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-   -   Once a proud Mahindra E2O owner, I'm now absolutely frustrated with problems after a service visit (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/technical-stuff/198565-once-proud-mahindra-e2o-owner-im-now-absolutely-frustrated-problems-after-service-visit.html)

PreS: This may be more of a rant, or a long term report focussed only on the negative side of things. Wanted to call out this bad experience and get your thoughts on what I can do about this. If there is a better forum that I can post this in, please let me know.

I own a Mahindra E2O T2 2015 model car. I have owned it for 3+ years and I absolutely love the car and I have recommended it to dozen of friends. Due to my recommendation, I know at least 4–5 friends who have actually purchased this car.

However since the last 1 month, I have had severe problems with the car. This started after a service that I did with India Garage, Whitefield, Bangalore. Paid Service at 18000km: The only problem that I requested to be fixed was the A/C blower which stopped working suddenly during the previous afternoon summer heat where I had it running at full blast.

However, I had a series of problems after getting it back from the service where all that had to be done was fix this one problem.

1) A/C was not cooling at max setting.
2) Heavy battery drain with A/C usage - almost 20km drain for 5km distance.
3) Door lock on passenger side was not working properly.

First followup:

Immediately after taking possession of the car, I found that the A/C cooling was not effective even though blower was fixed. At max blast, the air coming out of the vent was slightly cooler than ambient temperature. This was not at all sufficient to cool the car itself. The cab temperature kept rising with the ambient heat and even went up to 38 degrees with A/C at full blast. The only way to cool down the car was to actually roll the windows down.

Among other things, as part of the original service people replaced some spider gear (for regenerative braking which was making sounds, and refilled the A/C gas saying some pipe was broken and gas had leaked. Note that I had absolutely no problem with the A/C cooling even the minute before I gave the car for service. Since I was out of station, I gave the car for followup, one week after original service date.

During this first followup, they refilled A/C gas again and this time cooling was better - although I still feel it is not as good as before the service.

Second follow-up:

After 2 days, I found my login with E2O app was not working and I was asked to bring it in for firmware update. I took it in and got this done. The concern was, why was firmware not updated during the service? Isn't it made known to the service centers that there are new updates? When I got the car back after service, the passenger side remote lock wouldn't unlock occasionally. I would have to unlock the latch from inside only. After the firmware update, this got completely broken. Both side door wouldn't unlatch. After beeping open the car using the remote key, I would have to use the physical key to open up the driver door and the passenger door in order to get inside the car.

After I remotely lock. the door wouldn't latch and would open and the alarms would go off. I had to again hit unlock on the remote and silence the alarm. This was a standard affair each time I got into the car or out of the car. Each time I got out, I had to recheck if it was locked and always the alarm would go off.

Third follow-up:

Of course, I had to bring the car in to get this fixed. The India Garage person lubricated the wires and said that it will work for now. If it fails again, they'll have to replace the latch assembly on the door. 3 years and there was no problem and all of a sudden, so many problems? Luckily the latch sort of worked now. Occasionally, I had to press the unlock button twice, or hold it for longer and then the door would unlock. But this was at least manageable.

Then the final*straw.

Today, even as I type this, my car is broken down, with no acceleration, and stuck in the middle of the road waiting for a tow vehicle to pick it up.

The battery range came down to 20% charge and switched to E mode, as expected. However the moment it went below 20%, the car suddenly lost power and was coasting at 20kmph. It would occasionally lose power from then on. Also, whenever I released the accelerator and pressed again, it would pick up 5 to 10kmph additional speed upto 25–30kmph. I was inching along on a busy road during 6pm peak hour traffic with buses, trucks and cars behind me unable to pass me due to all the metro construction work on Whitefield main road. Every few meters, I would pull to the side where possible and allow cars to overtake me. I kept inching home this way slowly and dangerously on the main road getting honks and dirty stares.

Finally less than 300m from home, the car just ran out of all juice. There was zero acceleration. This was even though the meter showed 17% remaining charge. All lights, center media console, blowers were still working which meant that the battery did have change it in. However the car just lay motionless. To make things worse, I couldn't even try the Revive option since that works only below 10% and the battery still showed 17%. I had a car dead in the middle of the road, right in front of a speed breaker, with an upward gradient on the road, bang in peak office hour traffic. Could it get worse?

After calling multiple service hotlines, waiting 15 mins on the 'with you hamesha' helpline, getting a callback after another 15 mins, and being routed to a service center 25kms away from my place; I finally used my contacts to call up India Garage who 'serviced' my car and asked them to come and help me out. After another 15 mins a service person came from India Garage and checked the car and said nothing could be done and it had to be towed to the workshop. Meanwhile, a few tempo drivers came to the rescue and along with the India Garage person, we pushed the car away across the divider, to the side of the road. The car was offering a lot of resistance and did not move easily even with 3 people pushing it (although it was rolling back down the gradual gradient when I took my feet off the brake). When I turned the car off, I could push it fairly easily just by myself.

Now I am waiting for the towing vehicle to come and take the care away. I hope it is not causing too much concern parked by the side fo the road along the footpath.

A car that served me beautifully for 3 whole years has ruined my peace of mind within 15 days. I just don't feel like owning this car as I am afraid what problems with come up. At least I was lucky that this happened near my home. What would happen if I was elsewhere and I had to wait 5 hours in the middle of the road waiting for Mahindra service to come and rescue me? I am so disappointed with Mahindra Reva and don't feel like recommending this car anymore to my social group. In fact I feel I will dissuade anyone who wants to purchase this car. How could you mess up such a good car in one single service? It's like the only few mechanical / electrical parts in the car, are all now broken.

Does someone know how I can escalate this?

I want the General Manager and Deputy General Manager of Mahindra Reva and Mahindra Electric to know the trouble I faced and how the car has been acting up. I want a commitment from senior management that this will be fixed and I am prepared to make noise about this until then on social media.

Where do I get email of these senior people, or at least aliases of senior management so that I can escalate. Does anyone have the email of these folks?

Tweet to Anand Mahindra, I'm sure you'll get the required attention.

Regards,
Shashi

Thanks, I did this. Now let's see what happens.

@Mod: Thanks for moving the thread to appropriate section.

I got a call from India Garage that they've received the car. I offered to them that their personnel can use the car as a personal car for as many days necessary and observe the car behaviour. Since the problem happened below 20% charge, I don't want them giving me back a 80% charged car saying that it is working fine.

Do let me know if the above approach is ok, or it was not a wise thing to do.

Sorry to hear about your experience. Since all these problems surfaced after the service, it sure appears that the real problem is with India Garage, and not the E2O. Doesn't look like they have the expertise or technical understanding to handle an E2O. This specialised vehicle needs specialised hands working on it. I've heard of similar complaints from other E2O owners as well.

I've sent a link of your thread to Mahindra.

Mahindra ASS has always been a hit or miss. That your drive happens to be a special vehicle like the E2o only compounds matters. It needs people who actually know it to take care of it.

Is it possible that after 3 years on the road, it is the battery itself which is on it's last legs? That will explain all the problems that you are having.

Could this be a software glitch?

Not sure if the remote locking etc is routed or controlled through the central software. The battery problem could, however, be related to the firmware update.

It is a possibility, but I doubt it. I have been getting the full range with the batteries even after 3 years. On a full charge, without A/C, it consumes about 16 kms to cover 20kms (regeneration included).

With A/C on auto or at level 2, I do get about 100kms range on a full charge (promised range 120).

That's my feeling too. Maybe the new firmware messed up things. I've driven the car before (couple of times) at 10% charge or slightly below. And I've never faced a problem. The car would easily pull to 40-50kmph speeds.

Driving at a 20kmph on a failing car on a main road was super scary.

Update: I've got a few calls from key Mahindra people - Nodal / Zonal officer, Bangalore, and a Mr Karthik who takes of planning(?) who will coordinate with Mr Madhukar and others with Mahindra Electric and India Garage.

Looks like there is a management meeting in Goa where all the key folks are, but they'll get together in the noon / evening and discuss the case. They said they'll give it the due attention and see that things are rectified.

The only thing is that it is out of warranty, so I wonder how much this is going to cost me. :(

Happy with the responses, and the customer attention / service they are giving. Thanks to everyone here, and to the folks at Mahindra. They also mentioned they got my mail that I sent; so glad to see they read mails promptly and escalate as required.

If it's because of the firmware update or shoddy workmanship, I think they shouldn't charge you anything.

Coming to think of it, firmware updates should probably have their own warranties.

I was considering this as a 2nd car / city runabout to complement the Dmax. Looks like the E2O is a good idea let down by shoddy execution.

Will stay away. A car is meant to aid mobility.

They have made some serious errors while fixing the fan, including mechanical damage to the refrigerant circuit and some damage to the electricals. In all probability, there is a short somewhere. If the issues cropped up after a service, it is a fault of the service center. Batteries don't die sudden deaths, unless there is an external issue. Escalate with M&M and ask for a different service centre.

I can totally relate to the frustration you are going through. Based on my experience of 200K+ miles on a Prius I would first suspect that the main battery has died. Even though the miles on the battery is less the Bangalore heat would have killed it. Just because it can be charged does not mean it is good. In my Prius even if a cell pair voltage was below the average pair voltage the Christmas lights would light up in the car. In case of an inefficient main battery the ECU may over ride and shut down the AC. You need to find out what they did to get the Blower working. As pointed earlier a ground fault may have been introduced or not identified that prevents the battery from holding the charge. Wish you the best of luck in solving the electrical problems. The OBD2 reader has helped me a lot in my car ownership.:thumbs up

PS: Finding a good mechanic who knows the Hybrids in US is a challenging too. Toyota ask you an arm and leg to resolve a problem.

I was once a proud owner of E2O. After using it for 23000Kms in 2 years, I realised that the car had a lot of issues and the service centres were useless in solving many issues.
Though I didn't suffer from major issues apart from a blown in built charger, I suffered quite a bit in getting the car back on road due to incompetent service offered by Mahindra.
Decided to get rid of it at it's peak and sold it in the past year. Though I miss the car, I am relieved of the head ache of maintaining a troublesome car.

I will wait for a proper EV to be launched in the market than a car like E2O.

I am surprised at how one single service screwed up your entire vehicle so badly !!

Have you also checked if it was misused by anyone there in A.S.S ?

Ask them in confidence if they re-flashed the ECU. If the answer is 'Yes' ask them to undo this change and put in the old software back. IMHO it appears to be a software glitch. Am sending the link of this thread to a birdy who may help.

P.S.: Am not linked to the company.