Facing 15 annoying issues on my Scorpio-N for more than a year

The service centre says most of these are software issues, and cannot be resolved in the workshop.

BHPian Pulse500 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I am facing this niggle for more than a year now on my Z6-D-MT

I also reported this problem to Mahindra, demonstrated multiple times to their ASS, but they are unable to find any solution.

• After the vehicle is driven for a while, stopped and engine is restarted, the Cruise control refuses to work soon after. The behavior is different in intra-city driving (typically when driven at speeds not exceeding 60-70 kmph) and on express-ways (when vehicle may have exceeded 100 kmph). And this occurs irrespective of whether the engine is turned off manually after driving or due to auto start-stop e.g. at traffic junctions.
• Intra-city: After re-starting the engine, Cruise control will not work (it can go into standby mode, but doesnt engage) initially for several minutes. Sometimes it re-starts working if attempted to engage again after driving around 2-4 km or after 5 to 6 mins after engine restart.

• Faster Expressways: Cruise control refuses to go active for atleast 1 hour or 100+ Kms after engine restart.

I noted that every time I drove on Samruddhi Mahamarg, typically around 100-110 Kmph, this happened EVERYTIME I stopped for refueling/regular break and restarted the engine. I had 12 trips on this road now, and I find this extremely irritating, dangerously distracting and tiring to drive long distances on that toad when cruise control fails. On a few occasions, after such breaks/engine restarts, I was forced to drive 220+ Kms or 2 hours without cruise control due to this bug, till I took another break. I even tried stopping vehicle on shoulder (dangerous), lock/unlock/restart vehicle to see if it resets, but the cruise control would not engage again. It restarts working at random, sometimes after the next halt, or after getting off the expressway. Unbelievably strange behavior indeed.

I am not sure if is linked to vehicle speed exceeding 100 Kmph for a while before vehicle is brought to halt and engine restarted, or there are any other specific conditions such as engine temperature, location (why should it happen on Samruddhi expressway only, driven for several tens of Km or using cruise for over 20-30 mins without applying brakes, or ambient (BTW, it happened in cold Winters, during Rains as well as as during hot dry summers) or any other conditions.

But Mahindra is not engaging it's R&D and not able to solve the problem. I am sick of escalating it multiple times.

Few other niggles in my car:

• Bad quality reversing camera: A few months back, got a reversing assist camera kit from Bhavna Mahindra, Navi Mumbai. The display output is a bit noisy, and is certainly not HD quality. Guide lines are static and they don’t move with steering angle/vehicle direction. So this works like the typical cheap standalone cameras worth Rs. 400 on Amazon/rural accessories shops.

• Long bootup time for the ICE: The ICE takes forever to go past the disclaimer screen when vehicle is re-started (cold or warm after a short break). Often more than 45 seconds, and the time taken is also not consistent. When this screen is stuck at disclaimer note, and the reversing assist (camera output) is not displayed. It becomes tricky to remove vehicle from parking during such situations. I am used to getting in and out quickly with all my other vehicles.

• While reversing, music volume stays high instead of reduction to minimize distraction

• Sometimes gritty / notchy gear shifts.

• AC emits foul smell in cabin for few minutes after the AC switch is turned off when fans are still ON. Had to replace the cabin AC filter recently, which actually looked clean and without smell. I am keeping it under observation after the filer change.

• Poor design of boot door: Water and dirt gets deposited on the boot door hinges and on cable strain relief/protective rubber boot, even when the door is not opened/used. It attracts lots of insects, spiders and needs to be manually cleaned every few days, some even entering the vehicle through that route. Either the rubber seal is missing or bad. Further, lots of dust/leaves etc keep gathering in the gap between the boot door and roof, and then suddenly everything falls inside the boot as soon as the door is opened. I fear any snake / reptiles / fire-ants / lizards falling from tree branches above could enter the car through this route (may go unnoticed in dark) and the hinges/area around it could rust.

• Auto sinking driver seat: Driver seat keeps sinking automatically (lowers height without manual use of lever) after driving few kms. Seat height reduces faster if vehicle is driven on rougher roads, and needs to be repeatedly adjusted using the lever. I guess the seat holds its position due to friction, but the friction is insufficient to retain height and keeps going down.

• Unpredictable ICE: ICE selects random source of music, irrespective of which source was last used. When vehicle is started/re-started, ICE uses one source of music first, and after few seconds switches to any random source automatically without manual input. This happens irrespective of the source - FM radio, Mydrive, external pen drive (but rarely moves to bluetooth).

• Cracker sounds: Random Phut phut sounds from speakers after engine is shut, car locked, and opened again within a few minutes.

• Random alarms: The screen throws random alarms once or twice a month. However, goes off after I shut/lock the car and re-open and restart. Sometimes the hill hold light comes up (even if not used before), check engine lamp, DPF, and can be multiples at any time etc. Sometimes both the ICE and cluster screens go blank, and I have to stop the vehicle, lock/unlock/restart which makes all these alarms go away as if nothing happened.

• Vehicle does not remember the driving mode zip/zap/zoom. Have to set it each time the engine is restarted. Sometimes just switches automatically at random to “Zap” mode without user intervention.

• Laggy/buggy infotainment: Scrolling of content/songs in any music folder using the right knob gets abandoned often. Screen is laggy and erratic too. So difficult to scroll 6-8 pages down to select song to play.

• When using Android-auto navigation, if a phone call is received or originated (and disconnected), the infotainment system refuses to switch back to navigation screen, do whatever. It auto-switches to “Phone mode” even after pressing the HOME physical button or selecting any screen on ICE. Have to restart the infotainment system to restore normalcy.

• Navigation issues: The native navigation never worked properly for me. The screen / orientation and location dot keeps moving, self location shown is sometimes off by over 100 kms from actual. I am therefore using Android auto. But this is also not stable and occasionally is unable to provide proper navigation, even if the phone is kept on dashboard (assuming the GPS signals will be weak in the cavity near charging ports)

I have highlighted these niggles to the ASS and also the regional service managers. The ASS says most of these are software issues, and cannot be resolved in the workshop, unless new firmware/software fixing these is released and then installed.

I have got atleast 3 software updates for the the ICE and 3 for ECU during last year, none of these solved these problems. The cracker sound has reduced but not stopped.

Does anyone is also facing similar issues?

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