Though it wasn't 100% satisfactory 6 months earlier, my wife decided to get our Wagon-R's regular service done again at Pratham Motors, in ORR Bangalore because it is kinda close to her workplace. She had been mildly complaining about the wheel alignment before, saying a little bit of different strength is needed to steer the vehicle to left or right. I mean, turning left would be easier than right. Those guys told they'll check it. In the evening when she went to collect the vehicle, she took a test drive and found the problem is aggravated heavily. She went back, and they "tried" fixing it, making it worse. Then they claimed the entire power steering assembly has gone bad, and it is beyond repair. She has to replace the steering assembly now, which will cost us thirty five thousand rupees! At this point she called me and narrated their story. I asked her to instruct them not to fiddle with the car anymore, and bring it home immediately. They have clearly demonstrated that they don't have any expertise to fix the problem. And I also advised her to hurl some of his choicest rude words to the service engineer Mr Rajkumar.
She signed the dotted lines that she received the car in satisfactory condition and drove home. Later in the night I came home and took for a test drive. It was impossible to drive the car. The steering wheel will literally spin to left if you hold it loose. I had to hold the steering tight to keep the car steady. And turning right would require you a couple of month's gym strength. We were very depressed and mentally prepared ourselves for a 35K expenditure.
Next saturday early morning I took the vehicle to Sagar Automobiles in Bannerghatta Rd where I used to get my services done before, and they said they'll have a look. Around lunchtime I got a call from the service engineer Nagesh Kumar who said the vehicle is ready. When I took the delivery, he said they had to adjust the power difference of the steering assembly, and claimed it is an unusual problem (yeah I know, unless some clueless guy tries some experiments), and as a return customer, they did the adjustment completely free of cost, only I need to pay four rupees for a nut-bolt replacement they had to do.
Since then, my car is running trouble free
I sadly noticed the difference between Pratham and Sagar. The first being incompetent, clueless, damaged my otherwise fine car and tried to extort money from me; whereas the latter was prompt, accurate, and shown a great gesture.
I have written feedback to Pratham, no followup. I have written to Maruti Udyog, no reply. I don't expect any, though. So thought of sharing my bad and good experiences with two service stations in the forum.
Kousik