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Old 13th January 2018, 18:00   #901
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Beware of Abulkalam Used Cars (AK Cars) in Pune - Odometer Tampering

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Originally Posted by petrolhead_chn View Post
Worst case - he might offer to buy back the car at a much lower price. Mind you he might pay you upfront or only after the sale.


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Originally Posted by anand.shankar82 View Post
So today's update is that I met with the CCO (owner) of the dealership and he has kept the car at his yard now for sale and money refund will take place as and when it is sold

Quoting my own post where I had mentioned the worst case outcome. Practically speaking, the dealer has taken ownership of his fault now and am sure this will be resolved.

Do not show off upper hand now. Just try to project yourself so emotional that you are deeply hurt inside and that you had invested your precious savings in it. The car was for family and the entire family is upset about it and you were unable to keep up your word with family. Also throw in few words to the owner asking him to be careful and keep a watch amongst his employees so that he can keep up his reputation. We know the owner is a part of fraud but still you got no choice rather than playing innocent and emotional. I bet he will resolve this to your favour.

Once sold he will come back and propose selling of another car with assurances and confidences which will be beneficial as well. Be prepared for that too.

Instead of talking over phone, send him few text messages just for documentation purposes that the car is with him for so and so reason.

Relax and this will be resolved. An anxious mind will not open up and you may become nervous too.

Last edited by petrolhead_chn : 13th January 2018 at 18:02.
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Old 14th January 2018, 09:32   #902
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Re: Beware of Abulkalam Used Cars (AK Cars) in Pune - Odometer Tampering

Thank you all so much for such encouraging words. Right now I have planned to leave the car with him to sell for at least 2 weeks.

After 2 weeks if still unsold, I will get it back, get the odo corrected, have it nicely done up at 3M and start using/loving it as my machine

Having said that, I plan to get the cops involved once I have the car back and do not plan to let this guy get away easily
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Old 14th January 2018, 10:12   #903
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Beware of Abulkalam Used Cars (AK Cars) in Pune - Odometer Tampering

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Originally Posted by anand.shankar82 View Post
After 2 weeks if still unsold, I will get it back, get the odo corrected, have it nicely done up at 3M and start using/loving it as my machine

Having said that, I plan to get the cops involved once I have the car back and do not plan to let this guy get away easily

Refer post 9 3rd paragraph. Had suggested this too.
Could have opted this correcting odo and 3M route in the first place.

Why give it to him for sale and then take it back?
After taking it back why involve the cops for more trouble? This is unnecessary and poor decision.

Last edited by petrolhead_chn : 14th January 2018 at 10:27.
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Old 14th January 2018, 10:34   #904
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I also suggest you keep sending your friends (the ones whom dealer doesn't know) to make sure that the car or any part of the car is not tampered by the dealer. If the car is not present at the yard during the visit, it is a red flag. Get your car back asap.

Also, the visits will help you to know about how the price dealer is quoting about the car and whether he is genuinely interested in selling your car. (From his point of view, if he sells some other car, he gets better profit)

You can also give surprise visits to the dealership in order to know about the condition of your car.

My points here are...
1) He is more evil than you think and plan to cheat you further by swapping some parts of the already sold car while it is sitting in his stock yard.
2) He is just stalling and has no interest in selling your car in order to leverage time delay if you proceed with legal route.

If you have any contact in police or politics, he will take your car back after couple of calls. After all, these dealers do lots of illegal stuff.
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Old 14th January 2018, 11:49   #905
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Re: ARTICLE: How to buy a *USED* Car in India

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Lessons learned from the above incident - Telling 'Insurance expired' (even with a valid insurance) could be an intentional way to hide a damage claim from current insurer ( so that we dont check the insurance claims with the carrier) and check in detail if the new insurance is from a different carrier.
One stupid question from my side - Let us say we are contemplating buying a second hand car. How do we find out whether any insurance claim has been made for the vehicle. The damage may be for a normal thing (like fixing a broken bumper etc) or a severe reason (like floods). Do we need to contact the insurer with the current policy number to ask what claims have been made by the current owner and the nature of these claims?
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Old 14th January 2018, 12:26   #906
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Re: Beware of Abulkalam Used Cars (AK Cars) in Pune - Odometer Tampering

Leaving the car with the same fraudulent agency for selling is not an acceptable wat. Hoe to make sure that this bloke would not pluck out critical and valuable components from your car.
If the car is OK and an accident free one, the money spent for maintenance will definitely be paid back, if you decide to keep it for quite some time.

Last edited by rajeev k : 14th January 2018 at 12:29.
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Old 14th January 2018, 12:43   #907
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Re: ARTICLE: How to buy a *USED* Car in India

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Originally Posted by Saanil View Post
One stupid question from my side - Let us say we are contemplating buying a second hand car. How do we find out whether any insurance claim has been made for the vehicle. The damage may be for a normal thing (like fixing a broken bumper etc) or a severe reason (like floods). Do we need to contact the insurer with the current policy number to ask what claims have been made by the current owner and the nature of these claims?
You can get indications from different sources:-

Check the NCB on the current policy - If its not in alignment with cars age, ask for claim details and verify with insurance directly.
Check for change in insurance carriers in between
Check for any repaint/body works in the service history

Less data points on the vehicle history or older vehicles - higher risk of unidentified repairs.
Detailed vehicle inspection can only reveal the missing information.
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Old 14th January 2018, 15:43   #908
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Upon reading the complete thread, I think the best avenues for buying and selling used cars are the respective dealers of the manufacturer. I had a very good experience with Maruti true value in buying a second hand car and selling the same here in Pune. Had got to see all the service records to ascertain the maintenance of the car through all the years of ownership. Happened to visit multiple used car local dealerships as well while buying the car. A stark difference : almost 80% of the vehicle were <50k kms against only 30% at the official car dealership like true value. I wondered if one has a new car, well maintained one he would first think of selling it at one of such those places as all the process is transparent!
To me, reliability of a mechanical machine is important than bearing a loss of 10-20% in doing the same.
I would suggest not to engage in any row with the dealer as he would be having all the information including personal as well. Take the car, refurbish it and drive for a few years and sell it.
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Old 14th January 2018, 18:14   #909
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No dealer would be penny wise pound foolish and risk it just for the parts. But yes if the steal or swap is worth a few grants he would do it. This case is different. His only aim now would be to buy the car less few grants.
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Old 16th January 2018, 09:40   #910
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Re: ARTICLE: How to buy a *USED* Car in India

Got the car back from the guy yesterday evening and have planned to drop all further plans to prosecute/pursue this matter since the fellow yesterday threatened me and my dad with physical violence which I do not wish to risk for my family

So I have agreed with the dealer to not make any further issue of this, keep the car and wait for the NOC/Original RC to come from Panvel RTO and then I will try to sell it off myself (after fixing the odometer) or else keep it till its life lasts by transferring over to my name in Pune RTO

Thank you all dear members for such encouragement and detailed advise.

One last word of caution - AVOID ABULKALAM CARS (AK CARS) AT ALL COSTS!!!
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Old 16th January 2018, 12:05   #911
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Re: ARTICLE: How to buy a *USED* Car in India

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Originally Posted by anand.shankar82 View Post
Got the car back from the guy yesterday evening and have planned to drop all further plans to prosecute/pursue this matter since the fellow yesterday threatened me and my dad with physical violence which I do not wish to risk for my family
We can understand the feeling of getting cheated. And really sad that you had to go all through this. But as many suggested please try to look beyond the tampered odometer reading. If the car was a lemon it would never have done 1 Lakh km's in first place, and nothing abnormal in its service history could be a testimony that the car might be good for another lakh kilometers, barring the few regular repairs like suspension, brake overhaul etc.

It might be well worth spending an additional 30-40k for repairs, than selling the car for the same 30-40k loss. After all you would have liked the car for some reason apart from the less odo reading. I would suggest to get the car repaired at an FNG to mitigate any unforeseen expenses for repairs.

Lastly, I do see many Cartrade, Cardekho, Droom certified dealers put up a disclaimer "We are not responsible for Odometer reading". This is a norm with the medium scale dealers, at least in Hyderabad.
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Old 31st January 2018, 20:43   #912
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Re: ARTICLE: How to buy a *USED* Car in India

Looks like a new modus operandi.

Again, transferring money just by 'seeing' a car is risky even if it's a geniune owner.

ARTICLE: How to buy a *USED* Car in India-img_20180131_203716082.jpg
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Old 31st January 2018, 23:49   #913
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Re: ARTICLE: How to buy a *USED* Car in India

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Originally Posted by arjithin View Post
We checked out a 2016 May 32K driven top of the line used Jetta yday. Everything looked fine until the dealer revealed that car doesnt have an insurance for last 6 months and they will give brand new insurance as part of the agreed price. This raised some suspicion that how come a premium car is running without Insurance for a long time, so we digged more and found that the car has flood damage claims in the insurance and hence dealer was not ready to share that insurance policy with us and instead chose to give a brand new insurance with a different insurer.

Also those flood repair was NOT done at a VW dealer, hence details of repair are not available.
Curious to know how you went about getting the history of the vehicle if the policy details weren't shared with youand repairs were carried out outside VW.
Would be very helpful if you share how you evaluated the car with such details missing or not being made available.
Incidentally I also happened to look at a 2016 silver Jetta with 27k on the odo, somehow wasn't happy and the deal didn't go through. Now I'm wondering if we're discussing the same car here.
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Old 12th March 2018, 08:31   #914
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Re: ARTICLE: How to buy a *USED* Car in India

Dear Members

I am back again with my basket-of-woes with the Verna I purchased from Abulkalam Cars in Pune and need your advise/guidance on next steps which I can take

1. I had purchased the car on 5-Jan-18 and the used car dealer (AK Cars) said they would process the NOC from Panvel RTO (since car is MH46) and I stay in Pune (MH12)

2. Till date there is no NOC provided. Even the original RC card/book is not provided, no duplicate keys (second set) provided, no road-tax receipt provided

3. All I have is the xerox copies of the RC and insurance and a "delivery note" from the used car dealer

4. The insurance on the car expires on 29-Mar and I am sure there is no way the NOC will be provided in time and even if so, I cannot get it re-registered on my name before then in MH12

So now, my questions asking guidance are as below

1. How can I get the pending stuff (RC, Road tax receipt and the NOC) because this dealer is so extremely shady that I doubt he has the originals and even if he does he is not giving them to me for whatever reason. My plan was as below so maybe you can provide your thoughts
a. Go to Panvel RTO, find an agent and have him check if the NOC has been applied and if so what is the status etc.
b. If the NOC has not even been applied in the RTO, then track down the original owner based on the address in the RC xerox, check if they have the original RC and other documents with them. If so, problem solved, get it from them and apply NOC myself
c. If they also do not have the documents, then find out who (which dealer) they sold the car to in Mumbai and contact that guy to check if they have the documents. If so, again problem solved.
d. If none of the above, then file a police complaint for which I guess I have some grounds?? Maybe that the dealer in Pune promised documents but then has not provided so that is a kind of fraud?? Not sure.
e. If point-d is also not possible then I am really lost what I could do further

2. What can I do regarding the insurance. If I renew it will be on the original owner's name which will be useless if ever the blessed day comes when I get the car transferred to my name (I will anyway need insurance to even apply for re-registration in MH12)

As always your guidance will be great based on all the vast experiences in our lovely nation where I am sure many may have faced such hassles

Thanks
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Old 12th March 2018, 10:08   #915
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Re: ARTICLE: How to buy a *USED* Car in India

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Originally Posted by anand.shankar82 View Post
2. What can I do regarding the insurance. If I renew it will be on the original owner's name which will be useless if ever the blessed day comes when I get the car transferred to my name (I will anyway need insurance to even apply for re-registration in MH12)
Why do you want to re-register it to MH12? What's the issue in keeping it MH46? No one in Pune will have a problem you driving around with a MH46 reg car.

Also, since the RC name transfer will take longer than how long your insurance is valid, get it renewed. I'd imagine, insurance in previous owner's name is better than no insurance.

I have no advice on how you can retrieve the duplicate set of keys or the original RC. Water under the bridge but you shouldn't have taken delivery without everything being handed over. I'd suggest you keep the car MH46 and just get the RC transferred to your name.

Once the RC is in your name, it should be fairly easy to get the Insurance transferred.

Quote:
d. If none of the above, then file a police complaint for which I guess I have some grounds?? Maybe that the dealer in Pune promised documents but then has not provided so that is a kind of fraud?? Not sure.
You did not pursue this option earlier because the dealer threatened you. So, this is a non-starter. Talk to the local corporator perhaps?
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