Dakshin Honda tries to steal my Spare tire

[iwant2go]

I had a horrible experience getting my car repaired at Dakshin Honda.

Thought I should share my experience with you so that it would become helpful for others in future.

I gave my car for body work on 2nd May 2008. The estimate was given and I was told - "it would take about 10 days to repair". The insurance surveyor visited the shop on 3rd May and gave a go ahead for the repair. I never received a call from the repair shop.

I kept on calling to check the status. After about a week, I was told about a "part not available". When I asked about what part is not available, and I asked for the part number, The customer rep, Mr. Saleem, could not give an answer. My car was hit by truck from behind and the damage was small, I could say this with confidence because the rear lights where still working and were not damaged. The lights assembly was damaged though.

Last week of May, I realize that I am not able to reach anyone at Dakshin. The service rep who took the order, Mr. Saleem, can not be reached. So I show up at the repair shop. I landed at their shop at 1030am. I reported at the service desk to Ms Lakshmi Gowda, no one attended me until 11:30. Finally Lakshmi puts me into Mr. Muneer Ahmed, the CR Manager. Muneer asks me to sit down for "2 minutes" and vanishes for 40 minutes. I remind him about my car when he comes back. He vanishes again and comes back after 30 minutes, this time, with the news saying that the car is ready and it will be inspected by the insurance
surveyor again today and I can take the vehicle afterwards. I left Dakshin at 2pm.

I called up insurance company and came to know about the status of re-survey, all the time, no one from Dakshin called me.

I went to Dakshin Honda on 3rd June to take the delivery of the car at around 11am. The CR Manager, Muneer Ahmed, made me wait for about an hour, while making me wait, he called the insurance company for negotiating labor charges. I ran out of time and Left Dakshin at 1:30pm, without taking the delivery of the car, because I had to leave for some other work. Dakshin could not deliver the car within that time.
When I asked why their is a delay in delivering the car, Muneer said the rates were not finalized with the insurance. He had the entire 2nd June to do this rate finalization, but he preferred to do it only after me, the customer visited and making me wait.

I went again on 4th June at 12pm to pick up the car. When I saw the invoice, one of the main part was different from what was written in the estimate. Estimate said "PANL SET, RR, FLR" costing Rs. 11792, where as the invoice said "PANEL SET L, RR OU" costing 16800. When I asked why there is a discrepancy, no one was able to give me a convincing answer. One funny explanation I received is that the estimate is for a right side part where as the actual part is a left side part. I am not sure how a right part has a different rate from left side part in the trunk of the car!.
Overall, the Invoice was different from estimate. Invoice said 44k Parts + 35K Labour totalling to 89K with tax etc.), where as initial Estimate was 98k (31k Parts + 46K Labour + Taxes). Later National Insurance gave me about 60K.

When I spoke to My Insurance company, the surveyor told me that the Labour charges of Dakshin Honda is much higher than those of the other dealer in Bangalore, Whitefield Honda.

Muneer Ahmed, CR Manager in Dakshin told me that Insurance will pay only a certain amount of labor charges, rest I have to pay.

I explained about all this to one Mr. Satya who was interacting with me then told him that I am going to share my experience with Dakshin to others but he cared little.
After I settled the bill, when I looked at the car, there was no spare tire in the trunk. When I asked for it, Syed, a CR representative blatantly told me that there was no spare tyre in the trunk when I gave it for repair. I asked for proof. I sensed something fishy and started video recording using my cellphone and started asking probing questions, then Syed and the mechanic came down, gave me a silly excuse (The number "I thought was X67Y, not X76Y" is the explanation given. Funny, I have all this caught in video, I had put it up on youtube and mouthsut. Under the title 'dakshin honda trying to steal my spare tyre'.)

Now after this episode, when I drive home the car, the AC light is not coming up, the anti-theft alarm is not functioning. I had to drive back to the dealer to get it fixed again. They were quick in fixing this problem though - the only positive from the whole experience.

Through out the whole experience, I never received a call from Dakshin Honda. Everytime, I had to call up to follow up.

I had written to Hondacare and posted on internet, hondacare made Muneer talk to me and offer free interior cleaning and also one one free Teflon coating. But I am not risking another visit to Dakshin, I told him point blank that I will be happy only if he refunds some money. He told me that his labor charges are 'honda approved charges'.

In Summary,
1. Dakshin Honda charges exorbitant labor charges. Insurance may not pay all the labor charges Dakshin Charges, you have to cough up from your pocket.
Anyone interested to know their charges, Please see the attached estimate sheet.

2. Be careful about parts and labor costs mentioned in the initial estimate. It appears that when they realized that they are not going to get money from Insurance for Labor charges as quoted, Labor charges went down and parts changed and charges went up.

3. Dakshin Honda never calls you to update about your car status. Even after it is ready for delivery. You need to call up to find it out.

4. Everyone I met at the waiting lobby at the service counters had complaints about no one attending them.

I have owned a Honda car for more than three years and I always had
better than this service level from Whitefield Honda.

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[aaggoswami]

I saw the video. The people are surely trying to cheat you. Write to Honda about this, and hope they respond. Be very quick and alert. One more person ( user ) on T-BHP had a defective Civic delivered.

If needed, go to consumer court. This is not a small thing, more over, they are not ready to take any responsibility.

But whatever be the car, make sure that next time you give your car to service,
1) Take all the tools, spare wheel, equipments, etc before going for service.
2) Make sure you just have sufficient quantity of fuel, mostly not more than 12-13 ltrs. This is because they also have habit of stealing fuel. This quantity is required for the test drive etc.
3) While giving the car for service, note down the kms reading ( I know this is done in job cards,but still to be sure ).

We are following this procedure from day one since we got our Maruti 800 way back in 1992. Baleno also gets the same routines before going to service. We take out the music system plate and all the equipments.

[ajmat]

Whitefield Honda is as bad in terms of charges and time to complete but they did a good job for me. I gave three new tyres to be fitted and they never tried any stunts

[benbsb29]

An alarming regularity of Honda dealers trying to cheat the customer these days.
Are the skeletons falling out of the closet, or is the hallowed H actually taking a dip?

[lohithrao]

Ohh man bad experience!

Good i never went DK honda...always pefered WF Honda..

[lohithrao]

Originally Posted by ajmat

Whitefield Honda is as bad in terms of charges and time to complete but they did a good job for me. I gave three new tyres to be fitted and they never tried any stunts

It all depends on the advisor, the person who was handling my car made sure i had no issues and the car was fit and fine!

[vid6639]

Rs.1500 just to remove and refix the rear seats and floor mats. Oh my god insane labour charges. Rs.3500 just to remove and fix the rear windshield. I'm sure a new glass will cost a little more from windshield experts.

[dadu]

This is horrendus, even middle tier service/ body repair shops dont pull up these kind of stunts.

[amit]

Originally Posted by iwant2go

I landed at their shop at 1030am. I reported at the service desk to Ms Lakshmi Gowda, no one attended me until 11:30. Muneer asks me to sit down for "2 minutes" and vanishes for 40 minutes. I remind him about my car when he comes back. He vanishes again and comes back after 30 minutes. I left Dakshin at 2pm.

Wow. Nice service there from a premium carmaker.

I went to Dakshin Honda on 3rd June to take the delivery of the car at around 11am. The CR Manager, Muneer Ahmed, made me wait for about an hour, while making me wait, he called the insurance company for negotiating labor charges. I ran out of time and Left Dakshin at 1:30pm, without taking the delivery of the car, because I had to leave for some other work. Dakshin could not deliver the car within that time.

Wow no. 2. Customer waits for 2 hours and 30 minutes and goes back without taking delivery!

Dakshin honda trying to steal my spare tyre

That's brilliant. Even Tata, Mahindra and even ICML(!) dealers have not stooped to that level.

Through out the whole experience, I never received a call from Dakshin Honda. Everytime, I had to call up to follow up.

I wonder why people keep repeating like parrots about 'Honda's excellent / superb After sales service' after so many posts about their dealers horrible behavior on this forum.

I had written to Hondacare and posted on internet, hondacare made Muneer talk to me and offer free interior cleaning and also one one free Teflon coating.

How thoughtful! But you should consider yourself lucky that Honda did'nt do the following to you:

One more person ( user ) on T-BHP had a defective Civic delivered, and when he raised issue, Honda filed some defamation suit against him.

I should read that thread for the latest. I didn't know about this!

[kutlee]

excellent report (on a pathetic service). Didn't they object to be videoed??
send the video link to the customer service at Dakshin Honda. Let them enjoy.
The job sheet marks all the stuff in the car when deliverd for service. Did they miss out spare wheel there? You will also have a copy of this when you go to take delivery. I wen't with two spare wheels once and noted that down seperately.

[greenhorn]

Well, my Tata A.S.S did steal my tow hook, and when I made an issue, they got another one , but then my wheel spanner went missing. But nothing of this magnitude !

[ajmat]

Whitefield Honda are a little better but they are inflexible in delivering. They only deliver in the afternoon so that the supervisors can be more focussed on the repair/ scheduling process

[four_tire]

I always trust my local garage person. He does all necessary stuff in my presence and it its done right then. if its major, I take a day off from office get all spares, plus i enjoy watching and helping during them fixing my car.. This is because i love my car

[suman]

This is quite a shocking read, pathetic state of a dealership!

Originally Posted by benbsb29

Are the skeletons falling out of the closet, or is the hallowed H actually taking a dip?

Maybe the newbies haven't been told the rules (as in don't crib about the hallowed H)

[swathyd]

This is nothing new , a friend of mine met with an accident in his new honda city. It was just an year old. The cost of repair including labour was rs 78,000 out of which he paid more than 25,000. Why the hell people then buy this exhorbitantly priced car. There is a lot going on between dealers and insurance companies which leave people with little option other than paying huge sums.

Honda is renown for its service elsewhere in the world. Then why it is so in india ? It is only because of our attitude ? Every person who purchased a car should form an union based on the dealership they got their vehicle from. And they atleast once in a year should get together to discuss their problems. Only such unions can rescue us from plunders of this kind.