How long does take to change the wiper linkage - 4 hours!!!!

[amtak]

Yes, you all read it correctly. It took Lakshmi cars Mira road 4 hours to change the wiper linkage on my car.

On Friday last week, the wipers ha stopped working and hence I decided that I would take the car to the Maruti A** in my area M/s Lakshmi cars Pvt. ltd.

Come Saturday afternoon after finishing my work, I reached the showroom/service center (all under 1 roof) and met the receptionist; she asked me who was my advisor last time and I informed 1 Mr. X (name withheld, don't mind sharing though). She asked me to wait in the customer lounge and she would call him in a jiffy. Please note that the time at this moment was appx. 3:00 PM.

The service advisor arrived at 3:15 with a big smile and we walked towards the car. Showed him the wipers and he suspected the motor to have gone kaput. Discussed the appx. price to change it and told him to go ahead. Further, I told him to change the steering wheel cover (it had worn out completely), and fix a beading which had come loose. Time now was 3:30 PM

He drove my car inside the service bay, and parked it bang opposite to where I was sitting. 3:30 to 4:00 PM, no one even touched my car. Despite regular follow ups, I was told that it would be done in 10 minutes.

Suddenly my car disappeard from the service bay. I however, found it parked outside with its jaw wide open but still no sign of any mechanic or service advisor around it. Suddenly Mr. X comes to me and says - It'll take more time as they have only 1 wireman today. Time was 4:45 PM

After sometime, Mr. X comes to me and says, hey! good news, your motor is fine, the linkage is faulty. They don't have this in stock though. Time now is 5:00 PM. I am seriously pissed off at him and the attitude of the service people at the workshop. Luckily for me, the Customer Relationship Manager had seen me warming my A** in the customer lounge for the past 2 hours and asked me what the issue was. Told her everything, however, it wasn't of much help. I told the service guy, I need this to be fixed today itself. The problem that they have is no feedback is given to the customer and I only had to do all the follow ups with all the people in the service bay. I told him to get the part from anywhere as its been 2 hours that I am sitting idle and you are telling it to me now! Interesting part is they had not even touched the car (for rubber bidding and steering wheel cover). after giving him my peace of mind about my time and all the possible gyan, he got the part from somewhere and started working on the car. Time now was 5:30 PM

I was regularly following up with them and finally got my car at 7:00 PM with all the parts working in good order. This wouldn't have taken more than 30 mins for the whole job if there was some coordination internally.

The last straw - They had not even bothered to remove the old steering wheel cover which they had happily kept on my seat.

Decided against stepping in that service bay henceforth. It has left a bad taste in my mouth. Spectra has 3 times the load and still they are very competent in service.

My entire weekend was spoilt because of these people and I even managed to get a nice firing as a return gift from my wife (Had promised to take her out for shopping)

[danlalan]

I had to change the linkage on my city too yesterday. Got it done from a mech workshop outside though and it took me 20minutes and 500bucks.
But 4hours just for a linkage is just too much.
Wonder what happens if someother work needs to be done.

[amtak]

Dan, I could see others screaming at the service advisors. There were some people who waited almost the same time as me for a "rattling" issue. I was only laughing at him to make my pain reduce a bit. I told him thats a complimentary gift from maruti for choosing their vehicle!