Second thoughts on the Spark. - Page 3 - Team-BHP

Jorge · 23rd October 2007, 16:05

Thanks Speed Devil. I intend to be firm from now on, though it is not in my nature to do that

Told the sales person at Sundaram a few days ago that I wanted to see the car in the yard. He told me that all the cars were in the GM yard in Peenya and that nobody would be allowed to visit that yard. And that Sundaram had a yard in Rajajinagar. He said that he would move the car from the Peenya yard to the Rajajinagar yard on monday and that I could see the car on Tuesday at the Rajajinagar.

Today is tuesday. Duly went to the showroom. Long queue to enter the parking lot as lots of people are already trying to get in. Went inside. Salesman shows up 10-15 mins later. "Ready to make a payment sir?"
"No, I want to see the car first, and if everything is fine, then I make the payment". He says "You can go to the yard and see the car sir". I say "I won't be able to find the yard in Rajajinagar as I am a Koramangala person". Please send somebody.

Wait for 15 mins. Salesman comes and tell me "Sir your car is here sir".
"What???" says I. "You said that the car is in Rajajinagar".
"We only have a service station at Rajajinagar sir. Our yard is in Peenya along with the GM yard. We moved some of the cars here at Kasturba road and some cars to Rajajinagar. Your car is here sir.
"I want to see the car in the yard." says I.
"Nobody is allowed into our yard sir. Not even the sales executive."

Hoooo kay . . . . "Let us see the car." said I.

The car's front light cover has a crack in it. Also there is some kind of blemish on it.
I wanted to see the the engine number, chassis number etc. that people told me about in this thread. Checked the engine number:
VIN: MA6MF481P7HG05665
Engine number: B10S183936KA2
Month of Manufacture: G7

"What does G7 stand for?"
"G stands for July and 7 stands for 2007."
Checked the tyres. MRF tubeless. Could not identify the week and year of manufacture on the tyres.
"Let me see another car here."
Shows me an LS model.
I say "This car says month of manufacture is K7??"

"I do not want this car because it is old"
"Ok sir, no issues. But it will take 2-3 weeks to deliver the car since you will have to reallocated a new car"
"Fine"

I wait in the showroom. One of my former colleagues is also here to purchase a car. She is upset about the mud on the wheel arch. Apparently all the cars that are ready for delivery have mud on the wheel arch, above the tyres. It is raining and car is put out in the rain. Don't know how many days it has been out there. She took a few days to get her financing done.
Salesperson asks me to sign a letter stating that I saw the car with chassis number 5665 and that I wanted a new car allocated because I wanted fresh stock just before I leave.

I leave.

Jorge · 23rd October 2007, 16:48

BTW K7 should stand for manufactured in November . . . But it is not november yet . . . not sure what is going on . . .

gemithomas · 23rd October 2007, 18:08

Jorge. No offenses but i seriously belive you are gonna have some terrible time when you see how they drive around our cars at the service centre at the time of service.

Personally i feel its ok to go with a car if you are convinced that they have some cars in the yard. THey cant probbably be drivin around all cars. In case youa re going in for a car which the dealer keeps only 1 or 2 cars in stock, i guess you could be scared of having a TD car.

Not wanting a July car is perfectly normal. Just mentioned this so that you dont get a heart attack when you go for the service.

ethanh_hunt · 23rd October 2007, 18:13

Hey Jorge mate, sorry to hear about this awful experience of yours. Hmm I dunno about Sundaram but I got my Red Sparku from Garuda in August and I got a July Model (mentioned on the RC book). Since Spark is not selling so well they are left with a lot of stock and I wont be surprised if they are trying to clear them. You did the right thing by standing firm. Its your first car mate!!
You are right about the part that the cars are kept in the open exposed to the weather in Peenya which is GM's South India stockyard. So some damage could be possible.

BTW where did you see that G7 thing? on the Bonnet?

Jorge · 23rd October 2007, 19:38

ethanh_hunt: The manufacturing date is on a plate, near the battery under the bonnet.
gemithomas: Thanks for the heads up.

Nimz · 23rd October 2007, 19:38

Well I got one in June 2007 so there cant be anything old enough.. . again not many people to buy the Spark..checked my car when it was brought to the showroom.. mud on the arches.. yes.. but no cracks and stuff.. sales guy assured me it will look totally different and he gave his word that he will not give it for TD.(its good to maintain a good relationship with the Sales guys) Next day evning went and took it.. looked brand new!! and me happy! Worth the 50K premium I paid.what say folks!

Jorge · 24th October 2007, 12:45

I wouldn't say that is worth the 50K premium. But it depends on one's financial position of course!!

ethanh_hunt · 24th October 2007, 17:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nimz

Worth the 50K premium I paid.what say folks!

Will they give us some petrol coupons or something for being the unlucky ones

abhilashvk · 24th October 2007, 18:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by ethanh hunt

Hmm I dunno about Sundaram but I got my Red Sparku from Garuda in August and I got a July Model (mentioned on the RC book).

Just out of curiosity does your RC book state the month of purchase? My Car as well as bike RC shows only the year.(Both registered with Indiranagar RTO)

ethanh_hunt · 24th October 2007, 18:31

Yeah it does. There is an entry which states "Month & Year of Manufacture". I got it registered from the Jayanagar RTO

Jorge · 24th October 2007, 18:59

That may have something to do with the manufacturer. Digging through the various threads have given me a lot of insight!! If I am not mistaken, Santrowallahs do not get their month of manufacture very easily. Only the year of manufacture is put along with the engine number. Maybe that is to help drive up the resale price of the car, if the distance driven is low.

kavu75 · 30th October 2007, 15:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jorge

BTW K7 should stand for manufactured in November . . . But it is not november yet . . . not sure what is going on . . .

Even i was waiting for my Aveo 1.4 base model from last 2 weeks and October 26th it has reached at GM yard.
Yesterday i got a chance to see the vehicle at Sundaram Service center rajajinagar. Tomorrow or Friday they are going to take it for registration. Like you said Month of manufacture says "K7". Did you get any updates on this?

Jorge · 30th October 2007, 16:19

No, I do not have any further updates on this. Another way of determining the age of the vehicle is to check the tyres. The week and month of manufacture of the tyre is the last 4 digits marked in a rectangular stamp. For tyres manufactured by some companies, especially those meant for export, the rectangular stamp will be after the letters DOT. I am not sure whose tyres the Aveo will be wearing.

Based on what I saw, K7 is a recent model. After my little circus at Sundaram, they probably will be more circumspect in showing customers cars that were manufactured some months back. Maybe we should declare our Team BHP connection at the outset, to avoid circuses. Anyway, an Aveo customer will be more valuable than a Spark customer. Whatever the reason, K7 sounds good to me and good for you.

BTW, why is it that they cannot register it tomorrow, if the car is already available? And when are you allowed to take it home? What about the predelivery inspection that they need to do? Is it already done? As this is my first experience buying a car, I would appreciate it if you posted the details for my reference. thanks.

kavu75 · 30th October 2007, 17:25

My Aveo is having Bridgestone tyres. Normally for Azeo GM is providing Bridgestone or Goodyear. I didn't verify manufacture date on tyres. I will do it tomorrow.
And regarding registration, my payment is not yet ready from the leasing company since i have opted for company lease plan. I hope that will be ready by tomorrow and by the time they will do the pre-delivery inspection.
We have a very good thread for pre-delivery checklist. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/buying-car/20741-article-pre-delivery-inspection-check-list.html

Once i get the payment confirmation i will update you on this.

Jorge · 25th December 2007, 23:21

I finally took delivery of the spark a couple of days ago. I was actually hoping to get a 2008 model, and am a little disappointed that they offered me the 2007 model. I went ahead with it just in case they refused to give me a 2008 model with the same discount. In hindsight, I probably should have tried bargaining for a 2008 model. Oh, well!

The sales guy was in a hurry, and pushed me into signing all the papers. Once I had inspected the car and saw that the car was a recent (Nov/Dec) model , I was ready to sign the papers. But I forgot to ask for a copy of all the docs that I signed. The sales guy was in a hurry, and I meekly signed all papers. I did not get a good demonstration or a detailed explanation of all the tools available. And many of the stuff in the feedback form was not done by him. All of these were minor stuff. In hindsight, I should have asked him to give me more time and told him to explain everything step by step, even they were minor. At that time, I was feeling sorry for him, because he seemed to be under so much pressure.
I am not thrilled with Sundaram Motors, but they are ok I guess. They do everything by the book and very bureaucratic. The only thing they do not do by the book is when they get feedback from the customer.
Driving around the sparky is nice. Handling is nothing like the old Zen. But I find that I am having a couple of issues. One is ergonomics. I feel that I have to keep my hands straight to reach the steering. I knew that I would have to get some special upholstery work done to increase the size of the seat for better under thigh support. But it looks like I will have to figure out some way to raise the seat so that my arms slope downward. If I slide my seat too much forward so that my arm is bent, my knee hits the car. I will need to put some more thought into this.
Unlike the Zen, figuring out the edges and kerb distances are problematic. I guess that over time, I will be able to judge the kerb distances better, but right now, I park considerably away from the kerb. As I had opted for the PS model, the left side rear view mirror is not available to help me make my judgement.
Another problem, the most serious one, is that I cannot hear the engine when it is idling. This is a feature and not a bug. But it is a problem for me. Either the engine dies on me sometimes when I take turns, or I assume it does and try to restart an idling car.
Trying to restart an engine which is already running, is supposedly extremely bad for the bendix or something like that. I am not sure how many times, the engine actually died and how many times, I tried starting a running engine. But total number of times so far is something like 25. I am now worrying whether I have damaged the bendix (or whatever). Can anybody give me more information about the bendix? I would like to know the worst case scenario in the damage I have caused so far. How difficult is it to replace the bendix. Does the car have to be taken apart? I guess that this question is for the technical stuff section. If I do not get a reply here, I will post it there.
And thanks to everyone for their support. Next on my list is the Infrakool solutions. If money is no object, but legality is what are my best options for sun films? v-kool 70 for the front and back windshield obviously. But for the side windows, I am not sure whether to go for vkool 40, which is 46% visible light transmission (and 98% IR rejection) and as such is not legal or for Llumar which has 50% visible light transmission ( and 60-70% rejection). I think that I will go for Llumar, despite the tempting vkool 40 . . . Probably in january once I get my december paycheck :-)

23rd October 2007, 16:05	#31 (permalink)
Jorge BHPian Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Bangalore Posts: 72	story so far Thanks Speed Devil. I intend to be firm from now on, though it is not in my nature to do that Told the sales person at Sundaram a few days ago that I wanted to see the car in the yard. He told me that all the cars were in the GM yard in Peenya and that nobody would be allowed to visit that yard. And that Sundaram had a yard in Rajajinagar. He said that he would move the car from the Peenya yard to the Rajajinagar yard on monday and that I could see the car on Tuesday at the Rajajinagar. Today is tuesday. Duly went to the showroom. Long queue to enter the parking lot as lots of people are already trying to get in. Went inside. Salesman shows up 10-15 mins later. "Ready to make a payment sir?" "No, I want to see the car first, and if everything is fine, then I make the payment". He says "You can go to the yard and see the car sir". I say "I won't be able to find the yard in Rajajinagar as I am a Koramangala person". Please send somebody. Wait for 15 mins. Salesman comes and tell me "Sir your car is here sir". "What???" says I. "You said that the car is in Rajajinagar". "We only have a service station at Rajajinagar sir. Our yard is in Peenya along with the GM yard. We moved some of the cars here at Kasturba road and some cars to Rajajinagar. Your car is here sir. "I want to see the car in the yard." says I. "Nobody is allowed into our yard sir. Not even the sales executive." Hoooo kay . . . . "Let us see the car." said I. The car's front light cover has a crack in it. Also there is some kind of blemish on it. I wanted to see the the engine number, chassis number etc. that people told me about in this thread. Checked the engine number: VIN: MA6MF481P7HG05665 Engine number: B10S183936KA2 Month of Manufacture: G7 "What does G7 stand for?" "G stands for July and 7 stands for 2007." Checked the tyres. MRF tubeless. Could not identify the week and year of manufacture on the tyres. "Let me see another car here." Shows me an LS model. I say "This car says month of manufacture is K7??" "I do not want this car because it is old" "Ok sir, no issues. But it will take 2-3 weeks to deliver the car since you will have to reallocated a new car" "Fine" I wait in the showroom. One of my former colleagues is also here to purchase a car. She is upset about the mud on the wheel arch. Apparently all the cars that are ready for delivery have mud on the wheel arch, above the tyres. It is raining and car is put out in the rain. Don't know how many days it has been out there. She took a few days to get her financing done. Salesperson asks me to sign a letter stating that I saw the car with chassis number 5665 and that I wanted a new car allocated because I wanted fresh stock just before I leave. I leave.

23rd October 2007, 18:08	#33 (permalink)
gemithomas Senior - BHPian Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Trivandrum Posts: 1,201 View My Garage	Jorge. No offenses but i seriously belive you are gonna have some terrible time when you see how they drive around our cars at the service centre at the time of service. Personally i feel its ok to go with a car if you are convinced that they have some cars in the yard. THey cant probbably be drivin around all cars. In case youa re going in for a car which the dealer keeps only 1 or 2 cars in stock, i guess you could be scared of having a TD car. Not wanting a July car is perfectly normal. Just mentioned this so that you dont get a heart attack when you go for the service. __________________ "Our world is in its current state because of the choices WE made ...or failed to make"

23rd October 2007, 18:13	#34 (permalink)
ethanh_hunt BHPian Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Back in Bangalore Posts: 62	Hey Jorge mate, sorry to hear about this awful experience of yours. Hmm I dunno about Sundaram but I got my Red Sparku from Garuda in August and I got a July Model (mentioned on the RC book). Since Spark is not selling so well they are left with a lot of stock and I wont be surprised if they are trying to clear them. You did the right thing by standing firm. Its your first car mate!! You are right about the part that the cars are kept in the open exposed to the weather in Peenya which is GM's South India stockyard. So some damage could be possible. BTW where did you see that G7 thing? on the Bonnet? __________________ Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.....

24th October 2007, 18:31	#40 (permalink)
ethanh_hunt BHPian Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Back in Bangalore Posts: 62	Yeah it does. There is an entry which states "Month & Year of Manufacture". I got it registered from the Jayanagar RTO __________________ Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.....

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23rd October 2007, 16:48	#32 (permalink)
Jorge BHPian Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Bangalore Posts: 72	BTW K7 should stand for manufactured in November . . . But it is not november yet . . . not sure what is going on . . .

23rd October 2007, 19:38	#35 (permalink)
Jorge BHPian Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Bangalore Posts: 72	ethanh_hunt: The manufacturing date is on a plate, near the battery under the bonnet. gemithomas: Thanks for the heads up.

23rd October 2007, 19:38	#36 (permalink)
Nimz BHPian Join Date: May 2007 Location: Bangalore Posts: 367 View My Garage	Well I got one in June 2007 so there cant be anything old enough.. . again not many people to buy the Spark..checked my car when it was brought to the showroom.. mud on the arches.. yes.. but no cracks and stuff.. sales guy assured me it will look totally different and he gave his word that he will not give it for TD.(its good to maintain a good relationship with the Sales guys) Next day evning went and took it.. looked brand new!! and me happy! Worth the 50K premium I paid.what say folks!

24th October 2007, 12:45	#37 (permalink)
Jorge BHPian Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Bangalore Posts: 72	I wouldn't say that is worth the 50K premium. But it depends on one's financial position of course!!

24th October 2007, 18:59	#41 (permalink)
Jorge BHPian Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Bangalore Posts: 72	That may have something to do with the manufacturer. Digging through the various threads have given me a lot of insight!! If I am not mistaken, Santrowallahs do not get their month of manufacture very easily. Only the year of manufacture is put along with the engine number. Maybe that is to help drive up the resale price of the car, if the distance driven is low.

30th October 2007, 16:19	#43 (permalink)
Jorge BHPian Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Bangalore Posts: 72	No, I do not have any further updates on this. Another way of determining the age of the vehicle is to check the tyres. The week and month of manufacture of the tyre is the last 4 digits marked in a rectangular stamp. For tyres manufactured by some companies, especially those meant for export, the rectangular stamp will be after the letters DOT. I am not sure whose tyres the Aveo will be wearing. Based on what I saw, K7 is a recent model. After my little circus at Sundaram, they probably will be more circumspect in showing customers cars that were manufactured some months back. Maybe we should declare our Team BHP connection at the outset, to avoid circuses. Anyway, an Aveo customer will be more valuable than a Spark customer. Whatever the reason, K7 sounds good to me and good for you. BTW, why is it that they cannot register it tomorrow, if the car is already available? And when are you allowed to take it home? What about the predelivery inspection that they need to do? Is it already done? As this is my first experience buying a car, I would appreciate it if you posted the details for my reference. thanks.

30th October 2007, 17:25	#44 (permalink)
kavu75 BHPian Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Banglore Posts: 131	My Aveo is having Bridgestone tyres. Normally for Azeo GM is providing Bridgestone or Goodyear. I didn't verify manufacture date on tyres. I will do it tomorrow. And regarding registration, my payment is not yet ready from the leasing company since i have opted for company lease plan. I hope that will be ready by tomorrow and by the time they will do the pre-delivery inspection. We have a very good thread for pre-delivery checklist. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/buying-car/20741-article-pre-delivery-inspection-check-list.html Once i get the payment confirmation i will update you on this.

25th December 2007, 23:21	#45 (permalink)
Jorge BHPian Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Bangalore Posts: 72	I finally took delivery of the spark a couple of days ago. I was actually hoping to get a 2008 model, and am a little disappointed that they offered me the 2007 model. I went ahead with it just in case they refused to give me a 2008 model with the same discount. In hindsight, I probably should have tried bargaining for a 2008 model. Oh, well! The sales guy was in a hurry, and pushed me into signing all the papers. Once I had inspected the car and saw that the car was a recent (Nov/Dec) model , I was ready to sign the papers. But I forgot to ask for a copy of all the docs that I signed. The sales guy was in a hurry, and I meekly signed all papers. I did not get a good demonstration or a detailed explanation of all the tools available. And many of the stuff in the feedback form was not done by him. All of these were minor stuff. In hindsight, I should have asked him to give me more time and told him to explain everything step by step, even they were minor. At that time, I was feeling sorry for him, because he seemed to be under so much pressure. I am not thrilled with Sundaram Motors, but they are ok I guess. They do everything by the book and very bureaucratic. The only thing they do not do by the book is when they get feedback from the customer. Driving around the sparky is nice. Handling is nothing like the old Zen. But I find that I am having a couple of issues. One is ergonomics. I feel that I have to keep my hands straight to reach the steering. I knew that I would have to get some special upholstery work done to increase the size of the seat for better under thigh support. But it looks like I will have to figure out some way to raise the seat so that my arms slope downward. If I slide my seat too much forward so that my arm is bent, my knee hits the car. I will need to put some more thought into this. Unlike the Zen, figuring out the edges and kerb distances are problematic. I guess that over time, I will be able to judge the kerb distances better, but right now, I park considerably away from the kerb. As I had opted for the PS model, the left side rear view mirror is not available to help me make my judgement. Another problem, the most serious one, is that I cannot hear the engine when it is idling. This is a feature and not a bug. But it is a problem for me. Either the engine dies on me sometimes when I take turns, or I assume it does and try to restart an idling car. Trying to restart an engine which is already running, is supposedly extremely bad for the bendix or something like that. I am not sure how many times, the engine actually died and how many times, I tried starting a running engine. But total number of times so far is something like 25. I am now worrying whether I have damaged the bendix (or whatever). Can anybody give me more information about the bendix? I would like to know the worst case scenario in the damage I have caused so far. How difficult is it to replace the bendix. Does the car have to be taken apart? I guess that this question is for the technical stuff section. If I do not get a reply here, I will post it there. And thanks to everyone for their support. Next on my list is the Infrakool solutions. If money is no object, but legality is what are my best options for sun films? v-kool 70 for the front and back windshield obviously. But for the side windows, I am not sure whether to go for vkool 40, which is 46% visible light transmission (and 98% IR rejection) and as such is not legal or for Llumar which has 50% visible light transmission ( and 60-70% rejection). I think that I will go for Llumar, despite the tempting vkool 40 . . . Probably in january once I get my december paycheck :-)