[hvkumar]

Just to supplement, the ASCs have a practice of making customers sign off

(a) satisfaction reports at the time of billing, even before the customer sees his car, but apparently after the Service Advisor has explained what work has been done

(b) a feedback form which asks inane irrational questions like "Did they get the work done right the first time?"

I know some customers refuse to sign on the satisfaction voucher.

ASCs do not complete all the work customer has asked for, and do not always explain this to the customer.

If a part is not available - as is becoming very common nowadays, now that Mahindra seems to be "re"launching their Scorpios every other month - they are not indented for even if you place a request for them. In most cases, the design has changed and the parts are no more available. I have several such parts that need to be changed in my Scorpio, but am unable to. I nowadays scrounge the used parts bins in the ASCs and try to cannibalise them from accident-repair cars! Mahindra wouldn't care any the less.

ASCs are plugging away services like - upholstery cleaning, car polishing, underbody coatings, AC service - but do not bother, even when the customer wants, about crucial belt changes, engine foundation replacements, etc, all of which rejuvenate the car, are very crucial preventive maintenance measures.

In short, ASCs do not have a culture of recommending preventive maintenance schedules to customers, many of us who are not concerned about how much money we spent on the cars, but are worried about safety and good maintenance. They do not follow good practices in the ASCs.

I have brought all these to the attention of Mahindra over the last 4.5 years I have owned the Scorpio, but I have seen little improvement - needless to say, there are more posters in the workshop floors and customer lounges!!! As though that brings about change!

Mahindra ASCs do not have standard parts like fasteners! During my recent visit from Bombay to the North east (a 12,000 kms over 21 days), bad roads in Bhutan and Assam meant that my steering balancing rod assembly came off (the nuts were totally off in the LHS, and teh whole rod was held there by the RHS nuts!) and the Guwahati ASC did not even have the correct nuts to fit such a crucial part, and neither does my Bombay ASC. What more can you say?

They do not check oil leakages even when you point out to them and suggest solutions.
There are no power steering tanks, no oil separators, no differential flange oil seals. Why, they changed my clutch plate without changing the release bearing - and this after I had taken an appointment after an assurance that all the parts were available (I connected to their store to check before taking my car across). Needless to say, my first clutch plate lasted 95,000 kms (and I changed on my own, it was still going strong). The second one did not last even 50,000 kms.

Any more horror stories - I have lots of them, but neither the patience nor the time to recite them. I have spent over 4 lakhs in maintaining my car (all paid for by me, not warranties) to keep my car running the way it does.

Should I say, With You Hamesha! (that is the Mahindra slogan!)

[ported_head]

Originally Posted by hvkumar

The Scorpios are well-engineered, but they have monkeys in their service centres who have poor workmanship and are callous in their approach to following good work practices.

It is bound to happen, in a industry where the service advisers are paid twice as much as the mechanics themselves. It takes years of practice to be able to diagnose accurately. Skill notwithstanding, where is the motivation to apply good workmanship for such measly pays.

[PRADEEP KUMAR]

Folks, i used to visit one particular ASC in chennai until a very well known Supervisor was there , after he left i either use MY TVS(because the senior mechanic is well known to us) or the ASC engineers who come home and do privately, i do not trust ASC any longer.

tnx

[VinC]

The ASC is one of the place to be forbidden. As a first time, after having purchased an used scorpio 2005 Slx, i decided to take it to the service centre for the 80K checkup. It happened to be my last visit to the ASC. The only complaints i had apart from the regular oil changes etc , were the turbo outlet hose replacement and A/C hose replacement. But the ASC guys listed a bunch of things to be replaced including the clutch assembly. However i felt the clutch to be good and said a NO sensing that the ASC is taking me for a ride. I still went on with changing the power steering belts, wheel cylinder assy in addition to the regular replacements. All this based on the estimation of abt Rs 12000. But when i went to take the delivery, came the shock of my life. The bill amount was 17000. The best part is when i saw the break-up of the bill. Here it goes Spares = Rs 9000 Labour = Rs 6000 and Sales n service tax = 2000.
Oh My God!! The labour cost is toooo high. When enquired i was told that its Mahindra specified tariff which is about Rs 375/Hr of labour for Chennai. Thats almost what an entry level s/w engineer is paid. I would have convinced myself if atleast the vehicle felt good to drive back home. But it was bad driving experience. The steering was very hard that it felt like a non-power steered one. Asking them i was told that the power steering pump was to be replaced. This really bugged me and i took it to my local mechanic who on just changing the screws of rack and pinion corrected it.
The ASC seems to go by a protocol that "at X Kms , all these to be replaced" , no matter even if the parts are real good at that time. Also ASC's idea of repair is to change the entire assembly even the fault is only on one of the components.
A Lesson learnt....

[beejay]

Completely agree with you VinC. I think its best to change over to your trusted mechanic after a point of time. Thees guys are better and charge less.

[SafeDrive]

Originally Posted by beejay

Probably, even I think they might be rendering their best of services primary reason being the Xylo is a new launch and mine is the first car in the district. I might have been able to ward of potential buyers with my door.

Agree with you on this. Years back, I went with a friend who had brought the Scorpio soon after it launched to the dealer for a service and he was provided VIP treatment. The poor Bolero owners were a neglected lot. But in my opinion, the Bolero owners should have been treated better as they would probably upgrade to a Scorpio than a Scorpio owner who had reached the end of the Mahindra line.

beejay - how is your experience now?

[n.devdath]

The more I read about it, the more I m convinced of the futility of getting things done at the ASCs after the expiration of warranty.

Any suggestions for a good Scorpio FNG(Friendly Neighbourhood Garage) at Bangalore?

[beejay]

Originally Posted by SafeDrive

beejay - how is your experience now?

Well my experience is good as of now. The thing is the blokes just don't understand whats needed to be done at times. I have just given up.

The steering needed to be centered during my 20k service. It was not fixed. My friendly neighborhood mechanic fixed it later on.

[9tMax]

Originally Posted by hvkumar

The Scorpios are well-engineered, but they have monkeys in their service centres who have poor workmanship and are callous in their approach to following good work practices.

The perfect description of the morons of the so called ASC.

Last week visited the ASC for a small job of replacing the connector rods between the anti-roll bar and lower arm, as the suspension was making a mild occasional noise. The expert technician there has successfully damaged the right axle CV joint boot in the process of carrying out the simple replacement work.

And how?
Well, he wanted to push down the anti-roll bar a little towards the lower arm, so happily inserted his crowbar in the gap in between the stabiliser bar and the axle boot, called another guy to press down the crowbar and this guy simply started hanging from the crowbar grabbing it with his hands.

What I was doing all this while ? Well, I just went out for a little breakfast as they told there is no lifting post vacant at that time. And by the time I came back all the damage has been done. Otherwise usually I always hang around the car to avoid such monkey business.

As soon as I saw the guy hanging from the crowbar, I rushed to him and asked him why are you doing it like this. And his answer was - "nothing happens, see - I did the other side also like this only." But grease was already oozing out from the right boot. So when I pointed that out to him, he said it must be due to a small pre-existing puncture. It is not because of the pressure of the crowbar, otherwise the same would have happened to the left boot also.

What else can you argue after this? So I just kept my temper under control and came back home with the car, thinking that I will escalate the issue once the service feedback call comes from Mahindra. This happened on last Tuesday, 9th Dec.

I kept on waiting patiently for the service feedback call, mainly to see how much effect does it have. Then yesterday the much anticipated call came. In reply to the very first question I told I rate them a BIG ZERO. The lady on the other end showed quite a bit of concern and asked me what happened. I explained to her. She assured that she will pass on my feedback to the concerned dept. and I will soon receive a call from the concerned dept. This happened last afternoon at around 16:30. As I type this, more than 24 hours have passed and have not received any call from anybody.
So much about "WITH YOU HAMESHA" and Mahindra Customer Care.

This is the latest incident. There had been a quite a few incidences in the recent past, which were of course not this serious, but frustrating nonetheless. Will update them sometime when I am done with this problem.

[comfortablynumb]

Originally Posted by 9tMax

The perfect description of the morons of the so called ASC.

Is your vehicle under warranty, standard or extended? If not, why in God's name did you go to an ASC instead of an independent garage? They are only good for simple & routine servicing tasks, warranty replacements etc. At least from the experiences I've had, they cannot do troubleshooting or repairs.

Better find a good independent mechanic asap, though that's easier said than done too.

Cheers,
Vikram

[9tMax]

Originally Posted by comfortablynumb

Is your vehicle under warranty, standard or extended? If not, why in God's name did you go to an ASC instead of an independent garage?

Well, my vehicle is not under any kind of warranty - standard / extended / imaginary - nothing.
Still I went to the ASC - not out of choice, but out of compulsion. Try finding some spares for Logan, and that too a petrol one - and you will understand my situation. Not that in the ASC also I always get the required parts, but at least whatever is available there is of decent quality.
The other reason being the unavailability of a good independent mechanic, as you have said yourself.

[Real_man]

I second the comments made on Mahindra ASC in this thread.

I have a 2009 Scorpio which has clock 90K, I prefer visiting a ASC hoping the standards laid down by Mahindra is adhered, accountability (you have a neck to catch) and (but) primarily for mental peace. I do a lot of roadtrip with my Monster. Before a trip I’d take the car for a routine service for detection of any unseen issues and of course fix my list of identified issues.

No doubt, the processes followed by ASCs are questionable (has no rationale). Are these guys are actually diligently checking and inspecting all the items listed down by Mahindra. It is evident that the local ASC are cutting corners by hiring under skilled or un committed labour or both. At the end of the day it’s the customer who suffers and foots the large bills. In my last five years of visiting Mahindra ASC, I have notice given that the representative has good soft skills would thrive to increase my final bill. Or the other kinds would ignore the reported issues (oblivious and indifferent to customer’s expectation). But has the audacity to beg for a good rating.

A recent miserable experience which I’d like to cite here and seek fellow Bhpian’s opinion. 2 weeks ago I visited Infinity Autolinks (my first ever visit to them) for a routine service (90K), as usual I had my list of issues to be rectified, I made the advisor note down (for some reason he refrained to enter it in the systems rather was writing down). During delivery (after 2 days) as usual some issues where skipped with a getaway reply “Sorry I forgot Sir”. One of the issue was the voice message of Oil pressure check warning, rather than fixing it the advisor offered me to disable it (how professional is this?). They could not replace the sensors due to non-availability of the part. I did bring it to the Service Managers notice who was nice guy and appeared committed to resolve the issue, I left keeping his contact number handy.

3 days after delivery during a weekend long trip I got a voice warning of high engine temperature just once (I ignored thinking it was faulty sensor issue). Exactly after 7 days on the way back home after office I constantly got the high temperature warning and the AC stopped working. I somehow made it home with multiple halts in between to let the engine cool down. My next 7 day road trip plans crumpled because of this. I notified this to the Service Manager through a text message who committed a call back early next morning. Next day out of curiosity I decided to pull up my sleeves and check it myself to find out what exactly happened (suspected an electrical issue). After inspecting all the wiring (which looked intact) I opened up the radiator cap and to my surprise it was empty!!!! The car was running without coolant. It was already 12:30 PM and no call from the Service Manager, I decided to call him myself, with couple of attempts got through to him. He sounded supportive, arranged for someone to visit my place by 2:00 PM. The technician turned up by 4 and we started the troubleshooting process.

First was to determine if there is a leak in the radiator (thankfully there was no leak in the radiator). Checked all the rubber connection circulating coolant, he indicated a minor leak in one of the connection to the engine. He insisted to take the car back to service center and replace the hose. I agreed under the condition that given the part is available and fixed in the same day (He checked the part was not available). Having left with no option we mutually agreed for a workaround (had cut short the affected area rubber hose and refitted again). It’s been 7 days since the workaround was applied, the car is driving well and no change in coolant level.

I have lot of question in my mind which resulting in me to writing this post, and still trying to figure was what when wrong.
Did someone in the ASC drained out the coolant and forgot to refill again?
Was it really a leak? (If it was I would have detected in the area where the car is parked.)
Should I write this Mahindra Customer Car?
Do I go back to these guys again or got to my regular G3 or Global to fix the remaining issues and re-inspect?

[sumitdongerkery]

I completely agree that although Mahindra's relationship aspect is pretty strong, at times they do suffer due to poor workmanship. I would like to share this incident of mine. I had planned a family vacation to Mahabaleshwar couple of weeks back and wanted to finish off with my XUVs 40K servicing before that. I observed that a long list of maintainance work was done on my car as recommended in the service booklet. The very next day i drove to mahabaleshwar. As i finished the expresshighway stretch somewhere close to Wai, I started to get some rattling sound and I could feel that on the steering. It was increasing as i was driving. I reached Mahabaleshwar and parked the car and for a moment thought maybe I was being too suspicious and dismissed the issue. Next day when i took the car out for local sight seeing, i realised the rattling sound was very scary and with some pot holes on the road it felt as if the car would completely break down. That is when I stopped the car and actually went below the car to scan for any visible issues. Then I realised that entire bracklet holding the balancing road on the front left side was hanging. I was not sure what to do. Tried to talk to my RM and he started apologising and asked me to bring the car till Pune atleast. I was pretty sure it would break down if I had tried this. I then took the car to a local garage there who din't have the right tools and struggled for almost half a day but finally did the job. I immediately checked the bill and it clearly showed that the bracket bushes of the balancing rods had been changed. I was furious and blasted the RM. Thank fully due to the local garage there, I was atleast able to drive the car back home. I straight away drove to the workshop at Thane and got the complete work rechecked. Although I verbally complained to the RM, I am not sure whether Mahindra has any mechanism to sensure such mechanics who work so irresponsibly.

This could have been disastrous if I had done high speeds on express highway, which normally I do.

Mahindra does suffer from poor workmanship.

[9tMax]

Originally Posted by Real_man

I second the comments made on Mahindra ASC in this thread.

I have a 2009 Scorpio which has clock 90K, I prefer visiting a ASC hoping the standards laid down by Mahindra is adhered, accountability (you have a neck to catch) and (but) primarily for mental peace.. .......

No doubt, the processes followed by ASCs are questionable (has no rationale). Are these guys are actually diligently checking and inspecting all the items listed down by Mahindra. It is evident that the local ASC are cutting corners by hiring under skilled or un committed labour or both. At the end of the day it’s the customer who suffers and foots the large bills. In my last five years of visiting Mahindra ASC, I have notice given that the representative has good soft skills would thrive to increase my final bill. Or the other kinds would ignore the reported issues (oblivious and indifferent to customer’s expectation). But has the audacity to beg for a good rating.
.
.
.

Did someone in the ASC drained out the coolant and forgot to refill again?
Was it really a leak? (If it was I would have detected in the area where the car is parked.)
Should I write this Mahindra Customer Car?
Do I go back to these guys again or got to my regular G3 or Global to fix the remaining issues and re-inspect?

Originally Posted by sumitdongerkery

Although I verbally complained to the RM, I am not sure whether Mahindra has any mechanism to sensure such mechanics who work so irresponsibly.

Mahindra does suffer from poor workmanship.

For all those of us - who keep assuming that if we give a bad rating about our service experience during the feedback call received from Mahindra, all the parties involved will be taken to task and our problems will be sorted out, let me assure you - it's nothing but a HOAX - A BIG HOAX, A MYTH, OUR HALLUCINATION and I don't know what else.
As I have written in my post above, I went for a small repair on 9th, which was thoroughly goofed up, then the feedback call came on 15th, I gave a ZERO rating and till today - the 19th, nothing has happened and nothing will happen also. Obviously my grievance was not forwarded to any one any where.
@Sumitdongerkery and Real_man: you can try sending an email to mahindra customer care and hope for the best. And don't forget to inform us here if anything happens.


In the meantime I searched around in the local market and discovered that a decent quality axle boot for logan is not available anywhere, you need to buy the whole right side drive shaft from Mahindra if you want a long lasting boot. Clever game there. And that also raises the doubt in my mind whether the damage was done intentionally by that idiot. Just like Real_man has felt. Afterall they make good profit in selling these parts.

The unavailability of Scorpio's coolant circuit hose comes as a surprising news to me and one more factor pushing me away from a mahindra as my next vehicle and drift towards some other car. I was thinking that Scorpio being such a well established and popular vehicle, its parts will be available readily, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
And what about that great Purple Club of XUV? Even XUV servicing seems to be as callous as it can be.

[pixantz]

There should be a system in place to ensure a distinct level of accountability from automobille manufacturers in India which is not there in place. If not for anything else, then at least for safety concerns. An ill-serviced vehicle is always bound to be a safety hazard for the driver as well as others using the road. Their licence to operate in the country should be based on manufacturing, servicing and parts availability guidlines which should be forced by law. Of course there are various bodies like "Automobile Associations" and such, which are just on paper, to such an extent that they are almost fictional.

Also we, the customers, always have the choice to choose the better car maker by brand. By looking at the companys attitude towards all the right things and choosing accordingly. It's a thing about the standards we set for ourselves too.

Its all about what WE choose which makes or breaks the good or bad manufacturers.

As far as my observation, Mahindra is a company always going the "cheap" and "affordable" way because a huge chunk of Indian buyers subscribe to the philosophy. No offence to anyone. Its my opinion. I would always choose maybe a Toyota or Hyundai over Mahindra. Anyday. God have mercy on us poor customers.