As compared to Hycross ZX, with the Invicto I would miss out mainly on the ottoman seats and JBL sound system – things I can live without.
BHPian vvb8530 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
Sharing my story here on why I decided to cancel my Hycross booking and bought an Invicto instead and how being loyal to brand Toyota has meant nothing. Since my case is not isolated and many others might be going through the same hassle or might have to in the future I am sharing this post on the Hycross thread, Mods may move as required.
My family has been extremely loyal to brand Innova since it was launched in India and in fact we even owned a Qualis briefly before the Innova. I am not even sure anymore but I think we have owned 6 Innova’s to date each being run for over 100000kms and then replaced with another Innova. All of them have been serviced at the prescribed service interval of the ridiculous 5000kms but still done at Toyota dealerships only and mostly Lakozy Toyota in Bombay which if I am not wrong is partly owned by TKM India itself.
Now cut to May of this year, we own a 2017 Crysta 2.8 Z run about 125000kms used mainly by my father to be chauffeured in and a 2014 innova 2.4 V run about 250000kms which is the workhorse and used for factory runs and duties. Both of these needed to be replaced now and the initial thought was to retire the older Innova, move Crysta to workhorse duties and get a Hycross for my father to use. Having heard so much about the terribly long delivery timelines on the Hycross we decided to wait for the new Carnival to launch and then decide by then hoping for the Hycross deliveries to normalize too. However the older Innova was now showing signs of ageing and demanding work. One day crossing a Lakozy Toyota showroom in Thane on the outskirts of Bombay I decided to walk in and casually check on the status of deliveries, the state of Toyota showrooms and the level of staff hired by them is a topic to be discussed on another day but lets just say I have seen Paan shops in Gujarat better than Toyota showrooms these days. Anyways in contrast to what I had heard about the arrogant sales folks with regards to Hycross bookings I met an enthusiastic fellow who told me that though bookings for ZX variants is closed he will show a VX variant booking and later move it to any ZX variant, he also claimed that while officially waiting periods are 18 months plus he should be able to get us a delivery within 3 to 4 months. I ignored all the red flags and based on his word I thought of booking 2 Nos. Hycross instead and retire both the Innova and Crysta because the Crysta would fetch a good resale price and the hybrid Hycross would save us on somewhat equivalent amount in fuel cost. Now the enthusiastic sales fellow became over enthusiastic, probably the 2 bookings helped him achieve some target of his because next when I told him I am not going to take any compulsory accessories, coatings, etc and nor the overinflated insurance he agreed to it all. The same day I gave him a booking for one Hycross in VX variant to be converted to a ZX and the other one a ZXO to be confirmed the following day. Now from the next day onwards this fellow started chasing me for the second booking and even reconfirmed on whatsapp messages that I don’t need to take insurance, accessories, coatings, etc from him however after discussing with the family we decided to hold on to the second booking of ZXO and wait for the Carnival instead. Only if we had known better about the bombshell on the pricing that Kia was going to throw at us a few months later
So now I had one Hycross booked and a month after booking gave the over enthusiastic fellow a casual call to check incase there has been any change in the booking status. The enthusiasm had now been replaced with arrogance and I was told its too soon to check on the delivery status however maybe he sensed some sense of urgency in my voice because the immediate next day enthusiasm was back again and I got a call saying congratulations your car is on the way, wow what a turn around this was within 24 hours. He asks me to transfer the money immediately because there are others in queue so he wants to ensure the car does not get allotted to any one else. Ideally I would not transfer any money without personally checking out the car but I ignore red flags again and for me its a Toyota and Lakozy, brands I have trusted for long so I agree and ask for the proforma to share with our banker for moving the loan formalities ahead. Here is now where the plot thickens because the proforma received includes everything, all the extras, the over priced insurance which itself was 2L more than actual market cost, paint protection film, teflon coating and 1L worth of other shiny disgusting accessories. I considered it a oversight and ask for all of it to be removed but to my surprise its arrogance day all over again with a straight up refusal to any of the extras being removed, denying that he had agreed to it all at the time of booking, a mention that people are paying premiums for Hycross and you dont even want to pay for accessories and without this the deal will not go through. Our friend had possibly forgotten about his earlier mood swing and that he was overenthusiastic a few weeks back when he had agreed to it all in writing on whatsapp. When I sent him screenshots he tried to pull out the confusion card by saying things like I had promised all this for the second vehicle that you did not book, etc, etc. Anyways I realized that this was a proper scam now that these guys were trying to pull off just because I called them and they sensed some urgency so they thought they had found their mark who can be milked for some extra money. The next 2 days went away in arguing and fighting eventually leading to them retreating to their original agreement of no compulsion of the extras but this allotment has now been passed to someone else so I am back on the wait list and will be informed again when the next lot arrives. By now I did not want the car at all and wanted to cancel the booking but I had no other choice. Had got to know that all dealers were resorting to the same strategy to milk people like me but I tried still and again went to another Toyota *cough paan shop cough* showroom and met another Mr. Arrogance personified who straight up told me dont even think of delivery less that 18 months or if you want take up a fully chromed out Hycross with PPF and Teflon, etc etc for almost immediate delivery. I thanked him for his time and left without even leaving behind my contact number with the receptionist for which she followed me till outside.
It was amusing the state of the Indian auto industry, just that morning had read up in the newspaper about how auto sales were really down and most manufacturers were sitting on huge stocks with people not buying new cars and here I am sitting ready to buy two new cars and have nothing to buy and the brand that my family has been loyal to over so many years is trying to scam me instead of rewarding me. No I did not expect any form of financial rewards, heck I did not even expect to be given some kind of priority which ideally would be a very good idea for Toyota to maintain brand loyalty because I am aware Toyota is one such manufacturer that has a lot many more loyalists like my family but I guess they just don’t care anymore and it reflects in their product line up for India as well. As a brand loyalist I only expected to be shown some basic respect and not tried to be scammed. I am not only buying their products but also have spent a lot of money in servicing using only their facilities over the years. If hotels, airlines, banks can reward brand loyalty why cant we expect the same from auto brands, even Airtel acknowledges my loyalty to them being a very old user and sticking with them then why cant I expect the same from Toyota.
Anyways coming to the somewhat happy ending, a few days later on my way from work saw an Invicto ahead of me and wondered why had I not considered one yet, its the same product and hopefully without the Toyota sales experience. So the next day decided to find out for myself and ended up at a Nexa dealership which I was actually expecting to be just a bigger paan shop but it wasnt, the sales staff were ummmm.. lets just say sales staff, not over excited but neither arrogant at all. To my disbelief they were offering almost ready delivery, no compulsion of any extras and while the cost of Invicto was lower than Hycross as it is to further sweeten the deal they threw in some discount and also included some basic accessories like floor mats so I booked an Invicto Alpha+ immediately. As compared to the Hycross ZX that I was buying I would miss out mainly on the ottoman seats and jbl sound system, things I can live without and the smaller sized 17inch wheels on the Invicto would possibly mean better ride quality anyways. The Invicto is now awaiting registration and I take delivery in the next few days.
Pics received post arriving at the yard;
As others might be going through issues with Hycross deliveries also, sharing my story here for anyone else in a similar situation can also consider an Invicto if you can live without the few misses and with the Suzuki brand. My total saving getting the Invicto Alpha+ over the Hycross ZX was approximately 4.5Lacs. I am still in the market for one more MUV, while the Carnival prices have pushed it out of my budget and I have sworn to friends and family of not buying another Toyota again I will try and hold on to the Crysta for as long as I can or till I can find some way to get a Hycross without getting myself involved with Toyota dealers.
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