Team-BHP - ARTICLE: Pre-delivery Inspection (PDI) & Check List

Quote:

Originally Posted by ishan (Post 2108188)

I bought a ford figo last week :) I'm glad i had read this thread before and went for a PDI before buying the car.

And we are glad it was of help to you :)

Quote:

To his utter shock they were handing him the car that was on display at the showroom for atleast a month (it could be a lot more). Initially the dealer was not ready to accept that this is the car that they had on display at the showroom but me and my cousin were absolutely convinced. Here are a few obvious points:

The odometer reading was 68Kms (which may sound ok) but the reading on my car which i bought last week from the same dealer was 8Kms!.
No new car smell.
Scratches all over the music system
No plastic covers on the seat or the music system.
A rear spoiler which is not part of the standard deal. The car which we saw in the showroom also had a rear spoiler as an extra accessory.
Finally, we went back to the showroom and saw that there was a different colour on display (the delivery center is on a different location from the showroom).

The dealer in question here is NCR ford Delhi. They have some nerve, passing off the display car as a new one. The dealer has accepted that it was indeed the display car and now my cousin is waiting for his car to arrive from chennai.

Precisely why we insist on doing the PDI before the car is registered in your name. Most dealers are scoundrels!

Quote:

Originally Posted by spyking (Post 2124011)

hey!

Just going to do a PDI on our i20,

one small doubt, what is the tax percentage in TN? The website says 8% whereas the dealer is quoting 10% (80k totally) for the registration..

Any pointers?
thanks!

Spyking,
From my recent experience in buying a new car following are to be noted:

1. Please ask the dealer for detailed breakup of the lump-sum cost quoted for registration, road tax and other "incidentals". This is the area in which the dealers love to loot the customers.
2. In my understanding in TN for cars with ex-show room price less than 10 lakhs, the life time tax is 10% of the ex-show room cost. Please check the ex-show room cost from all the dealers and it should be the same. It was 8% sometime back, but recently the Govt raised to 10% to fund the free TV and other social projects !
3. Also please note that there are several instances in which the dealer pays less than 10% as road tax (using their methods with RTO) but claim 10% from Customers. In such case you have to tell the dealer in advance that in case of any discrepancy in the amount paid, the difference should be refunded in cash (not as accessories which are extremely overpriced)
4. Now the balance of 80K is basically unofficial money taken from the Customer under various heads. For this you have 2 options, one is to negotiate an equivalent cash discount (which would be probably very difficult) or demand accessories worth equal or more than the difference value.
5. Of course there are some genuine charges that you should provide for such as official RTO forms and fees (Max 250), and 5 or 10 litres of petrol that may be given by the dealer at the time of delivery and of course some "incidental" charges at the RTO. All the above are couple of hundreds and will not be in thousands of rupees.
6. It would be very difficult to negotiate the RTO charges as the dealers make a killing in this and will not easily give up especially for cars that are in huge demand. However you may please try as much as possible.
7. Another area of looting by the dealers is the first year insurance. Though they insist to get this done through them, you always have the right to get it done by your choice. The bone of contention here is the discount offered by the insurance companies on the premium.
8. The IDV of the car is 95% of the showroom cost and the basic premium is a fixed by IRDA, I think it is 3.283% of the show room cost. Now after this premium is calculated a discount is applied which will not be usually disclosed by the dealer. The discount can be 20% minimum and can go as much higher as you can negotiate. Please take care of this. After this other charges such as 3rd party, PA cover, Service tax etc., are standard and nothing much can be changed. However if your car has anti-theft device or you are a member of AAI, then there is some discount on the premium as well.
9. If you are going through finance, please check for all the details of the costs that you are agreeing to pay for
10. So please go through the costs in minute detail and finally you may have to settle for some numbers with the dealers, but with the full knowledge that you are willing to give them much money.
11. Finally it would be very distracting to negotiate these things with so much of excitement of buying a new car and the showroom ambience, with family members around and such other things. My advise would be write down all the points to be discussed and go through one by one patiently.

Hope this information was useful. I am planning to write these items in a detail and put up as a thread to be read along with the PDI check list.

HC

Thanks HC for the detailed pointers!

I have already negotiated on the insurance front and have got a 7.5k discount (cash!)

The regration/lifetax/safetytax is claimed to work out to 80k.

Here is the rough breakup that the dealer gave me today

Lifetax@10% on exshowroom =69,734Rs
Safety Tax = 1,500Rs
Registration Charges = 1,500Rs
Diesel/Driver bata = 500Rs
Number plate charges = 1000Rs
So that totals to about 74234k
Which means the dealer is taking about 6k a further 1k goes of as rto bribe he said, leaving 5k..

We decided that the 5k is okay, as it beats the fuss of getting the vehicle registered by ourselves..

Okay, one more small thing, I noticed this scratch during PDI.. while my dad and the salesman said is was only surface damage and will be removed for sure when they do the polish/teflon coat, I had second thoughts about the same and was in-fact almost about to agree to get a different older ( one month at the yard) vehicle allotted instead. But finally decided against it as that had been invoiced to someone already.
Is is a minor scratch? or is it something to be worried about?

Quote:

Originally Posted by spyking (Post 2124303)

Thanks HC for the detailed pointers!

I have already negotiated on the insurance front and have got a 7.5k discount (cash!)

The regration/lifetax/safetytax is claimed to work out to 80k.

Here is the rough breakup that the dealer gave me today

Lifetax@10% on exshowroom =69,734Rs

Make sure that you get the above value mentioned in the RC, otherwise you have to get back the difference in cash from the dealer.

Safety Tax = 1,500Rs
Registration Charges = 1,500Rs
Diesel/Driver bata = 500Rs
Number plate charges = 1000Rs
So that totals to about 74234k
Which means the dealer is taking about 6k a further 1k goes of as rto bribe he said, leaving 5k..

We decided that the 5k is okay, as it beats the fuss of getting the vehicle registered by ourselves..

Okay, one more small thing, I noticed this scratch during PDI.. while my dad and the salesman said is was only surface damage and will be removed for sure when they do the polish/teflon coat, I had second thoughts about the same and was in-fact almost about to agree to get a different older ( one month at the yard) vehicle allotted instead. But finally decided against it as that had been invoiced to someone already.
Is is a minor scratch? or is it something to be worried about?

Spyking,
Lifetax@10% on exshowroom =69,734Rs

Make sure that you get the above value mentioned in the RC, otherwise you have to get back the difference in cash from the dealer.

Safety Tax = 1,500Rs
I am not aware of this, if you can get an official receipt to your satisfaction, it is OK, otherwise do as stated above.

Registration Charges = 1,500Rs
Diesel/Driver bata = 500Rs
All inclusive charges (reg, diesel, any other incidentals to RTO or the dealer) should be negotiated to be less than 1500 in my consideration.
There are no guidelines, but your judgment it is

Number plate charges = 1000Rs
usually number plate, foot mats, mudflaps are given free either by the car company or by the dealer.
Are you asking for any special number from RTO or some special type of number plate that the dealer is asking for money?

So that totals to about 74234k
Which means the dealer is taking about 6k a further 1k goes of as rto bribe he said, leaving 5k..
Please refer to RTO incidentals answered above. 1k for RTO is way too much.

We decided that the 5k is okay, as it beats the fuss of getting the vehicle registered by ourselves..
In my consideration you should consider asking for cash discount or equivalent accessories for about 9,000 Rs.
Have you negotiated any accessories such as sunfilm, alloys, body cover,or any other useful thing to you.
Please don't fall for the "Teflon" coating that is being pushed by the dealers and refer to several threads in T-BHP.

Okay, one more small thing, I noticed this scratch during PDI.. while my dad and the salesman said is was only surface damage and will be removed for sure when they do the polish/teflon coat, I had second thoughts about the same and was in-fact almost about to agree to get a different older ( one month at the yard) vehicle allotted instead. But finally decided against it as that had been invoiced to someone already.
Is is a minor scratch? or is it something to be worried about?

From the photo it looks like a small scratch to me, but please check whether it is deep.
If it is not deep, then it can be made good by some rubbing and polishing.
Besides if you are fully satisfied with the car for all other things using T-BHP check list as well as your own evaluation, I think some small scratch can be ignored.
In fact when I bought my vehicles, there was at least 1 such small thing that I knew but accepted it as some kind of "charm"
Finally it is your choice.
Hope this was some use to you.

HC

Quote:

Originally Posted by spyking (Post 2124512)

Here is the deal we got..

Ex-showroom - 6,97,134
Insurance - 17,995 ( list price is 25,000)
Registration - 80,000
Freebies - Mats/Flaps, Sunfilm(Garware), Teflon coat, Anti Rust, Seat covers
All the dealers keep insisting that they are no discounts for the i20, and most ppl I know who have got it + Tbhp threads seem to reinforce this! So pretty happy with the deal we cut!

The scratch wasn't deep at all.. And it was on the fiber part of the bumper.. so I think we shall let it go..

It was raining today and the car was at the yard, so couldn't do a through PDI, But the dealer agreed to let us do a complete check (Put the car up on the jack and check out the under body too!) while the coating/sunfilm work is being done :)

Spyking,
The insurance seems to be a good deal with 30% discount.
Since there are no specific details of the freebies, it is not possible to quantify the value, however if you consider them to be equivalent to about 9,000 Rs, then it is a good deal.
Please take care that you get the promised values entered either in the RC book or as officially valid receipt.
Please reconsider the "teflon" coating and try to exchange for something better, T-BHP posts on this will help you understand this.

HC

Quote:

Originally Posted by Habanero City (Post 2124811)

Since we are getting the top end model, I couldn't think of any other accessories as the car comes with fogs and all the other accessories..

All in all happy with the deal, we do know that can save about 5k more, but mom and dad don't wont to peruse it as they have had enough it seems :P

Freebies would be something like this

Anti rust -1.5k
Sunfilm - 2k
Seat covers - 3k
Teflon - 1.5k

and regarding teflon, just getting it because it's free!

Shall do a full proper PDI on Wednesday right before delivery :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by spyking (Post 2124861)

Make sure that the so called 'teflon' they are doing is a simple polishing job!

If they take out heavy duty 3m compounds, sanding discs etc. Just tell them not to do it!

If possible, do a through paint inspection under sunlight and look at the paint so that you can see the surface of the paint!!

Excessive orange peel effect/texture of the paint surface = repainted panel!

Basically, the act of polishing the paint is referred by them as 'Teflon coating'

There is no coating as such!

Sometimes, these guys use 3M cutting compound on new paint with a rotary polisher!!

To be honest, a factory paint if not scratched or damaged in any way doesn't need compounding!!

Moreover, factory paint is thin as its baked at high temperatures and what a cutting compound is doing, is removing the upper layers of clearcoat.(Don't worry, its not much. But its basically unnecessary on factory paint)

+ they use a wool pad most of the times(do confirm with them) and that is like the most aggressive pad on a rotary polisher!

(A compound and wool pad on a rotary polisher are ONLY used to remove sanding scratches in case the panel/paint is being refinished after a repaint job! One can also use that combo to remove serious scratches)

Just make sure they don't use any kind of compound on it! (also, a rotary polisher in the hands of a newbie guy is literally tragic!

If you decide on getting the 'teflon coating' done, then make sure its done in your presence and make sure they keep the polisher moving on the panel. If the polisher is kept rotating at one point on the paint there is a huge risk of paint burn through. This risk is even higher on factory paint as the CC layer is thin. )

If they are using a orbital polisher or dual action polisher, then there's no risk of any paint damage!

For maintainance, you just need a paint sealant(/wax)

I've heard Zaino products produce an awesome shine on silver paints!

I had booked my scoprio from Bora Auto in Pune. Went to the stock yard to select the vehicle.To my disbelief I saw almost all the brand new scorpios driven more than 275 Kms, and all of them had "pan" stains all over the driver door. As they say curiosity kills the cat, I went and asked the manager - he said that the cars are directly driven from Nashik plant since that turns out cheaper - what worried me is that the drivers normally do not care about the running in period and go way beyond the recommended rpm, which will definitely cause problems later. I raised my concern and the manger told me that - I will get my car from the container. I paid the initial booking amount and told him that the final amount and the registration will be done only when I see the container receipt and the odometer reading.

On the delivery day - the manager called me and said that he car has arrived and will delivery it at home. I had told him that I will accept the delivery only at day time (since it was 9:30 pm that day). I went to the showroom the next day and to my horror - I saw that the vehicle had crossed 1300 kms on the odo - extremely dirty. I told him that I am not accepting the vehicle, as I had mentioned earlier - there was no receipt of the container. The manger pretended as if he knew nothing and told me that "he will get back to me". He then told me that since the colour that I needed was available in Ahmedabad , he had transported it from Ahmedabad - and had DRIVEN it all the way !!

Throughly disappointed, I called a meeting with Mr Bora itself and then told him to either delivery as per my requirements or cancel the booking. He immediately apologized and promised me to deliver the car as promised in the next 15 days - directly from the Nashik plant with all the documents - which he did - also gave me the bullguard, seat covers , side steps.

The predelivery checklist helped me in nailing the errant manager.