[84.monsoon]

Originally Posted by dr_TJ

I am in a similar situation. I currently own a Thar Diesel AT, only car in my garage and I daily drive it. Not much of a major complain from me or my parents but yes a 4 door SUV is most welcome.

I have a similar thought process. Have enjoyed my 2020 Thar for 18 months now as my primary vehicle for the daily office commute and the occasional solo long distance drives. While I do have a second car in the family, yet I hear a lot of complaints about the impracticality of the Thar from family whenever they travel occasionally in it. Not having four doors and a proper second row makes it unsuitable to be pampered with a chauffeur drive on rare occasions when I borrow my wife's driver. Also on my bi-monthly 8 hour trip to the hills, I feel the whole world is bouncing slightly even after I finish my trip, for a few hours more, due the continuous and up and down movement even on smooth highway that the Thar produces.

Due to all this, have slowly started to the think of replacing the Thar with an equally capable 4WD ScorpioN. 4WD is a must as I do enjoy off-road expeditions that I have been on in my Thar, and continue to want to do those. AT is a must as I can no longer live without the convenience.

So that left only the Z8 or Z8L AT 4WD as an option. When the MT prices were announced, I was hoping the Z8 AT 4WD will come in just under 20L ex-showroom, which would have made it excellent value. Eventually, it turned out to be overpriced by 2L, yet better value than anything else in the price bracket with proper 4WD, AT and all the features I wanted. So decided to take the plunge and book yesterday but got stuck with the website and payment gateway issues. Now if they are going to tell me I have to pay any higher price than the launch price, then it would no longer passe my value test and I'll cancel. If on the other hand, they realise I was indeed one of the first to attempt payment (I clicked the 'book' button the second it appeared), and so, rightfully, offer the launch price, will go ahead and switch to the ScorpioN, once my Thar lease expires in January.

[vinbie2019]

Dealer made my booking for Z8L Petrol RWD model. Got my SMS at 11.06 AM, going by discussions above, i guessing i will be at 80,000ish in queue. Anyone, based on XUV 700 experience, what might be my waiting period?

[prajakt_23]

Anyone who had tried booking XUV700 online would have learnt a lesson that Mahindra's dealer have a different system to book than what we get get as an external customer. And since they the dealers have already taken a cheque of 21,000/-, they do not need to spend those additional few seconds to confirm the order. The only precautionary step that one could have taken was, to seat besides the sales rep to ensure that he picks up your name first from the 200 odd names he has on his list. This was the only way to ensure that spot in first 25000!

IMHO, what Mahindra could do to solve this issue is

1. Increase the booking amount to some extent. If not, just increase the cancellation fees and most of the duplicates would get filtered out

2. Any which way the dealers are going to get the same amount of money even if we book online and select their dealership. In that case, if Mahindra really wants to give a fair chance to normal buyer to secure that 1 in 25000 spot, they should not allow the dealers to book the vehicle on the first day.

3. And third would be devise the website such that no automation scripts can be built to do faster booking (within 1/00th of a second), as soon as the link gets enabled. These bots / scripts were being used regularly in Amazon, Xiaomi sale and were used even in booking slots for Covid vaccines.

[prakhar30]

By seeing the experience of booking of scorpio, I think M&M was more fair in XUV700 bookings. I was not able to book in initial 57 mins of xuv but had added to cart the day before. I was provided price protection and I booked on next day. Also dealers had very little say in XUV bookings whereas in scorpio dealers have gone rogue and unethical by making pseudo bookings.
My car is delivered and a happy owner.
Seeing scorpio fiasco I am not sure how M&M timelines for thar and xuv will get hampered.

1 lakh figure is skewed and a rough estimate shows everyone has done multiple bookings. I think fair estimate should be around 25-35k genuine customers.

And in the long run i think XUV700 will be having more market share than scorpio N.

[anti21]

As mentioned by other members previously, the issue was not with Mahindra Tech but with PayU. What happens is Mahindra takes the booking, generates a token for a user and passes the details to PayU which has to then process the payment and gives back the confirmation to Mahindra. There are a handful of payment gateways in India and Mahindra is not one of them. They have to use external service like PayU.

Since most people have mentioned that it was PayU that was giving the 504/502 error, that means PayU was not ready for the amount of traffic it got. 504 error is a timeout error which means the request was received by PayU server to process but it was not able to process it in stipulated time and give back the confirmation. Which means its existing server was already processing requests and was not ready to server new requests.

I am sure PayU is using a scalable architecture to handle increased load (from what I can deduce they are using AWS SaaS but not Kubernetes, so probably Elastic Container Service or even maybe just virtual machines with Docker) but even that takes a couple of minutes to spring up new machines to handle loads of requests.

Could PayU have avoided it? I think Mahindra and PayU would have definitely worked on a plan for this and estimated the traffic load that they would receive. A couple of hours ago before the event they would have add more virtual machines to handle the load (this is called warming up). However, it seems like there were more people than estimated which cause the error from PayU's end. It can even be a sub-component like DB that might've failed to handle the load. I can only speculate from outside.

This happens to best of the companies, it happened to Flipkart on one of their earlier Big Billion days or to even Amazon USA on their prime day.

Overall, I am sure there is no conspiracy from Mahindra here to benefit one group of another. It was just a technical glitch from a partner that can happen with anyone.

[MetalClank]

Originally Posted by anti21

Could PayU have avoided it? I think Mahindra and PayU would have definitely worked on a plan for this and estimated the traffic load that they would receive.

Someone on this thread already touched this. Mahindra already knew the number of people who had added one or more variants to their carts many many days in advance. So this smells fishy because both Mahindra and PayU had ample time to prepare for the traffic days in advance.

[Ulysses]

After adding in cart and taking TD, I finally decided not to go for Scorpio N: it did not make sense for me. Reason being 1) I wanted to have an able off-roader so 4WD was my option. 2) The 4WD offered in Z4 version is of minimal use as per my understanding. Without any MLD/BLD, it is the simple Bolero Camper type 4WD system. 2 million+ price for this is insane for me. 3) Tthe real effective 4WD system is offered only in top end versions. But if I am ready to pay that kind of price then there are other more matured vehicle options to choose from.

However, after reading all the reviews regarding booking, it seems that the initial 25K booking may be just a marketing gimmick to foment FOMO sentiment. I am not sure if any bonafide customer would really get the same, but even if so, for large number of people, price guarantee would not hold.

However, I see an opportunity here. Probably, some other car maker would fall for this and may offer some really attractive price/discount and if that happens, that would be a real deal. Keeping fingers crossed.

Originally Posted by anti21

Could PayU have avoided it? I think Mahindra and PayU would have definitely worked on a plan for this and estimated the traffic load t.

Another option could have been to have multiple payment gateways, and a load balancing layer (calculating number of active sessions on pre-payment page) to render different payment gateways to different users. Since, MnM only need a token from the payment gateway to confirm booking (which is not tethered to any specific payment gateway), this kind of approach would have minimized the problem to large extent

[alokk0912]

Originally Posted by anti21

This happens to best of the companies, it happened to Flipkart on one of their earlier Big Billion days or to even Amazon USA on their prime day.

Overall, I am sure there is no conspiracy from Mahindra here to benefit one group of another. It was just a technical glitch from a partner that can happen with anyone.

It is not about conspiracy but the experience and the feeling of getting conned as mentioned by many of the fellow members. May be now we are in the era where shopping for 20 lacs car can be equated with experience of shopping of 20K mobile from e-commerce sites.

It was very clear that online users where shortchanged compared to dealers. All we wanted from Mahindra was to communicate that to all of us and none of us would have bothered to even log into the site. I cannot imagine that Mahindra cannot estimate and plan for the load in advance along with their third party providers when they had pretty much full view of numbers of users who have added to their cart. This situation was very unlike the flash sale of e-com sites. I doubt if anyone would have started with add to cart on 30th July.

Anyways, I don't think either Mahindra on any of their dealers are bothered considering the number of bookings they already have.

[sa_goel]

Awesome product. However, this whole series of shenanigans about unveiling, test drive, adding to cart, and price reveal has managed to get higher than expected demand.

But, as usual, the execution leaves huge gaps. Nonresponsive payment page, no information on the delivery timeline even after paying.... it's becoming too long a tooth, not to be painful.

[krinpit]

Originally Posted by prajakt_23

Anyone who had tried booking XUV700 online would have learnt a lesson that Mahindra's dealer have a different system to book than what we get get as an external customer. And since

The other thing they can do to avoid duplicate booking is to make any unique identifier compulsory example: PAN NO or Aadhaar No or Driving License etc.

[anti21]

Originally Posted by MetalClank

Someone on this thread already touched this. Mahindra already knew the number of people who had added one or more variants to their carts many many days in advance. So this smells fishy because both Mahindra and PayU had ample time to prepare for the traffic days in advance.

Mahindra had already handled it well as they were able to direct it to PayU. As far as I now, the errors were on PayU side. And any half decent Architect/Product Manager, would have made sure load tests were done with the predicted load plus about 20% extra buffer. However, they would have simulated the response from PayU's side as PayU would rate limit their test environment.

It is entirely possible that they did manage to scale the API server but it might be possible that they didn't do it well for their DB? Also, AWS Mumbai basically always has a resource crunch so might be possible that was the maximum machines that they were able to get. So maybe they weren't able to scale easily due to AWS availability at the time of load whereas previously in tests it would have worked with easily with load plus 20% of traffic. We can only speculate. But it happens and it will happen again.

Originally Posted by Ulysses

Another option could have been to have multiple payment gateways, and a load balancing layer (calculating number of active sessions on pre-payment page) to render different payment gateways to different users. Since, MnM only need a token from the payment gateway to confirm booking (which is not tethered to any specific payment gateway), this kind of approach would have minimized the problem to large extent

That complicates the architecture at Mahindra's end unnecessarily for a one time event. Each of the payment providers have their own style of request and response. It is not as simple as putting a load balancer, you'd have to keep the session active which would result in computational costs. You'd have to process each of the responses and webhooks differently. Also, session lost due to user activity (like refresh or network change) would have resulted in payment failure.

Originally Posted by alokk0912

It is not about conspiracy but the experience and the feeling of getting conned as mentioned by many of the fellow members. May be now we are in the era where shopping for 20 lacs car can be equated with experience of shopping of 20K mobile from e-commerce sites.

Also, the people who can design and maintain this type of IT infrastructure are worth pretty top dollars and they'd need multiple of them. I don't think Mahindra is known for paying top dollar to its employees and those type of employees would also not prefer working at Mahindra most likely.

That is the reason I mentioned Amazon and Flipkart, because they pay top dollars for the best engineers and even they still run into issues.

The above was for Mahindra's side. As to, why PayU had those issues? As mentioned above it might have been due to AWS limitation also (again speculation). Anyway, generally the Service Level Agreement from PayU's side to Mahindra would probably have been 99.9% uptime which given a whole year would come with 525.6 min of downtime. This would fall under it.

So yeah, the experience while unfortunate and subpar, is sadly expected from Mahindra which is not exactly known for top quality IT tech.

[sandeepmdas]

Originally Posted by sa_goel

this whole series of shenanigans about unveiling, test drive, adding to cart, and price reveal has managed to get higher than expected demand...

Originally Posted by Ulysses

Another option could have been to have multiple payment gateways, and a load balancing layer (calculating number of active sessions on pre-payment page) .. Since, MnM only need a token from the payment gateway to confirm booking (which is not tethered to any specific payment gateway), this kind of approach would have minimized the problem to large extent

Deferring the spot-payment would have been an even better (read wild ) idea. People login to their carts and then simply point-and-click the Book button. Mahindra can then generate a priority token immediately and a payment link within a couple of hours. The link will expire in 48 hours means the booking is cancelled unless payment is received within that window.

The catch is you can't make the coffers overflow with cash; when I see my "priority" token is 97989, I will not pay and most probably leave the cart in limbo.

[achyutaghosh]

Originally Posted by rooster.ram

A tatkal reservation/ wait list kind if transparent system was required, but mahindra despite being a tech giant themselves, chose to deliver a rather bad effort.

No offence meant, but there has been a lot of discussion on the lack of transparency on the booking process by Mahindra. However, we tend to forget that Mahindra is a corporation, not a government public goods platform, and so it can choose exactly the way it wants to act and be as transparent (or not) as it wants to be.

Plus lack of transparent process did not stop over a lakh people still going ahed with their bookings- Mahindra know they have a good thing going with the Scorpio and we should be set for quarterly price hikes ala Fortuner.

Flash sales (like the Oneplus Ones) have never happened in the Indian auto sector, till the advent of the 7OO and Scorpio-N. Once again kudos to mahindra for making a good product in the first place, and building up the buzz to this moment today

[fazalmirza]

Considering the booking fiasco is bordeline scam, or is it.
Besides that I have a question after watching a couple of reviews for the 4WD version test drives.
Both, DDSRavi and another, both mentioned 4WD suspension to be slightly stiffer than the 2WD suspension.

How much so, and will it affect the ride quality of the car too much? Are any pointers available to this question.

[rooster.ram]

Originally Posted by achyutaghosh

No offence meant, but there has been a lot of discussion on the lack of transparency on the booking process by Mahindra. However, we tend to forget that Mahindra is a corporation, not a government public goods platform, and so it can choose exactly the way it wants to act and be as transparent (or not) as it wants to be.

Plus lack of transparent process did not stop over a lakh people still going ahed with their bookings- Mahindra know they have a good thing going with the Scorpio and we should be set for quarterly price hikes ala Fortuner.

Flash sales (like the Oneplus Ones) have never happened in the Indian auto sector, till the advent of the 7OO and Scorpio-N. Once again kudos to mahindra for making a good product in the first place, and building up the buzz to this moment today

Public goods or not flash sales do happen on amazon and flipkart which look fairly good nowadays. Irrespective of value of product, it can be done.
If a good product is crippled by such an experience even before the car is sold, there ought to be a backlash!
Only point there is that it isn't fair to provide backdoor for dealers while all the unsuspecting customers are waiting on the front door. Mahindra could have set an example being first one to provide a transparent process.

Originally Posted by Lightning66

Yes you are right in that matter. It's just that some just don't drive off-road, even with the desire to. So, Scorpio is your choice. But will your family be happy with this. Creature comforts are notoriously mediocre in this car(from what I've heard). So, maybe having a family car and then a Scorpio might be the way to go. Do you plan on selling the Duster?
Anyways, to each their own. Have fun off-roading. But do keep us posted about the car.

I will sell duster for sure in next six months, it is already 8+ years with me. Desire to off road or not, having capacity will definitely help us to plan that way. Creature comfort wasnt there in duster too, but it served well all these years. Family is fine with ride quality. i have been riding in a mahindra car since i was a boy, firstly Armada-bolero -and then scorpio. Scorpio is still their in family and we still enjoy the family feeling in that once in year long trip with my sister's family. Having two cars is not viable financially at least for middle class.