Mahindra XUV500 Clutch Plate and Flywheel Gone Bad, Twice in 49K Kms

[bhvm]

I clearly remember, the First Sentence from mahindra when Dad explained the issue was "Sirji Gaadi Mat chaliye, Please park it and wait for us."

So maybe Mahindra is aware that driving the vehicle in This condition will definitely harm the clutch. As dad Immediately stopped, the clutch was saved. Only slave Cylinder was replaced in warranty. So currently, my XUV has factory clutch and has done 45k Kms till date. I've heard XUV clutches easily last 70~100K Kms.

I have a friend who's politician. He drives XUV till 210 KMPH.
His clutch lasted 105K Kms.

About the letter, With pleasure. (loose translation)

My mom said-
Hello,
My vehicle is driven 32,900 KM.
The vehicle is regularly serviced as per schedule.
We we were traveling, the Clutch was found to not work properly.
We called the customer care and got a good response. We are thankful of your service center. They asked us checking will take some time, so we booked a hotel and they shall update us regarding the status tomorrow.

However the Service center is located in a very complicated address so we had huge hassle to find it and finally reach it.

There are many manufacturers in India however your service is praise worthy. However I would like to Bring the point firmly to your notice- Please improve the quality of parts which wil help you gain more customers.

Thanks.

_____________________________________________________

 

[TSIVipul]

XUV clutch lasting 105k kms is nice to know. I have seen the cars with up to 75k kms and the owners never faced an issue except some minor glitches. The possibility of a lemon can't be ruled out either; especially when we know that M&M is rolling out a good number of them

BTW I was expecting the letter to have the opposite wording but I guess your mother got impressed with the A.S.S.

 

[bhvm]

actually she's very mellow person and she got impressed when service center brought them breakfast.

anyways their service left nothing to complain. it's the mahindra who's done nothing about repeated clutch failures in various vehicles. after all the drama I again called mahindra that they should have replaced entire clutch As safety but they denied.

 

[TSIVipul]

Sirji they will definitely deny this one. If the engaging/disengaging system malfunctions then why to risk an entirely new unit? Technically its the clutch assembly and this hydraulic cylinder jugaad mechanism. It's better to have the main thing untouched in its correct setting and have the engaging/disengaging mechanism replaced.

IMO its always a sane option to let the things be at factory setting as much as possible. You temper it and the chances of issues may arise. A better example? It's always safe, sane and best to go for valve strands instead of going for a full blown heart surgery/transplant for a heart patient suffering with a blocked valve etc. I hope you got my point.

As much I know about the clutch mechanism and hydraulics, the pedal not returning back means clutch not getting completely disengaged. How can I conclude this? Ehh, the cylinder piston trickery you know. Now if the clutch is partially engaged then the car will drive (Like the XUV in question) but this will result in the clutch getting completely damaged. Agree? You have a monstrous 320 Nm of torque to be transferred or stopped by that puny arrangement after all.

Well in this case it can be a 50-50 match.

Mahindra is at fault because they have supplied a vehicle with a faulty mechanism and hence must rectify this issue at their own cost.

Consumer is at fault because he hasn't followed the rule of park the car and call the customer care BUT if the owner is in the middle of nowhere then? Like in this case; well ones own life is priceless and hence for the safety of ones own and of loved ones, the person will drive to reach a safe location at least. Again Mahindra is at fault and must rectify this free of cost

 

[cparate]

Thanks to all of you for overwhelming support !!

@ TSIVipul,
I have not kept my left foot on clutch, my foot was resting on footrest which is located on the left side of clutch, i was driving toward Goa so driving down from Ghat in second gear without half clutch,. No burning smell was there. I was driving Honda city GXI model from11 Yrs and never faced such issue, i exchanged Honda City with Mahindra and bought XUV .

My question is why Mahindra's policy is not same across India, i have mentioned that they have replaced same parts in free for my friends car and so same should be applicable for me.

@ Mathew,
After buying this car i have received call from service station that they are recalling oil filter for my Car, i also spoke to other friend who bought same car on same time frame and they told me that they not received such a call for recall. They changed my oil filter and unable to explain me the reason.

@bhvm and TSIVipul
As you mentioned, i can not stop in jungle, when i told my family that i am facing some issue in car and told them "Gadi Kharab ho gayi" first thing was my kid started crying heavily, XUV is his favorite car and given a minute long "show and tell" presentation in his LKG class ...I explained him that i am joking and not a issue in car ...My family told me not to stop in Jungle, it was totally deserted area...no network available also....i kept driving in a seed on 20km in 3-4 gear without putting pressure on accelerator. As you mentioned they replaced all part in free of cost i was also expecting same with these ppl....

I spoke to Sireesh auto from where i bought this car they also told me same thing all this resulted because of clutch plate broken, does not matter if i am driving continuously or not. They told me Mahindra should pay for are losses and escalate issue to higher management

As other friend suggested, i have also tweeted Anand Mahindra about this issue and also sent this link....lets see what he can do..

 

[mayankdixit]

I am feeling sorry as well as scared to hear the ordeal faced by cparate. That area near Goa is really lonely and jungle like.I know it because I drove my XUV from Kanpur with my family, on that very stretch last year. How can he be blamed so easily for bad driving when he has driven other cars in past. I have an opinion that all cars with poor lower end torque,like swift petrol, Honda city petrol, and xuv too,have a higher chance of clutch going kaput earlier in comparison to cars with good bottom end torque,eg most NA jeeps,m800,Nissan sunny diesel,Toyota etios diesel,innova,Sumo,TUV etc. In first batch of cars, driving in bumper to bumper traffic puts lots of load on (as well as over usage of) clutch. Second group of cars are pleasure to drive in B2B traffic.as clutch usage is less. Newer TC diesels have compounded the problem,because turbo spooling takes 1400 to 2200 rpm in different cars.Its not so easy to reach turbo zone in chaotic traffic. Xuv turbo spools at 1600 rpm,200 rpm less than safari storm, so it picks up early but still at lower rpm it stalls with a loud thud, which I think was called clipping by my fellow member in his review.
But how can a clutch go kaput in 2500 km!??Am I missing something here. The driver had a Honda city which has the best petrol engine with poor lower end torque.So that means he was used to such driving.And XUV is far better in torque department compared to his last car. He cant fry the clutch just like that.Was another driver involved in early driving or XUV came with manufacturing defect.It has to be something at manufacturing level I guess.

 

[cparate]

@Mayank
I am the only Driver in this trip, that is why i have decided to break journey in Hubli, stayed there overnight and started next day around 10AM from Hubli-Goa. I took Khanapur route because i wanted to cover my maximum drive through express highway..so I took Hubli-Belgum-Khanapur(turned right before 4KM) route. By going this rout i tried to minimized my drive through single road. Clutch issue happened suddenly i have not noticed any burning smell as we all were little bit scared and concentrating/praying to cross that jungle without any issue.

 

[mayankdixit]

I trust you totally brother,and I have full sympathy with you.You see, I so much NOT WANT THIS TO HAPPEN TO ANY XUV OWNER ,what all has happened to you.I love my xuv.I want mahindra to grow so much to punch the s@#t out of these koreans and the french and the japs who are giving us below standard cars all along.But an incident like yours whenever and to whosoever it happens to,leaves a bad,very bad taste in mouth.You see it shakes the very moral of all of us XUV owners.We want to be proud of our choice and our product and don't want to be the laughing stock of all these toyota=supreme reliability owners.I feel let down when I read ordeal like yours and feel embarrassed that someone might say,"dekha,mehenga roi ek baar sasta roi baar baar"
And the most frustrating thing is that XUV is actually far superior product compared to boomy engine noise innova.The bumpy ride fortuner is way too pricey for what it offers.Nothing beats XUV in the value proposition.

 

[TSIVipul]

@cparate:
Wait for the response, if any, from their side. Rest I will be surprised if there is no response because the WYH teams are actually quick to respond. I have been appreciating the customer support of Mahindra since an year or two and they are really quick in rectifying the issues.
If they can't support you then ask them of the docs which prove your fault. If they deny that too then approach the court. Well I know approaching the court is more of a headache than forgetting the 45k but a lesson to be delivered is also important.

@Dixit Saab:
You made my morning, I am about to leave for a 400+ kilometres long journey and reading your words made me take an another look at my wonderful Toyota with 110k+ on odo and appreciate its capabilities. As we say "people realize the worth of reliability when stranded in the middle of nowhere" (no offense to anyone but I have once had a hearty laugh at an XUV owner that also standing in front of him) I am from the "Mehnga roi ek baar" category driving every sort of Toyota, be it boomy Innova or underpowered Corolla and I am super happy with my ownership. C'mon man, "the charm of cheap things ends with their warranty" and in the said cases the charm has ended (even before the warranty) and maybe M&M will void warranty too claiming that owner caused the s@#% adding insult to the injury.
I agree that XUV is a far superior product just because you are saying that and I respect you and your car, other than that I have no reason to agree on that. BTW I am fan of Scorpio and have a firm belief that Scorpio was always, is and will be the best Mahindra ever made (Bolero is most reliable Mahindra closely followed by Scorpy), at least in near future.

 

[mayankdixit]

Vipul ji,you have a unique way with words.You are a very knowledgeable senior member here, and have hands on experience on more than half of the vehicles on this forum.I respect you and your opinion.But my post was not intended to be funny at all.While you might be contended and feeling happy about your choices,but the situation at present requires a little sympathy for someone who is suffering for no fault of his.We must all chip in to help out our fellow members in trouble, be it the nano owner or a rolls Royce phantom owner.He has been sharing openly his tortures and troubles and this is the worst time to punish him for his choices.

 

[TSIVipul]

Mayank Sir:
Sincere apologies for sounding that way but there is no intention of punishing or making fun of anyone. Believe me, this one has caused as much disturbance to me too as much it has done to you and I guess I was the first to point this thread and this issue to Mr. Mahindra.

I agree that the OP couldn't stop in the midst of the jungle as it's something related to personal safety. Still I ask you, do you really expect the M&M guys to accept this as a reason for free of cost replacement for an entire clutch assembly? The A.S.S. guys always want to have least possible warranty replacements (everyone knows that) and the way M&M has taken the issue maybe is wrong at our end, but is equally right at someone else's end too. Sorry to say but being sympathetic is not going to give anything in this case. OP has lost his money and let me be a bit harsh but I am not hoping that anything other than court will actually help the OP here. Maybe Mr. Mahindra will cause a miracle, none else.

All in all, I have been thinking of a suitable solution to the problem, if you have one then its welcome (at least we can discuss it here) and none of us has a solution then why keep increasing the length of the thread, sympathy doesn't help after all.

Still saarji, this line written by you made my day and that also at 4 am itself (believe me, even the lunch was also very tasty today..ehh..spare me, it's festive season )

We want to be proud of our choice and our product and don't want to be the laughing stock of all these toyota=supreme reliability owners.I feel let down when I read ordeal like yours and feel embarrassed that someone might say,"dekha,mehenga roi ek baar sasta roi baar baar"

I don't know when a Toyota owner laughed at you (I laughed at one because he was abusing his vehicle and that also quite loud and funny way) but I personally always try my best to find the best possible solution at the moment. But yes, I appreciate your sense of humor; this specific post simply made my day

 

[cparate]

Update: i got a call from same CCM Roahan, he said, my tweet reached to there senior executive through Anand Mahindra and they have asked complete report regarding this case. He has given same explanation, proof and reason to the senior management and they have decided "Not to return paid money". I told him I will again tweet and put my version in front of him he only gone through your version. He said all discussion is finished and there is no need to re tweet, last but not the least I told him i will go to any level to get back my hard earned money, no one can stop me tweeting and filing case in consumer forum".

 

[TSIVipul]

@Cparate:
Re-tweet the same and ask the concerned CCM to send the same in written to you. Ask him to provide everything in written, whatever he has told you till now.

Be very bold in your approach and ask them to provide the proof and reason to you.

Ask Mr. Mahindra about the same and there is nothing wrong in mentioning that you are approaching the court.

If they have issues in presenting the proof and reason then ask them for the same via the court. BTW can you PM me the contact details of Mr. Rohan? Just had a word with my legal adviser and he is interested in listening to his part of the story.

Rest you can approach the ACI guys, Hormazd takes such issues very seriously and even M&M guys also won't like to converse with him the way they are doing to you. In case you need it, I can help you get his contact details. Also PM me your contact number as soon as possible. I need to talk to you. So all I need is:
1) Contact details of the CCM
2) Your contact details
3) Vehicle details (reg no., model, make and VIN)
4) Service center details where you got the work done

 

[bhvm]

I love it when mr Vipul is all charged up!
go Vipul! go.. go.. go..

cparte,
Mahindra has worked hard to earn a name for decent Service and they've gone a long way to solve niggles.
I hope they don't bungle up your small case (for them ) if they want to keep the reputation. you're not asking for some gold, just work done under warranty. and they shall do it.

 

[cparate]

@Vipul thanks for help.....
1) Re-tweet the same and ask the concerned CCM.
CCM (Rohan) is the guy who handles Goa region and i had a discussion with him during Goa visit. i have not tweeted him, he got direction from senior management and he has given same explanation to his sr management. He called me to inform this.
2) Be very bold in your approach and ask them to provide the proof and reason to you
I am asking him from the beginning to provide me same report by which he made conclusion that its Driver Mistake not car problem, but he told me that is internal report and he ca not share. i have recorde statement.
3) Contact details of the CCM: send me sms, i will share
4) Your contact details :
5) Vehicle details: KA03MW4776, XUV 500 W10
6) Service center details where you got the work done:
Muktar Automobiles
Car Service Station

Address: Plot No128, Verna industrial estate, Verna, Goa, 403722


Phone:088888 86520