My email to Maruti Udyog Ltd on my car buying experience with their Chennai Dealer

[mail4ajo]

Here is the email, I have written to MUL on my car buying experience with their Chennai dealer, Popular Vehicles.

Please read and be prepared when you buy a car next time...

I have marked a copy to all big bosses at Maruti chennai and also to webmaster of Team-Bhp.com:

From: ajojoseph2@rediffmail.com
To: <chandrashekar@popularv.com>,vkrishna.kumar@maruti .co.in,pankaj.prabhakar@maruti.co.in,gb.chadha@mar uti.co.in,webmaster@team-bhp.com
Subject: My purchase experience with your dealership

Dear Mr Chandrashekar,

This was with reference to your mail dated 20/6/2006 regarding my purchase feedback. I thank you for writing to me on this.

I am happy about my purchase of a Maruti product due to the high quality of the product and goodwill of the manufacturer. The purchase process was not an experience I anticipated. I have used three M800 earlier, but was purchased through the second hand route.
To my horror and utmost displeasure, I understood the onroad price of the vechicle was not transparent. I was not provided the proper breakup of the Rs. 3,25,780 the dealer quoted.

From the Maruti website, I understood the ex-showroom price is Rs.2,89,199. I was told that registration cost was 6% of the ex-showroom value. Insurance value was also notified to me. I was misled that accessories, sun film, 3rd year extended warranty were all offered free to me.

After some indepth research, I understood, that I will not receive a free lunch. All the freebies were fixed as a part of the onroad cost.

No proper explaination was provided to me on the remaining part of the price. I was even told that bribe to the RTO was also included in the price. How atrocious and unproffessional?

I also came to understand that your salespeople were not trained fully on the warranty terms. I got conflicting versions from different sales people. Maruti should ensure that dealer salesforce is trained regularly on the value added benefits.

Later I understood that this is the case with all dealers in Chennai. Buyers are treated like motorcycle buyers and taken for a ride. Buyers are misled to think that the dealers are offering good deals and freebies. This attutude must cease to exist if Maruti wants to
retain its traditional goodwill.

I am not sure whether Maruti is truely worried about these issues or just worried about sales of their products. Incase, they are, they must regulate their dealers by asking them to be transparent in pricing.

My purchase might just be a small contribution to Maruti. If these issues are resolved, it shall make a big difference to customer attitude to your company and dealers.

Happy selling.........

Thanks,
Yours faithfully,
Ajo Joseph

[delu]

ajo, when did you send this email recently or sometimes back? Did maruti get back to you by now? let us know your experience.

[microhit]

i am more interesed in knowing if you ever got a reply back from them -or they simply moved your mail to JUNK/Delete folder.

[~~VinZ~~]

please let us know wheathe you got a reply

[mail4ajo]

I wrote to them only yesterday. Will wait for a few days for a reply. Need to expose this non transparent dealings. Atleast someone who buys a car should be prepared to face the dealers.

[delu]

In one of the thread at t-bhp (I forgot which one exactly) I saw that someone informed the Maruti regional office and received prompt action from them. Even the dealer representative appologized and all his problems were well taken care of. So why not sending a mail or a fax of your email to them, with names of all the representatives involved with you in the deal.

[humyum]

Dude call maruti toll free number 1800 1800 180 and register your complaint with the customer service representative and u will be amazed by the result.Thats what i did and results were fantastic.

[Surprise]

Why did you choose Popular Vehicles, when you have ABT Maruti, Cars India, Khivraj Motors & the newly launched Kapico.

[mail4ajo]

Originally Posted by Surprise

Why did you choose Popular Vehicles, when you have ABT Maruti, Cars India, Khivraj Motors & the newly launched Kapico.

Popular was nearest to me. No use, this is the case everywhere. Every dealer has the same designer price. Some may give good car servicing, but all of them just fleece you.

I later learnt that their premium was just 8K for Alto. This justifies their undercover act to get max returns to cover their overheads. A buyer cant be a slaughter goat for that

[mail4ajo]

Originally Posted by humyum

Dude call maruti toll free number 1800 1800 180 and register your complaint with the customer service representative and u will be amazed by the result.Thats what i did and results were fantastic.

This will be my next step if I dont receive a reply. I have copied the mail to all the big guys at maruti regional office at chennai.

Humyum, wat was the exact nature of your problem?

[mahadev_kc]

Originally Posted by mail4ajo

To my horror and utmost displeasure, I understood the onroad price of the vechicle was not transparent. I was not provided the proper breakup of the Rs. 3,25,780 the dealer quoted.

From the Maruti website, I understood the ex-showroom price is Rs.2,89,199. I was told that registration cost was 6% of the ex-showroom value. Insurance value was also notified to me. I was misled that accessories, sun film, 3rd year extended warranty were all offered free to me.

After some indepth research, I understood, that I will not receive a free lunch. All the freebies were fixed as a part of the onroad cost.

No proper explaination was provided to me on the remaining part of the price. I was even told that bribe to the RTO was also included in the price. How atrocious and unproffessional?

This is the case every where. All dealers will include something like Service Charges or Fright Charges etc... This happened to me too when I'm buying Palio from Concorde Motors Bangalore. I opted for temporary registration and for this the dealer charged only Rs 800 (though the temporary registration charge at RTO is only Rs 65). If I havenot opted for temporary registration instead of permanent registration, the dealer would have charged me Rs 3000. You know what, I got the permanent registration done after paying Rs 450 (300 RTO fees + 150 bribe for the inspector), so coolely saved around 2000Rs, still I feel they cheated me Rs 735.

I guess the communication charges, road test charges etc.. they will be getting from the customer (just they call as Service charges).

[satish_appasani]

I believe it's the same experiance with all the dealers irrespective of the brands. They expect someone spending more than 2 lakhs for a car wouldn't mind paying a couple of thousands or atleast hundreds more. It's the same with 2 wheeler dealers too.

Last month i purchased Accent Viva CRDI from a dealer in Hyd. I did not go for registration with them because I have to register it in another town. They asked me to pay Rs.550 for temporary registration and i paid. When I got the T/R receipt, it showed only Rs.15. When I enquired about that, they gave me atleast 10-15 answers ranging from friendly to very arrogant answers. Actually I was not arguing with them for money. I just asked them to give me a valid answer why they charged me. I don't want to feel cheated by them.
Here are their respnonses.
1. It's dealer's policy. Nobody questions.
2. We have to pay bribes to RTA people. If that is right, they should be stupids for paying a bribe or 500 for something that is Rs. 15.
3. We do not have to answer every question from the customer. yeah, i understand. I already took the delivery.
4. Funniest of all. We are giving free T/R number boards which are stickers with the dealer name sticked on the original number board.
5. How do you expect us to meet our expences without charging customers extra money. My answer was equally arrogant. If you are not getting money without cheating the customers, shut down the shop and go beg on the roads.

Even the salesman who interacted with me was threatened by his manager for selling car to me.

Finally the salesman said he will pay me back from his own pocket as the dealership wouldn't come down. I told that I am not like them robbing my bread from others and walked out for the last time.

I remember something funny, when i was booking my car the sales person ordered the boy "Sir ko cooldrink lavo....jaldi..." (Sorry my Hindi is not good) but that cooldrink never turned up and i have to request atleast 5 times for some cool water.

[theMAG]

Ajo,

I empathize with you on your experience. Keep us posted on the sequence of events that pan out.
Btw, where can I get top MUL emails from? I needed to publicize to them one of my own experiences when buying my Swift

[humyum]

Originally Posted by mail4ajo

This will be my next step if I dont receive a reply. I have copied the mail to all the big guys at maruti regional office at chennai.

Humyum, wat was the exact nature of your problem?

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techni...ght-thing.html (Did I Do The Right Thing?)
Dude here is a thread i created when i faced a sad situation with spectra motors.Wasted my money,time and they made me drive my car which had poor brakes saying it was fine and then i took action and heres my entire tail in this thread.

[mail4ajo]

Originally Posted by theMAG

Ajo,

I empathize with you on your experience. Keep us posted on the sequence of events that pan out.
Btw, where can I get top MUL emails from? I needed to publicize to them one of my own experiences when buying my Swift

Check my first post. I guess it is only for Chennai region. Call or visit your regional office, check www.maruti.co.in