[ganeshram]

I have used the services of Sai Colorium for my previous car(Toyota Corolla) couple of years back. I went to them and not to the dealer because of the positive feedback I got them from Team Bhp. However, I was not happy with their job.

The car met with an accident and one of the rear view mirrors was damaged. The job was done through insurance. Instead of going for original mirrors, they bought an after market mirror, which was pathetic. The motor did not work properly and the controls did not work well with the mirror. I complained about the mirror and they said they will replace the same. But it took me close to 3 months and multiple phone calls to get the refund. I had got another one myself by that time. The paint job was also not up to my expectation. They had to do touch-ups at a couple of places. Spray marks were visible inside the door.

The paint job was not as good as what I had expected. Overall, I had an unhappy experience with Sai Colorium. But Mr.Khan, the SA, was helpful.

Having said this, the paint job in Nandi Toyota was also strictly average.

[Ramsagar]

I've once given my Alto for Denting & Painting. Price they quote is less when compared to others but the Quality is not up to the mark. Started peeling off after sometime.

Given my vehicle at Suraksha-Bommanahalli. I'm very happy with the job they've done.
OT: Suraksha does denting & painting job of other vehicles, but not servicing.

[Nikhilb2008]

I had taken my White Civic to Sai Colorium last week on Thursday. Met Bharat and had a very nice chat.

He seems the kind of guy who would give you honest advice and not just increasing his revenues.

I told him that I would leave the car there the next morning and he promised me the world would be done by Saturday afternoon.

Went to Sai on Friday morning. Bharat wasn't there but Mr. Khan took down the details and filled out the jobsheet.

Front bumper repainting, rear bumper repainting, right rear door repainting, left rear Qpanel repainting., full body polish.

The next day, I get a call from Khan. As I was dreading, he tells me that he cant give me the car by evening but he will give it to me on Sunday morning. Was very upset as I had made plans for Saturday evening which involved me driving my car.

I initially told him not to do the polishing but just finish the painting and I will take deliveyr immediately. I changed my mind almost instantly and called him back, told him that I would give him all the time he needs but I want a car without a SINGLE scratch at the end of it.

He promised me delivery on Sunday morning 11:00 am. I spoke to Bharat also and he too promised me 11:00 am on Sunday.

I go at 11:00 am on Sunday and the cleaning is still going on. I wait till 12:00noon and the polishing was still going on. I ABSOLUTELY had to leave and while I appreciate that they were rushing to finish the polishing asap, they couldnt meet my time schedule. I left the car, went in an Auto and came back again at 3:00 pm.

Finally, the car was ready.

In spite of this, I am extremely happy with Sai Colorium.

The way Bharat spoke to me and the amount of personal care he took was amazing. Even on Sunday, when I told him I was getting late, he personally stood by the car to make sure the polishing is done properly and fast (Unfortunately for him and for me, it wasnt fast enough). He had some health issue on those days but was still there to help me out.

Mr. Khan was also good at handling the car. Liked the way he spoke on the phone and he was genuinely apologetic about the delay. I like the fact that Khan and Bharat didnt try to make some quick money when it was possible. I told them to paint the right hand side mirror since it had some dep scratches. The glass of the indicator was also broken for that mirror. When I went to collect the car, they told me that didnt repaint it because I would have to replace that mirror because of the cracked glass anyway. They had just polished it and it looked good enough.

Coming to the quality of work done, I dont have any before and after photos, but I can say that given what they charge, they have done a fantastic job. My White Civic sparkles like it did on the day we took delivery of it from the showroom more than 2 years back.

My only quibble is that some swirl marks are still present on the body of the car.

I spent 11,800/- in total and am very happy with the quality fo the work.

I just wish they had stuck to their times.

[rohan_iitr]

Originally Posted by Nikhilb2008

I had taken my White Civic to Sai Colorium last week on Thursday.
I told him that I would leave the car there the next morning and he promised me the world would be done by Saturday afternoon.

The next day, I get a call from Khan. As I was dreading, he tells me that he cant give me the car by evening but he will give it to me on Sunday morning. Was very upset as I had made plans for Saturday evening which involved me driving my car.

He promised me delivery on Sunday morning 11:00 am. I spoke to Bharat also and he too promised me 11:00 am on Sunday.

I go at 11:00 am on Sunday and the cleaning is still going on. I wait till 12:00noon and the polishing was still going on.

Finally, the car was ready.

In spite of this, I am extremely happy with Sai Colorium.

I spent 11,800/- in total and am very happy with the quality fo the work.

I just wish they had stuck to their times.

I also had a similar experience with them. The quality of work was satisfactory and charges were reasonable.

But they don't stick to the promised delivery time/date.

Best is to give them the car only when you are sure that you won't be needing the vehicle for the next 3-4 days. Just don't plan your schedule based on their promised delivery time/date.

Rohan

[Tassem]

Spoke to Bharath (very friendly guy) about some light painting work on my verna. Thanks to some careless valet guys at work, the front bumper now needs some paint near the right foglamp. I cannot take the DIY route as the scratches are too deep. Bharath has promised same day delivery as long as I take it in during the morning hours. Planning to go on Wednesday since I hate missing work on Mondays; and Tuesdays I will still be recovering from my monday! Corporate life!

Will put up a detailed review once I get the car back.

BTW - I know its a policy not to discuss discounts etc for T-BHP members. But in common interest, I must mention that they're running a really good offer for T-BHP members till EOY. If you've been putting away some painting work due to whatever reasons, now is the time to act.

[k_ajay]

Originally Posted by Jaggu

Finally found some time to get the Santro pics transfered After the 9 year treatment and coat of Meguiar's from my side.

Jaggu, I must say that the road you've parked the Santro on is as good looking as your Santro. Very well maintained car, well done.



Query for all who know,

If a car body is being completed painted on the outside, with a color that is different from the factory stock color on the body, will RTO accept to have that changed in the R.C book too?

[naveen.raju]

Originally Posted by rohan_iitr

I also had a similar experience with them. The quality of work was satisfactory and charges were reasonable.

But they don't stick to the promised delivery time/date.

Best is to give them the car only when you are sure that you won't be needing the vehicle for the next 3-4 days. Just don't plan your schedule based on their promised delivery time/date.

Rohan

Really true. Work done on my car was excellent and the price was reasonable. But they couldnt keep up with the deadline even though I had mentioned to them that I'm driving from Cochin just for the modification. Took 5 days to return my car. But on seeing the work, I totally forgot about that and also because of RKR was the guy who designed it.

[k_ajay]

Originally Posted by k_ajay

Query for all who know,

If a car body is being completed painted on the outside, with a color that is different from the factory stock color on the body, will RTO accept to have that changed in the R.C book too?

Anyone, who can help with a response to this please?

[arindambasu13]

Just got back my Swift from Sai, the aftermath of a nasty accident that I had a couple of weeks back. Work quality was as usual pretty good, though the delivery timelines were messed up, predominantly because of the insurance claim getting delayed. To be fair, Mr. Bharat made an extra effort to deliver the car at the earliest possible, even though he had to stay back after his work hours were over.

By the way, from what he tells me, Sai is launching (from the 10th of November onwards) gift coupons/vouchers, which are valid for one year from date of purchase. Now these are of varying denominations, e.g. for a Rs. 1000 coupon, you would get a body polish and interior cleaning combination. Then there are Rs. 2000 vouchers also, which has an additional set of benefits. Sounded like a decent deal to me, since a normal body polish by itself for my Swift would set me back by Rs. 1500.

People interested could get in touch with Bharat. I myself am planning to pick up a couple of these once launched.

[Parthasarathig]

Originally Posted by k_ajay

Anyone, who can help with a response to this please?

I also had a question on similar lines. If the car body is given a wrap of different color, will that also need to be changed in the RC book too?

[hrman]

Originally Posted by Parthasarathig

I also had a question on similar lines. If the car body is given a wrap of different color, will that also need to be changed in the RC book too?

Yes. It needs to be informed to the RTO and endorsed on the RC as it is a modification to the original nature of the car. As also addition of LPG/CNG kits needs to be entered in the RC.

The general recommendation is to not paint it in a different colour. During the time of resale, it raises a question in the buyers mind as to what happened to the car in order to paint the full body. Reasons like Vastu/ lucky colour/ accident prone will only raise more suspicion. If there is no resale involved for the next few years , then go ahead to change the colour. After a few years it will not matter.

[naut]

Dropped my car at Sai for repair and repaint work this morning.

Why the work & now?
I hadn't gone in for any body repair & repainting work during the past 7 years except for a damage repair in the 2nd month of ownership. During this time, I had managed to get scratches at quite a few places all over!

Since I intend to keep the car for some more time (couple of years at least) till I find a suitable replacement, I decided to take the plunge and pamper the car and make it feel like a new one.

Work Details
1. Front Bumper Repair & Repaint (Had a cut at two places) - 2850
2. Rear Bumper Repaint (Had deep scratches at multiple places) - 2400
3. LH Front Door Bottom Repair & Repaint (Deep Scratch) - 1800
4. LH Rear Door Repair & Repaint (Had some damage due to impact against a pillar) - 3000
5. LH. Q (Q - Quarter is it?) Panel Repair & Repaint (Impact against pillar & a deep scratch) - 2850
6. RH Fender Repaint (Scratches and signs of corrosion possibly from the damage repair done in the 2nd month of ownership!) - 2500
6. Full Body polishing (To remove scratches all around that I have managed to get!) - 1500
7. Body Washing - 200

..Phew!..

Total ~ Rs.17000/-

Full body polishing was not included initially. I got it included at the last minute as I got tempted to have all those small scratches removed along with the rest of the work. Set me down by a grand and a half. Crazy! aren't we?

Staff & Their Attitude
Mr. Khan was helpful in identifying the work to be done and assured me of good work. As suggested by moderator "TheMAG", I went by his assessment and did not bargain even a bit. Told him that I want good work to be done that's all.

Although I was visiting Sai for the first , I never felt the lack of trust (I'd read about him here.. T-BHP effect?). Khan came across as a genuine person who wanted to help his customers rather than fleece them, a common find at most A.S.S centers these days.

Delivery Promise
He has promised to deliver the car by Friday evening. However, some of the experiences narrated on this thread, make me a tad too skeptical. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Discounts?
On checking if there was a discount available for BHP-ians (as mentioned by a fellow bhpian in an earlier post), he assured me that he would do whatever possible at the time of billing.

Should have updates about the work with pictures by next week.

A big to all of you who have shared your experiences here which helped me take the plunge!

[naut]

Here's my update after taking delivery of my car.

Summary
Pros

1. Very reasonably priced (VFM)
2. Excellent paint matching
3. Extremely trustworthy staff and owners
4. On Time Delivery
5. Good Quality of Work

Cons

1. Final vehicle cleaning could be better, but is acceptable to me.

Bottom Line
Will I visit them again? Hell yeah!

Detailed Report

Mr. Khan and his team stayed true to all the good things I had to say about them in my previous post. In-fact my trust in them increased a few notches by the time the vehicle was delivered.

All the jobs listed in the previous post were carried out within the promised time. Quality of work was decent and I was completely satisfied.

I had a good chat with the extremely down to earth duo of Mr. Bharath & Mr. Ananth while the vehicle was getting readied.

I realised during these discussions that Sai undertook service & repair jobs for cars of all makes in an adjacent facility. I discussed a couple of things about my Fusion that needed a fix and Mr. Khan suggested a few options that could be tried. I will visit them in January again to get these done.

They have a few offers currently for 1000, 2000 and 5000 bucks. Buying these coupons entitles you to packages which offer services from Sai worth more than the sum paid! Please get in touch with them for the details.

Lastly, against the initial estimate of Rs.17000/- I was charged only Rs.14000/- for all the work which was like an icing on the cake!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So here are a few pictures which show the work done.

Front Bumper Repair and Repaint (Before & After)

Pic 1

Pic 2


LH Doors



RH Rear Door & Q Panel
Pic 1

Pic 2


Rear Bumper
Pic

[lancer_rit]

^^^ Good job done.

Time keeping isn't a strength of Sai Colorium but I rather emphasize on the job quality and eagerness to meet the customer's requirements where they did rather well on my visits there.

For my last rear bumper repair though, I found the denter had skipped some hookups etc when fixing the bumper back - shortcuts which I was surprised because usually, they do take care. The way I found out is that I got a noise from the rear of the car, and it seemed like the noise came from right rear bumper (the same symptom required a 2nd visit to Sai earlier). Since SaiC is 40km away from my new home, I thought to quick check at Bosch service center in Whitefield. Anyways, it turned out a noise from the suspension, but before that they had taken down the bumper to check, and they did a way better job of cleaning and fixing the rear bumper back.

[pc73]

Just wanted to put down my appreciation for the work done by Sai Colorium here.

My decade old Ikon had couple of dents (lower part of passenger door & running board) and had a big scratch on front bumper (right corner). These dents and scratches are a bit old and I had been postponing the body work since (1) I was not sure about color matching for a decade old car considering that my Ikon is a dark green one and possibly a difficult color to get a perfect match (2) The estimate given by Ford dealers seemed unreasonable (they were suggesting everything short of painting the whole car to fix these!) (3) The dents and scratches were not too prominent.

After reading good reviews about Sai Colorium I decided to give them a try especially since I stay close to JP Nagar. I am happy with the job they did without having to paint the entire door or bumper. The color matching is nearly perfect. The finishing is good and the labor charges were reasonable. I interacted with Mr. Khan and Mr. Anant and found both of them very professional and very approachable.

On the downsides, I think the access road to Sai Colorium is a bit too congested (also it is difficult to locate them and they are on one of the extremely narrow cross roads off fairly busy and narrow Sarakki main road; if you make a wrong turn you could literally be in a really tight spot). One has to be extremely careful on this access road, else one would get a new dent/scratch since some of the residents of this road park their two wheelers and cars haphazardly! However, Sai Colorium does have sufficient parking space within their workshop premises and they also have a separate gated shed for overnight parking.

I also observed that some of the car washing people do not drive the car within the workshop with sufficient care (my car was bumped into an Innova during the pre-delivery wash, but luckily no damage done to both cars and this was completely avoidable if minimum care was taken). Also, finishing/polishing of the painted areas and surrounding areas is not done perfectly (relative to the near perfect painting job they do); however, if you bring it to notice of concerned people it will be taken care, just that you need to do a thorough check (by running your hand over painted areas to check for any roughness, looking for paint oversprays in surrounding areas and finger print marks, checking for unpolished areas) and point out. Ideally, I would have liked to not have to do this.

Overall, I would highly recommend this workshop for any kind of body work and repainting jobs.