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Sagar Karwa
November 24, 2009
First Servicing experience
Hi, <br />
<br />
I bought ritz on 9th Oct 2009, from Wonder Cars, Chinchwad. Delivery experience was good except some initial hiccups (which I don’t want to mention here as other big problem follow & need to be dealt seriously).<br />
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I received the call from Wonder Cars service center for the first servicing & I agreed to drop the car on Wednesday, 11th November. As decided the pickup boy came for taking the car for servicing. (Here I would like to mention one point which is slightly off track but still I can’t resist. The point is, I was not at all feeling comfortable regarding dropping the vehicle for servicing as it involved mechanical work in my absence.) Anyhow, I let the delivery boy to take vehicle. (Delivery boy was well mannered & polite all the way.) As per delivery boy, I was suppose to receive the call from service advisor (referred as SA hereafter) regarding the status of my car after he checks the vehicle; which I did not receive. Then as a matter of caution I called up the Wonder cars service station & enquired about the same & response given to me was, they will make sure that I will be receiving a call shortly from SA. Couple of minutes later, I received the call. As per the SA, car was in absolutely fine condition & will be ready for delivery by 12 noon. (This was the first suspicious instance because as per the wonder car telephone representative, car will be ready for delivery only by evening & SA was contradicting this.)<br />
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Thankfully I had not opted the home delivery of car post servicing & hence went to pick up the car personally at 7:00 pm. <br />
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Actual story begins now.<br />
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The SA brought the car in front of service station & judiciously offered me test drive before delivery. I sat in the car & asked whether he has taken test drive. As per him, he had done complete checks post servicing & was satisfied. Then I started the ignition & immediately noticed that the oil indicator is not turned off though the engine is on. I refused to take the car for test drive & asked the SA to take the car to bay. <br />
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By this time, another expert has joined him to the bay & started the inspection. I guess this was some Senior service advisor (referred as SSA hereafter). They both did the inspection & testing till 8:30 pm. In the mean time, they had called the Manager, Front Service desk & made him aware of the problem. At 8:30 / 8:45 pm, I was notified by Manager & SSA that, problem seems to be serious & needs further investigations which can only happen next day as the test center was closed by that time. I agreed to it as I was reassured by the Manager that he will personally look into the issue & update me the latest status as & when necessary. So they arranged for my drop back home. <br />
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I had decided by then that I need to be personally present following day to witness the progress. After all I had paid 4.75 Lacs from my pocket. :(<br />
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Next day, Thursday 12th ; I arrived at the service station around 10:00 am. Service station was waking up by then. At around 10:30, SSA accompanied me to the bay & while walking, he updated me that he was investigating the issue late till 11:00 pm the earlier night. (Though I don’t doubt the sincerity of SSA, I was wondering why he had to wait till 11 pm when we had decided that nothing can be done as the testing center is closed.)<br />
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We arrived at the bay & work began. I was offered a cup of tea & was asked to wait in the customer lounge. I accepted the tea cup & refused to go to customer lounge as I did not want to miss the action & wanted to be with my car. SSA did all the investigations & was accompanied by the Manager by 1:00 pm. Both came over to me & updated me with about status. As per them, they had done with inspection & replacement testing of minor switches which was not solving the issue & the oil indicator was still glowing post engine start. They had concluded that oil pump is not generating enough pressure & not pumping the oil. I was taken aback by this conclusion as that meant I was driving the car without engine oil for almost 1000 KM. What that meant was engine might seize any time & that can be a life threatening situation. So they both decided on changing the oil pump of the car which had not even crossed 1000 KM on odometer. Now the question was availability of oil pump in Pune region of Maharashtra. Considering the density of cars in Pune, to my surprise, there was no oil pump in region. Another point to be noted here is Ritz is not a latest launch by now. I guess it’s more than 6 months since Ritz launch. With no options, I was persuaded to leave the car @ bay area & wait until the availability of oil pump. Manager again assured me of looking into the matter personally & keep me posted with the latest updates.<br />
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Next day, Friday 13th out of concern & anxiety, my father got in touch with the sales Manager, Wonder Cars, with whom he shared good relation & asked him to enquire. Diligently, he got latest information to my father that we are yet to receive the oil pump & once received, we will get the highest precedence & will get our car delivered on priority.<br />
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Point to be noted here is, I did not receive any call back & I called the Manager front service desk on Saturday 14th at 1:30 pm& enquired. As per him they had received the oil pump but we were lacking the expertise to fit it. Also, he quoted that they are referring the service manual for each steps while replacing the oil pump. The reasons cited was, Ritz being the LATEST addition to maruti family & they are lacking with the know how’s. I did not understand this ridiculous excuse that Maruti did not provide the complete expertise & training to the staff before / after launching the car. I agreed to it for not having any other choices & kept the phone down. ïŒ<br />
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Sunday 15th ; & again I was expecting a call back & to my frustration, nobody bothered. I decided to give a surprise visit & check out the latest happenings personally. I arrived at service station at 1:15 pm & took a walk a round of complete service station area & found my car missing. By then, my heart had already started beating faster. I called up the Manager, front service desk, to know about the status & purposefully did not reveal to him that I was at service station. His reply was, he is on holiday & will get back to me with latest status ASAP. Till date, I have not received call back from him. Then I called the SA to know about the status & by god’s grace he responded. He informed me that, car was ready on Saturday evening itself & has been parked in parking yard. Only long test drive was remaining. And the so called Manager, front service desk, who was going to personally take a look at the situation, was completely unaware of car being ready on Saturday evening itself. (Saturday was working day for our manager & he was in the office.)<br />
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SA & I went together to bring the car back from parking yard. I was happy that the car is now OK & the oil indicator is no more glowing & had gone into mental safe zone. Incidentally, my brother in law was checking the car from all the sides & noticed the scratches on the doors . We brought that to the notice of SA & confirmed that those scratches were not there when the car was brought for servicing. He went in & got the second highest authority present as; Manager, front service desk, was on leave. He checked the scratches & took the car to bay area & asked the waxing guy to put some wax on scratches & polish it. He did it for our satisfaction & got rid of scratches partially. But to my bad, scratches can be still seen…<br />
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After that, we were taken to the billing desk. They handed over the bill to us & asked us to pay Rs 300. When asked about the details we were told that, those are towards engine oil top up. But as I knew, no oil top up is needed at first servicing for K12 engines, I asked for further details. I was told that, some oil was spill during testing at bay area & we need to bear the cost. We argued that, in case of oil pump not being faulty whether we would have asked to pay anything like that & answer came as No. Upon our argument, seniors at service station agreed to check if this amount can be waived off & let us get out of there.<br />
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Till date, I have not received any call back either from either Wonder Cars or Maruti office.<br />
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To conclude, I want to list down some key points:<br />
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1. Why all Ritz spare parts are not available with service stations?<br />
2. Why Maruti is not taking care of imparting appropriate knowledge to service station guys before / after launching the car?<br />
3. As the car has run without oil for almost 1000 KM, who takes the responsibility of the car for next 5 years?<br />
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Thanks, <br />
Sagar
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