Re: Mahindra XUV300 : Official Review As a newbie here, I wanted my first post here to be about a travelogue in my XUV 300 W8(O). But fate had other plans and the first post about my car is about a pretty serious issue.
I had purchased the car in May 2019 and as it's my only car, it's been used in the city as well as for frequent highway trips. On an average, I shuttle up and down to Coorg from Bangalore around twice a month. Absolutely loved the torque rush and the almost car-like driving dynamics. A niggle-free, freshly baked Mahindra car with absolutely no issues for 2 years? I knew this was too good to be true.
And I was right. Cut to the last week of August 2021 and during one of my usual drives to Coorg, I suddenly could not shift the gear from 2nd to 3rd. I passed it off thinking I had not pressed the clutch at the right time while shifting gears and this might have caused the resistance. But no, a few kilometers later, the same issue popped up. This time the issue was slotting it from 4th to 5th gear. I had carefully pressed the clutch and shifted the gear at the same time, so I realized that was not the issue.
The whole journey was a great struggle in engaging the gear as I have never faced such resistance doing the same ever. Returned back to Bangalore the next day and immediately drove the car to the Anant Car Service Center on Bannerghatta Road. The Service Advisor and the technician went on a drive and upon inspection, it was concluded that there was an issue with the gearbox and that they would have to check the same in detail. Mind you, this was on the 1st of September, 2021.
A couple of days later, the Service Advisor informed me that the whole gearbox needed to be replaced and there seemed to be a defect with the gear teeth. Now to be honest, I am not very technically oriented with the inner parts and workings of a gearbox. I was quite flabbergasted as the car had only run 24k kms at the time of the incident. The only relief was that the car was still under warranty.
The Service Advisor told me it would take around 10 days for the issue to be fixed as the parts would have to come from the Chakan Plant. Since it was a manufacturing default, I requested the Service Advisor to provide a Loaner car till my car was fixed. The SA very bluntly denied this request and told me they they "do not have the concept of a loaner car". I found this to be very strange and quite appalling that he did not even consider the request.
This saga went on and every time I called the SA, he would just say the parts are yet to come. I began to lose my patience on this. The callousness of the SA was just atrocious. Multiple follow-ups were just met with the same answer. So I decided to reach out to their Assistant Service Manager. As soon as I appraised him of the situation, he did promptly follow up and check on the issue whilst taking it off the hands of the earlier SA.
Finally, on the 16th of September, the ASM informed me that the gearbox had come and they would fix it and get it ready to be delivered by the 18th. My spirits did go up as I thought the ordeal would end here.
But it was not the case. On the 18th, the ASM informed me that during a drive they had taken to check the gearbox before delivery, they found that issue still persisted a bit and they had to order another part, which would take another 10 days, to fix this. The ASM understood my frustration with the issue and as there was still no loaner car given, he promised that he would get all my cab expenses reimbursed for the time period that my car was in the workshop. This was a kind gesture, but I was still very pissed off about the whole situation.
At my wits end, I reached out to the Bangalore chapter of Team-BHP and appraised them of the situation at hand. A big thank you to BHPians TurboGuy, vishwasvr and pastey93 for helping me out and putting me in touch with Vikram from the TORC Group. Vikram helped me contact the CCM for Ananth Cars. The CCM heard me out completely and was also shocked himself that no loaner car was given.
The CCM apologized for all the inconvenience I was put through and explained that there has been a huge backlog in receiving parts from the Chakan plant and hence there were severe delays faced for many such situations. I did not know Mahindra were facing delay issues with normal spare parts, was only aware of the chip shortage situation. He did, however, arrange for a Marazzo for me as I had to travel out of town in a couple of days and I had no other car to drive. This was a very thoughtful gesture by the CCM and kudos to him for arranging a car for me at such short notice.
As of today, the 1st of October, its been a month since my car has been at the workshop. I have been promised by the ASM that the car will be ready today and I can pick it up in the evening. I hope I am not let down at least this time. The service center has done its bit to appease me, but this level of quality and delay from Mahindra along with the initial refusal to provide a loaner car is simply unacceptable.
A big thank you to this community again for giving me so many option to address my grievance. Hopefully, I can update this post with some good news by tonight. |