I went to Prerana motors today at around 12.30. Mr. Praveen had arranged for a Punto itself to take my friend and myself to the stockyard to have a look at the 3 Red Punto Sport(s) and decide one for myself. As soon as I entered the office, Mr. Praveen guided me to a sales advisor who was assigned to take me to the yard, and we were off in 15 minutes. No unncesessary waiting, no questions asked.
If anyone needs to see how a perfect set of dealership staff needs to function, please visit Prerana motors. I am yet to see this level of punctuality and perfection from any other brand in my experience. I had a list of demands from my end, to which they were so open about. Praveen had mailed me all the VIN numbers of the Punto Sports a few days back. I had told him that I wanted to choose one among the 3 after doing my own PDI. It is extremely kind of them to take me to their yard and allow me to waste 1 full day of their staff in attending to my queries and requests at the yard. My friend and I ended up doing 3 PDIs for the 3 puntos and Suhas the sales advisor was quite helpful during the PDIs. I have finally shortlisted one for myself and have made the token advance payment towards them, to block this car for delivery sometime next month.
A big, big thank you to Praveen, Suhas, Karthik and all other Prerana motors' staff who were involved in making this booking happen at Prerana motors, again (for me)! It is guys like you whom Fiat needs if they are to improve their standing in the sales charts. Special mention to Mr. Praveen here, who has been tracking my visits, arranging my test drives and PDI, and providing me whatever information I asked him for.
Now let us get down to the PDI itself. I'm sure a PDI cannot be a PDI without some pictures. Here they are:
2 of the Puntos were brought out into the open (pics below) initially. I was a bit spoilt for choice, because I have never before done multiple PDIs for choosing 1 vehicle. This however made things a lot easier when I had to check how a particular panel gap was in another piece, or whether the door shutting sound was similar or not, to name a few examples.
My friend (who incidentally owns a Red Palio 1.6) would obviously have hawk eyes to spot things on the red shade which was so familiar to him now. Coupled with my black car ownership experience, we scanned every molecule of the 2 cars to find surface irregularities, panel gaps, paint blemishes, scratches or dents.
I found 2 very small issues which any prospective buyer could have got fixed. Car 1 (to the right side on these pics) had a bunch of minor scratches above the left rear door on the roof (just 3-4 in number). These were so minor that they will disappear with rubbing solution for sure, I couldn't even capture them on camera! I was a bit over-pessimistic and went to car no.2. Car no.2 passed everything, but the sport sticker on the back was peeling off in a corner. The SA assured me that they would buy it as a spare part and replace the decal for me, but when I had the third and lonely Punto waiting for me 15 metres away, I chose the easier option instead.
The pictures below are of Cars no.1 and 2. I didn't choose either of these. Hope they find good owners soon!
Can you observe closely? The "Sport" decal is actually pasted crooked on Car no.2 (compare to crease on bootlid to check crookedness)!! Fiat, please learn some QC checks before you allow such visible blemishes to go out of the factory!!
The pics below are of my own Punto Sport (car no.3), which I have shortlisted for myself. After finding no visible faults on the body lines, we moved in to check the interiors, the electricals, features, and every possible switch or moving part for working condition. This car passed everything and obviously, I didn't feel the need to go back to Car no.s 1 or 2. I have finally chosen Car no.3 from the lot. After returning to the showroom, I made a token advance payment of 10k to block this Punto for myself. Once I arrange the vitamin M, delivery should happen by the first half of next month, hopefully.
I didn't quite like the hanging exhaust. Aftermarket jobs look better than this, but anyway, I don't have a choice; never mind.
Front views: If Ferrari ever designed a hatchback, this is what it would look like!
The Jet eagerly awaits the entry of this red rocket hatch at home!
Only 15 km done, and the H mark is still present. All safe!
One glaring error by Fiat needs to be pointed out and blasted left, right and centre! I opened the spare wheel cover to find what was the spare wheel size. It wasn't an alloy (shock no.1) and shocker of shockers, the spare tyre size was not the 195/60 R15 which the Sport is shod with. It was a 165/80R14 (shock no.2)
. Check out the picture attached below.
I initially thought it was just my car which had this wrong spare tyre size. After checking with the other 2 Punto Sport(s) there, I found they also had this smaller 165/80R14 spare tyre. Now comes shock no.3. I check out a 75HP Punto Emotion which was standing nearby, and that has 195/60R15s for the spare tyre! I can't for the life of me, fathom how a customer paying 8.6L gets a 165/80R14 spare tyre while a customer paying 8.1L for the 75HP Emotion gets 195/60R15 on all 5 tyres! I will be changing all 5 tyres to Michelin Primacy LC 195/60R15s on delivery day, so it may not matter much to me anyway, but that's a different issue.
Fiat better have an answer for this glitch, and I would like to escalate such idiotic moves to the higher management (just composing the mail now). What kind of dumb nitwits form such policies? Kick them out right now! If you cannot give me a full sized spare wheel, don't give it to the guy who bought a cheaper variant than me. As simple as that.
Anyway, aside from this small glitch that I observed in Punto Sport(s), the PDI went off really well and the whole experience was pleasant. We had to brave a lot of traffic jams while making our way back to the showroom. I have officially booked my Punto Sport now. All I can say is that the T-Jet got a well deserved garage mate. More updates to flow when I do the second PDI prior to delivery day.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shashank.nk Did you by any chance ask them whats the earliest they could've got the ZDi ? I ask, since you were first in the priority list. Good news on the Punto front, Punto in red looks superb!
If the stickers are that bad, you'd do better to get rid of them yourself than to allow a someone to do an incomplete job |
I gave them a last shot to let me have the Swift ZDi in blue. They continued to give me the same vague "I don't know for sure" kind of answers. I asked for an approximate delivery date and they said "probably" in December or January at best. That just about did it for me. I have given them 7 months already, and don't want to keep playing their dirty politics and hide and seek games any longer.
The stickers are a sore sight on the sides man. I somewhat like the rear decal though. Let me see how many days I can survive without vandalism. I might order black Abarth stickers and replace these side strips with Abarth side decals which are lower on the doors, right above the running board. A DIY-Black roof is also on the anvil to give it the look of a Panorama sunroof *lol*. All these are Castles in the air until next month's delivery day. Counting down the days now eagerly!