM again, who informed me that he had contacted a Detailing Mafia outlet that should be able to clean the stains, instructing me to take my car there the next day.

Day 3: I received no call back from WYH/Mahindra until noon, so I reluctantly went to the designated Detailing Mafia outlet. Upon arrival, they attempted for 15 minutes to remove the stains but were unsuccessful. I called the GM again, who asked me to bring the car to the Service Station so that he could try to find a solution. On my way to the Service Centre, I called WYH helpline again, pleading for assistance, but received the standard reply that they had escalated the issue and promised a callback with no specific timeline.
Upon reaching the service station, the GM inspected the stains and initially claimed they weren't responsible for them, as they didn't use that specific color anywhere in the service station. After my protest, he consulted with the Service Advisor and instructed her to explain the stains and find a solution. They asked me to wait in the waiting room while they used some chemicals to attempt stain removal. After 30 minutes, they informed me that they had managed to remove 90% of the stains, with just a couple of light ones remaining, which they feared might be damaged if further cleaned. I reluctantly agreed, thinking WYH helpline might assist with the remaining 10% (although in hindsight, this was wishful thinking).
After the inspection, they vacuumed the car and prepared to return it to me. However, to my surprise, I discovered a new blue ink stain on the hand rest near the gear lever as they handed the car back to me. When the GM saw this, he was speechless, and they promptly took the car back inside to clean it again. Finally, they returned the car to me with the remaining 10% of the stains still present, and they remain there to this day. After spending three days on this issue with no support from WYH, I gave up, hoping the stains would fade over time.

Day 4, Day 5, and Day 7: I called the WYH helpline multiple times, seeking help with this complaint. However, I received the standard response that I would receive a callback as soon as possible. To date, I haven't received any call from anyone at Mahindra regarding this issue.

Event 2:

Fast forward two weeks:

Day one: Still no call from WYH, and I had given up on that front. On my way to the office, a stray pebble cracked my front windshield, and the next day, I received a wiring loom recall notification from Mahindra. So, I contacted the GM from the service center regarding both of these tasks to be done together. (Some of you might be wondering why I returned to them, and I did so because I received a call from the GM apologizing for the previous incidents and asking for another chance to service my car. So here I was, giving them that second chance)
The car was picked up on Monday morning with a promised delivery by Wednesday evening after completing both tasks. Around 1 pm, I was informed that an insurance claim had been filed, and work would commence once they received approval. I casually texted the GM to inquire if they would perform the wiring loom work while waiting for approval. I received no response, and I didn't think much of it. Around 4 pm, the GM called, and I expected a routine update about the work. However, he delivered shocking news: while moving the car around the bay, their driver had accidentally reversed the car into a parked pickup vehicle, resulting in the complete destruction of my car's bootlid. I was at a loss for words. The GM apologized profusely and promised to fix everything at no cost, including replacing the bootlid with a new one by Wednesday evening.
Later in the evening, I texted the GM to inquire about the progress. He informed me that all necessary parts had been sourced and that the car should be ready by Wednesday evening. To my surprise, he also suggested that they would like to handle the issue through my insurance and asked for my consent. I flatly refused.



Day 2: After the sudden change in stance by the GM, I decided to lodge an official complaint with WYH. I called them immediately and explained the entire situation, including the damage to my car. They assured me that the local area manager would call me by noon the following day. Although I didn't expect much help from Mahindra, I did receive a call from their Area Manager around 11 am the next day, with the GM on a conference call. We discussed the issue in detail, including the insurance matter. When asked if I would agree to cover the damage under insurance, I firmly declined, stating that I would not be a party to a false claim. I was shocked to hear the suggestion from a Mahindra Company representative, but he clarified that it was a request from the dealership, and the decision was mine to make.
After my refusal, the GM was instructed to complete the replacement work by the following day and deliver the car with the new parts.

Day 3: I received a message from the GM around noon, stating that the work had been completed. I asked how they managed to paint a new bootlid, let it dry, and perform the necessary finishing work in such a short time. To my surprise, I learned that they had installed the bootlid from their test drive vehicle, of the same color, onto my car without obtaining my consent. Without waiting any longer, I rushed to the service center with my wife to inspect the car in person. Upon arrival, I discovered that the bootlid they had installed on my car had damage and chips at multiple places, and the back bumper had also been damaged due to the impact, which they had not bothered to address. Additionally, there were multiple scratches on the left side of the car where they had been working.
Due to the commotion at the service center, my wife and I found ourselves surrounded by nearly 15-20 people, and I was genuinely concerned for our safety. At that moment, I called the Mahindra Area Manager and informed him of the situation and our safety concerns, even considering calling the police. In response, he was very responsive and instructed the GM to resolve the situation, ensuring that only personnel directly involved with the car's repair were present.
Afterward, I had several phone exchanges with the Area Manager regarding the unauthorized replacement of the bootlid from another car. I also spoke with the owner of the dealership, who apologized and assured me that the work on my car would be completed flawlessly. We agreed that they would replace both the bootlid and the back bumper with new ones and deliver the car to me within the next 2-3 days.

Day 4: I did not follow up, and no one contacted me.

Day 5 (today): I texted the GM to inquire about the status of the work. I received a call from the Service Advisor, who informed me that most of the work had been completed, with only the installation of the rear windshield pending. They expected the car to be ready by evening. I decided to pick up the car on Saturday morning to inspect it in daylight before taking delivery.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that when I pick up the car tomorrow, all the issues have been resolved, and I no longer have to deal with this dealership. I am also deeply disappointed with Mahindra for not reaching out or offering assistance in resolving Event 1. They need to understand that they cannot treat a customer who spent almost 30 lakhs on a car in this manner. They must take responsibility for after-sales service rather than passing the buck to the dealership to resolve all the issues.

[UD17]

Originally Posted by arsh9191

They need to understand that they cannot treat a customer who spent almost 30 lakhs on a car in this manner. .

Oh man! sorry to hear your ordeal. You need to change this service center, i don't hope that other will be better knowing the attitude of Mahindra specially in your case. Work closely with service center and Mahindra to resolve these issues and take a bitter pill and move on.

For the peace of mind i kept away from Mahindra, even though i like the XUV7oo and XUV3oo for their performance.

[vvivek85]

Originally Posted by arsh9191

This is my first detailed post on this forum. Although I initially wanted it to be about a superb road trip, I was compelled to write about the extremely poor service I received for my XUV700 at the Mahindra dealership twice within a couple of weeks.

Such a shame, I don't understand when these brands will understand the meaning of customer experience. First, they will make you wait for months to get the car, and when you get the car the enjoyment is shortlived. I hope these kinds of poor customer experience reaches Mr. Anand Mahindra, at one end they are producing some really great cars but on the other end customer experience is going down the drain

[haystack_needle]

Originally Posted by arsh9191

...I saw that both front seats were completely stained with blue ink all over and in multiple places....

Very sorry to hear you had to go through those troubles
Because the rear door is made of fiber reinforced materials, it's not easy to get it fixed once has damage occurred.

I experienced a similar issue with pen ink during my first service (right around a month after delivery). While collecting back the car, noticed the driver seat and hand-rest had blue pen marks. They were happy to blame me for those telling I did it. Told them I carry only a black pen around and showed them the initial workorder slip where SA wrote using blue pen. The QA manager was called and while waiting for him, I called WYH support(only use was getting the QA manager's contact, which he gave voluntarily anyways). After a quick discussion, they agreed to take care of it internally, and they used some compound but only a small portion of it was fading. QA manager agreed to get it fixed from outside shop using more 'good' cleaners. Unfortunately, from what I understand (even before this incident), hard stains on leather will stay for a long time. If it was a black color, we could have dismissed it as a spec of dirt, but blue on white / pale beige is not so appreciated. I am learning to live with it.
Now every time I visit, I make sure SA lays hand on my car only if the seat cover is put on and he / she carries along with them during the first inspection and no pen in their hand. (Yeah, I am thinking of adding a darker seat cover)

[avaneeshvyas]

Originally Posted by haystack_needle

Now every time I visit, I make sure SA lays hand on my car only if the seat cover is put on and he / she carries along with them during the first inspection and no pen in their hand. (Yeah, I am thinking of adding a darker seat cover)

Are we talking about plastic seat covers here? Are these chargeable? From what I know we are not allowed inside the Service center so can one actually enforce this?

[Sandegov]

This is what I do when I take my 700 to service, use the covers that came during delivery and its a 5 min job. Not really needed in my case - Chrome bangalore has been very good at handling my 700 with care and they are completely digital too with no use of pens during checkin, but I totally understand its a challenging work env for them and I do my bit to protect/help the upholstery + no body wash there as water washes are banned in Bangalore.

[Tmittal93]

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Originally Posted by arsh9191

This is my first detailed post on this forum. Although I initially wanted it to be about a superb road trip, I was compelled to write about the extremely poor service I received for my XUV700 at the Mahindra dealership twice within a couple of weeks. Fair warning: this will be a long read, but I feel the need to share my experience here because I have received very little support elsewhere.
I am keeping my fingers crossed that when I pick up the car tomorrow, all the issues have been resolved, and I no longer have to deal with this dealership. I am also deeply disappointed with Mahindra for not reaching out or offering assistance in resolving Event 1. They need to understand that they cannot treat a customer who spent almost 30 lakhs on a car in this manner. They must take responsibility for after-sales service rather than passing the buck to the dealership to resolve all the issues.

For future purposes- here are the email id's that will keep them on their toes:
1. customercare@mahindra.com
2. 25000324@MAHINDRA.COM - Abdul Syed head of mahindra customer experience
3. KHARGA.ASHA@mahindra.com- head mahindra customer vehicle
4. EXECUTIVEDIRECTORAFS@mahindra.com- executive director of mahindra..

One mail to these ids and they will be scrambling to help you..

[Kkumar]

Mod Note : Please quote ONLY the relevant bits of a post. Quoting a full, long post inconveniences our mobile readers.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by arsh9191

Day 5 (today): I texted the GM to inquire about the status of the work. I received a call from the Service Advisor, who informed me that most of the work had been completed, with only the installation of the rear windshield pending. They expected the car to be ready by evening. I decided to pick up the car on Saturday morning to inspect it in daylight before taking delivery.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that when I pick up the car tomorrow, all the issues have been resolved, and I no longer have to deal with this dealership. I am also deeply disappointed with Mahindra for not reaching out or offering assistance in resolving Event 1. They need to understand that they cannot treat a customer who spent almost 30 lakhs on a car in this manner. They must take responsibility for after-sales service rather than passing the buck to the dealership to resolve all the issues.

Sorry to know about your ordeals. The weakest link in the automobile industry in our country is Customer Service. It’s high time they come out of this “Chalta Hai” and “Jugaad” attitude. They may be good at producing world class products but if they don’t have good after sales service network then all their hard work will go down the drain. Let’s hope that your ordeal will end soon.

[Pyrotek]

I am going to call a spade a spade here. Mahindra has bitten off more than it can chew. They are not ready to deliver or maintain quality and reliability at scale. Worse, their dealer practices leave much to be desired. Building safe cars (with questionable functionality, I might add) is not enough. They are going the Tata way. There are too many XUV700, Thar, and Scorpio-N horror stories on this forum for us to look away. It's a shame. Let's hope it gets better with time.

[The Rainmaker]

Originally Posted by arsh9191

This is my first detailed post on this forum. Although I initially wanted it to be about a superb road trip, I was compelled to write about the extremely poor service I received for my XUV700 at the Mahindra dealership twice within a couple of weeks. Fair warning: this will be a long read, but I feel the need to share my experience here because I have received very little support elsewhere.

Sad to see you go through all this. Tata and Mahindra are quite notorious for such things, I'm not surprised. Such brands lack the concept of Customer Satisfaction or retention. They play on the cheap/low cost alternative USP and sales is the main aim here. Service/maintenance or offering quality in products and services has never been their strong suit. I see that has not changed till date. This was the reason I boycotted these brands followed by Hyundai/Kia since for me quality is the king, I don't mind paying as long as I'm getting pure quality. Although I still keep test driving and experiencing their new vehicles if anything changed, but come back disappointed all the time since the only thing that has improved is their marketing to fool a customer into thinking that they have improved

[M_Poweredd_]

Originally Posted by Pyrotek

I am going to call a spade a spade here. Mahindra has bitten off more than it can chew. They are not ready to deliver or maintain quality and reliability at scale.

No amount of features and good specs can replace peace of mind in the long run. If you have sleepless nights due to such issues then the product is not worth it at all, especially after such ridiculous delivery wait times. I get the whole buy Indian movement but I think that the aftersales of Indian automakers will take some time to catch up with international brands.

[Vijay T]

So sorry to read about such horror stories about Mahindra service.

IMHO ,the service centre personnel need proper training to handle premium cars like 700. Especially white seats handling.

Secondly it all boils down to service manager or GM of that particular centre to ensure & enforce that SOPs & good practices stipulated by company are followed.

It's the mindset (read chalta hai,jugaad) of workforce that harms reputation of even good companies.

Mahindra should be careful in selecting & awarding service centre franchisees while they take pride in building good cars. Ultimately it's the person representing Mahindra to customers.

Reliability in electronics is something Mahindra has to learn in big way.

Though I have owned Mahindra vehicles all these 20 years,after reading these stories,I might consider shifting my loyalty to other car company.

[Aditya]

Poor experience with Arav Motors Mahindra service station, Gurugram - Posts moved to a new thread.

[GrammarNazi]

Sorry to read the ordeal. When I sent my car during first service, the dealer had employed a person who took dozens of pictures inside out, even engine-bay! If you have those pics, they will prove that the marks have not been caused by you.

There are quite a few safe chemicals by reputed brands available that can clean ink stains. I have used hydrogen peroxide H2O2 used to clean other white surfaces, maybe see if you can try it if very carefully applied only on that pen mark. Harsh chemicals may damage / degrade the leather material, so consider that too.

My dad had carefully removed & preserved the seat plastic covers that came with the car after a week of delivery. Even I put them on when taking the car for service and I have not been charged for protective seat covering.

ASCs of most brands are deceitful tricksters, some being slightly better monitored by the parent company than others makes all the difference. Lest they often think customers are gullible children and take people for a ride. (Unfortunately quite a few actually are! So its become their practice to not respect customers property & then for service ratings they behave asif they're offended if we don't give them an excellent rating even for basic fairly simple work. We give-in in our attempt to build a good rapport.)

[arsh9191]

Thank you so much for these. I had mailed on these email ids the link of my review on Team BHP, and Mr Syed has replied promising action of all the points mentioned in my review.

Further as an update on the situation:

I had gone on Saturday afternoon to pick up the car, and found that there are still issues or work left with the finishing of the boot lid - hence I had to leave the car there for another night.

Then on Sunday, I finally brought the car back home, with the work been completed to level which I was fine with. But today, as I was driving to office I noticed that there are multiple stains on the innerside of the front windshield - I have shared photos with the GM and am waiting to hear back.

God knows, when I would be able to go a day without having to contact the service centre.

Originally Posted by Tmittal93

Mod Note : Please quote ONLY the relevant bits of a post. Quoting a full, long post inconveniences our mobile readers.

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For future purposes- here are the email id's that will keep them on their toes:
1. customercare@mahindra.com
2. 25000324@MAHINDRA.COM - Abdul Syed head of mahindra customer experience
3. KHARGA.ASHA@mahindra.com- head mahindra customer vehicle
4. EXECUTIVEDIRECTORAFS@mahindra.com- executive director of mahindra..

One mail to these ids and they will be scrambling to help you..