Fiat Meet at BU Bhandari, Pune

[Palio_2005]

BU Bhandari is inviting all Fiat owners for a get-together @ their Wakad workshop. This is initiated by Mr. Shailesh Bhandari himself and Mr. Gopal Srinivasan. They are going to invite FIAT-TATA officials who are responsible for service and spare parts. The venue and dates are as below:

Confirmations to be sent to baliga_ganesh@yahoo.com on or before this weekend by mail.

Everyone will get personal invitation from BU Bhandari to thier mentioned email ID.

Also please note that this is not limited only to BU Bhandari customer, all are welcome and do come with your complement and complaint list - to shoot at FIAT-TATA offcials. This would help them as well as us to get our problems rectified.

Venue: BU Bhandari Service center, Wakad.
Date: 16-May-2009 Saturday.
Time: 4:30PM onwards.

[rudrah]

Thats great move by TATA-FIAT!

A good chance to speak with the concerned people face to face, something which is badly needed at this point.

I'm in for the meet. All FIAT users can meet in advance for a short meet too

I suppose PUG might be sharing the same information there too!

Cheers~

[roms]

Hi All,

As mentioned, the B.U. Bhandari meet is mostly related to the spare parts/service issues that has troubled all or most of us, especially since the past couple of years. There will be representation from Fiat at this meet, and we hope this meet does turn out to be as fruitful as we anticipate it to be.

I personally have just been waiting for such an opportunity. I am sure many of you would be too. So kindly get in touch with Subodh (rudrah on team-bhp) or myself (roms on t-bhp) for confirmations from Mumbai. Also send your confirmations to Ganesh Baliga on the email id mentioned by Palio_2005 on or before the 13th, i.e. by tomorrow. We need a decent turn out so as to make a difference. B.U. Bhandari guys have done a commendable job by organising this event and they are expecting atleast about 30-40 Fiat owners to attend.

Since the meet is scheduled at 4.30 pm, we could probably have lunch somewhere in Pune or Lonavla (open to suggestions).

Looking forward to a successful Mumbai - Pune PUG/FCI/T-bhp Fiat owners meet on the 16th of May 2009.

Romil Hirani
Palio S10
9820698123

[hillram]

Any chance of such gathering in Hyderabad?There are many Fiat owners in Hyd esp Palio.

[rudrah]

So we can expect a Mumbai-Pune FIAT users meet

@Hillram
why dont you check with your dealer to organise such a meet. Let them know its anyways going to add business to them!

[roms]

Here is the official invitation sent by B.U. Bhandari to Ganesh Baliga on FCI inviting all Fiat owners in and around Pune :-


DEAR MR.GANESH

WE AT B.U.BHANDARI AUTO PVT.LTD.
APPRECIATE THE EFFORTS PUT IN BY YOU IN FORMING THE PALIO USER GROUP AND TAKING
LEAD IN SOLVING THEIR PROBLEMS BY ACTING AS A CONDUIT BETWEEN THE MEMBER AND
DEALER.

TO FURTHER STRENGTH THE BOND WE
WOULD LIKE TO INVITE THE MEMBERS TO A VERY INFORMAL GET TOGETHER AT OUR
WAKAD WORKSHOP TO REINFORCE OUR SUPPORT IN MAINTAINING THEIR
PASSION.

WE WOULD ALSO REQUEST PEOPLE FROM
THE TATA-FIAT GROUP TO BE PRESENT TO ANSWER TO THE QUERIES OF THE MEMBERS
IF ANY AND PROVIDE SOLUTIONS.

KINDLY LET US KNOW THE CONVENIENT
TIME AND DATE SO AS TO SET THE BALL ROLLING.OUR PERSONAL REQUEST TO YOU IS TO
ENSURE A MINIMUM PARTICIPATION OF 40 MEMBERS.YOU COULD ALSO INFORM
FIAT/PALIO USERS FROM MUMBAI AND OUTSIDE.

WE LOOK FORWARD FOR YOUR
CONFIRMATION TO SEND A OFFICIAL INVITE TO ALL ESTEEMED
CUSTOMERS.

THANKING YOU IN
ANTICIPATION


GOPAL
SRINIVASAN

[CarsPG]

Originally Posted by roms

Hi All,

Since the meet is scheduled at 4.30 pm, we could probably have lunch somewhere in Pune or Lonavla (open to suggestions).

Looking forward to a successful Mumbai - Pune PUG/FCI/T-bhp Fiat owners meet on the 16th of May 2009.

Romil Hirani
Palio S10
9820698123

How about a late lunch (around 3:00 pm) near the BU Bhandari workshop? A new hotel called Sayaji has opened up in the area so that might be a good option! They have a good lunch buffet. Price is Rs. 350/person + taxes.

Let me know your thoughts.

[CarsPG]

A big thanks to Ganesha for organizing this meet! I really enjoyed meeting other Fiat owners as well the strong contingent of Tata/Fiat employees present at the meet!

[ms001]

How about a report of the meet? what all was discussed ? any news about GP etc.

[anurag_p80]

Ya, report please. Any comments on the spares/ service front?

[VahanPujari]

How was the meeting? can some one put details?

I was out of Mumbai for ast 1 week & saw this just today. Any such meet happening in Mumbai?

[rudrah]

Here is the feedback By Ganesh Baliga a senior member of PUG, of the meet recently happened at BUB by TATA-FIAT with Mumbai-Pune PUG members as well as new Linea users.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

To start with first of all again sincere thanks to Mr. Shailesh Bhandari,
Owner, BU Bhandari Auto and Mr, Gopal Srinivasan, Manager, BU Bhandari Auto Wakad for starting the initiative and inviting we PUGers and FIAT-TATA offcials to face-on-face and trying to reach our voices to the right people. Mr Shaileshji is right from day one is more intrested in our group and he has given us a good value and respect; This i am saying as this is the second such even where he has sent invitation on his own and read our minds without we asking.

And the next round of thanks to Mr. Mangesh Kodalkar, Sr. Manager, CustomerCare and Service FIAPL, who in fact was on his vacation attending his family function outside Pune and made sure to come for this event.

Finally the Thanks to all our PUG-FCI members who took out thier Saturday
evening to make for this event and make this a successfully event; Oh yes, not to forget our dear members from Mumbai who drive down to attend this meet and gave us confident that its not only Pune we are there with you too.

TATA-FIAT officials who address our grievances are as below:
1. Mr. Mangesh Kodalkar, Sr. Manager, CustomerCare and Service FIAPL
2. Mr. Zameel, Coordinator at FIAToffice. TATA Motors.
3. Mr. Abhijeet Rajendran, Sr. Manager Customer Support, TATA Motors- FIAPL.
4. Mr. Ashish Mittal, Spares Incharge, FIAPL.
5. Mr. Kapil Kulkarni, Customer Support, TATA Motors.

OK now the story begins:

I reached BUB Wakad service station along with my 6 year old son Manas, who is more interested in Linea at 4:15PM. I was welcomed by none other than Shaileshji himself, Gopal and Mangesh; Infact Mangesh was eagrly waiting from afternoon itself i believe; All TATA-FIAT officals are already arrived when i reachd the spot well before the time. Immediatly Gopal dragged me to show-off (dont mind off course why not) his S10 which is jsut more than 2 Years and has run less than ~10K and was as good as in show room condition. Gopalji kudos to you for well maitaining the car, I asked Gopal whether you take the car out or still keeping it in showroom as the car was sparkling!

Meantime met up with Sameer, Gautam Satpute (who had come very early to check his car coolant leakage problem), Rahul (who is our old time member who has gone lost for past 1 year) and then Mumbai floks joined us. We had nice round of introduction with Romil, Sanjeev, Rashmin and Subodh urf Rudra (TBHP id).
The first thing our Mumbai folks after looking BUB service station said was
WOW!!! Such a big service center and well maintained looks like a FIAT
Factory . Then Rahul took us to show is free flow exhaust. At this time I had a big surprise from Amarendra Godbole, who everytime used to confirm and due to personnal reasons could not make it and happend to see him first time.
Meanwhile Gopalji took us to the conference room which is located on the first floor; slowly the crowsd started gathering and Gopal started calling those members who confirmed and dint turn up. The answer he was getting " oh i forgot..." "oh no i have work" the otherone was "oh man i am out of station" but well done job Gopal to call individual to get the last minutes status.

Then Shaileshji said we are rady do let me know when to start: So we started at 5:00PM; Shaileshji started introducing all the TATA Offcials and what this meet is about i.e. for the benifit of existing FIAT loyal customers getting spare parts mismatch and avaialbility of spares at dealer end. Shailesh and Mangesh requested me to start the topic: I strated giving introduction about me and group; then i started pointing then the mismatch in parts ordered and recieved with Subodh's example where he asked for 100 16v after placing order for more than 2 weeks he got the sticker with 1.2. Then I gave example of Kiran Chitnis, who had his hose pipe getting damaged and it took more than three months to procure the same; when checked with dealer all we heard was part mismatch: so here the Answer came from Zameel, saying that when they shifted the factory from Kurla, Mumbai to Ranjangoan, Pune, they gave contract to third party laborer who don’t have any idea about the automobile parts and in the process all the parts got exchanged and mismatched; Then Subodh raised question why we should always need to srtie to Mangesh to get the right part for which Zameel replied, saying Mangesh personally himself goes with the photograph in his hand and cross checks the parts and make sure right part is being dispatched; we asked him how many days this will go for which he said another 3 to 5 month it will take them to streamline the process. Then Kiran Raised his voice saying he has lost faith in FIAT cars as his car was stranded for almost 3 months and then the emotional feeling he felt and the damaged which has costed him due to the hose pipe damages, who will be answering and owning this issue, for which there was no answer.

So the discussion goes on and I asked about Existing Palio radiator grill which is not available (This question is sent to me by Mahadev through email) for which Ashish Mittal answered saying is it 1.6 as the 1.6 parts are not available and need to be sourced from outside India. So Gautam raised his voice asking that what happens to our existing Palio owner issue of getting spares and the prices have drastically increased (I believe Romil too raised his voice here) for which Zameel and Ashish both replied saying we will face problem as the old FIAT vendors stopped producing spares due to less no of volumes and they are no more doing jobs for FIAT; Now the TATA Motors vendors are responsible mfg spares for FIAT but that would be for the future cars and not for the existing car due to its less no of volume and meantime they will be importing the spare parts from Turkey, Italy or Istanbul. So all we need to do is to place the order and then wait and watch; They praised Mangesh for working such hard single handedly and till then probably we need to trouble Mangesh to get the right spares. We asked about the rumors of Palio (stile) getting discontinued for which Zameel answered that they can’t comment on this (Guys wathout) and he said you might have read the press statement issued by “Rajeev Kapoor CEO FIAPL” stating it will continue. In this meeting we had few new Linea customers whom some are not yet part of PUG but got invitation from BUB, one of them Mr. Nitin Kituri, he introduced himself as DIESEL fan and so far he has driven only diesel cars, the last one he has was FIAT UNO diesel 1.7D and he completes his car life less than 3.5 years. He said he is very much happy with Linea irrespective of its small problems, he had problem of car getting jerk while changing the gears at 2500RPM for which Zameel said you no need to go to that RPM to change the gear as Linea comes with Short Gear change so that’s the reason he said the jerk at high RPM; Then we have one more Linea customer Mr. Piyush Gadia, (from TBHP) raising his voice saying that there is lot of squeaking sound from front of the car and BUB is not answering his emails nor receiving his call. For which Zameel asked Shaileshji to look into the matter personally. Then Gautam raised question on mismatch between 2 dealers labour charges saying Pandit auto charges 550 as service labour and he don’t charge for Examiner checking and don’t put labour on doing extra works where as we felt that BUB service Labour charges are 650Rs and on top of that standard checking charges of 250Rs for which first Zmeel said they will vary (maybe he dint hear it rightly and thought that we are asking across other city comparison,) then he again pointed to Shaileshji to look and correct accrodningly. So the meet went on and on till 7:00PM and I came out to get some fresh air and then my son was pasturing me to go out; BUB served us snacks, Samosa, Sandwich, Cold drinks and then ice cream; I can see the meeting still going on this time people formed few groups with taking TATA-FIAT officials individually.

Later on was talking to Shaileshji and said that Mumbai members likes you workshop so immediately he took our Mumbai members to show his workshop and explained them what all things they have at their workshop; Romil pointed that the wheel balancing equipments which BUB had is the looks like latest one, for which Shaileshji said yes and explained him. (This part I missed) there my son saw black Linea laying for servicing with its bonnet open; Black really rocks!

WE again met Mangesh at the entrance where he himself volunteer said that we should schedule our factory visit somewhere around Ganesh chaturthi so that all our members across the state can join for this visit as well as then can enjoy a Ganesha festival at Pune for staying one more day extra.

Mangesh and Shailesh both did goodbye to all of us and then Gautam called me to meet at Santosa Park for sip of coffee along with our Mumbai friends. When we were having coffee got call from Sameer asking where are you people and later he too joined us and we all started hearing to his technical part of story which starts with how to play safe with you car engine by adding boric acid blah…blah… so here my son remined me we are getting alte home so I said bye to all our folks while Guatam taking Liena TD of our new member Mr. Vaibhav Patki….

Had dinner at Panvel-Pen road dhabba 'Eqvira' and off to home!

Concluding this meet, spares for Linea and Grande Punto will not be a problem as 80% of the parts will be localized. However for older Palios/Petra, critical spares availability may arise as vendors for parts as of now are less and they need to source from other countries where Palio production are still in progress. The volume of Sales will also decide the availability of critical parts while regular parts will not be a issue in some time.

So in 6 months or so, things at the Spares division will be streamlined and will not be a problem.

TATA also taking time in focussing on training and getting the best FIAT mechanics for service related issues.

All I can say there is a bright light at the end of the cave!

Cheers~