An issue on my XUV700 which took 16 days to solve: Here's what happened

Anyone facing issues like frequent HDC errors, check engine light issues, ABS errors, AEBS off errors or Hill climb errors, I seriously suggest you visit your service centre.

BHPian Monty1 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Here's what BHPian Monty1 was facing & all the updates leading up to it being finally solved.

Hi Bhpians,

Finally, the issue has been addressed and my car is back after exactly 16 days. However there are a lot of learnings and frustrations in this whole process, so please bear with me here.

First off anyone who is facing issues like frequent HDC errors, check engine light issues, ABS errors, AEBS off errors or Hill climb errors, I seriously suggest you visit your service centre and insist on getting it fixed, and do not take just the software update as a solution.

In my case, the first 2 days went by stating that it could be a rat bite on the rear wheel sensor or a general malfunction of the same.

On the 3rd day, my service manager said it was a faulty abs unit and the company will replace it under warranty, but they need a day to procure it and a day to fit and road test it. Come the 5th day, I try to reach out to my service manager she is not reachable and all this while my frustration tentacles are unfolding. Towards the end of the day, she messages me that she is on leave and gave me the contact of another person who apparently is her supervisor. I promptly call him, he seems more experienced and a bit more warm and empathetic to my case. He mentions that the entire process takes a whole day and they need to bleed the brakes and do software upgrades. Apparently, the next day was a Sunday and their technician was not working that day.

Come Monday I again call him he assures me his team is working on my case and by the second half he should have some updates for me. I call him back in the evening, and he too sounds dejected and tells replacing the unit didn't fix the errors. My frustration meter was now blowing huff and puff and I felt like smashing cutleries at my house. He also mentions that they have raised a technical support request with Mahindra themselves for the next steps. From this point onwards I started tracking my car on the Adrenox app every hour. A couple of days pass by and every time I reach out, the answer is we are diagnosing as per Mahindra tech team's instruction.

On the 8th day, I call Mahindra customer care and escalate my case. After a couple of calls back and forth I was connected with the GM of the service centre. He assured me that they have escalated the case with the Karnataka Tech team's head because any non-accidental car parked for more than 7 days is an issue for them as well. Then I confront him saying that if it's so, why hasn't my car moved from the service centre's parking bay to the actual service floor in the last three days? He was taken aback and gave lame excuses. I said I was checking in your own Adrenox app. He again said something like GPS is not accurate n all that. Side note here, the GPS is a gem and is very precise, I could even track when the car was in the service bay and when in the washing bay.

However, after this event, I could see my car now taken into the service bay from the parking. In the meantime, I also got a call from a Customer care relationship manager from Mahindra. I mailed him in detail what were my issues and one of them being my ADAS systems and driver assists features being non-functional. After a few hours to my surprise and utter frustration, I receive an acknowledgement but there was a statement stating " Sir AX7 doesn't have an ADAS feature". I was beyond furious and also a bit afraid fearing the company wants to brush aside the issue and give back the car with the faults. I immediately responded back with the link to their own website and the brochure hard copy along with my 6 months' experience of driving the car with the said feature. The latter point obviously didn't matter because it's like my word against yours, but at least the official website evidence holds some water. After a day, the acknowledgement came that yes AX7 has ADAS. Just imagine my plight, I was more relieved at this statement which was a fact, rather than the actual repair.

In the meanwhile the service centre's manager was now in contact with me. When I enquired what kind of diagnosis are they doing, he informed me that the Mahindra tech team has asked them to check all the wiring harnesses and they were testing for continuity.

When I asked for further technical details, the error code shared was c0037-1c. A simple Google search did confirm that it's an issue related to the rear left wheel sensor.

On the 12th day, I got an update from the service centre's Manager to replace 3 wiring harnesses i.e. underbody, inner floor harness and the harness from the abs to the ECM. When I asked how this explains the unavailability of Drive modes, coz unlike other issues it's a direct map of the ECM. There was no satisfactory answer to that. The estimated time given for the effort was 2 days, however, it took 3 days. On the 15th day, I got the confirmation that the errors are gone and all the issues that I had raised will be addressed only post a test drive by the tech team. By the end of the day even that was confirmed that all adas features, all drive modes are functional.

16th day I arrive at the service centre and wait patiently for another hour or so. When I finally meet the Manager of the service centre my first question was did you find the root cause?

He mentioned " Sir we cannot exactly pinpoint the issue, but when we replaced the inner floor wiring harness after replacing the underbody harnesses, the error codes were gone and we didn't have to replace the harness from abs to the engine. The old wiring harness, however, doesn't have any physical damage. (He even did a continuity test in front of me and all turned out green.) However, as a unit when assembled with the abs ecu, it used to throw up the errors like HDC, Abs error, check engine light etc."

So, finally, I'm not going to give any moral of my ordeal, it's up to each individual to interpret. However, since then I have driven 100+ kms and see no glitch, in fact, the glitch of giving HDC error or engine shutting off on rumblers or on a bad patch of road is gone, at least until now. I'm planning for another road trip this weekend up onto the hills to try my luck again, will keep you all posted on that.

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