[Dieseling]

Hi,

I'm buying a Swift Vxi (ABS). I have gone through the thread and I had few questions or rather, confirmations to my understanding related to the whole car buying process:

1. After booking the car, when dealer says it is ready for delivery, I can and should go to the yard and do a Pre-registration check, now down the engine and chassis number. Correct?

2. If I do not find car upto my expectation, I can ask for a different car/ cancel my registration. Correct?

3. If all goes well, on the day of the delivery, apart from the usual PDI as mentioned superbly in this thread (thanks GTO !), I should cross check the engine and chassis details with the ones in step 1. Correct?

4. At this stage also, if anything goes wrong, I do have the full right of refusal to take the final delivery and sign the registration papers?

5. Insurance and Car Loan - I can get from outside, if i find a better deal (I know this is true, just jotting down as part of the process)

6. RTO Registration - I do not want to pay the bribe, I can get this done on my own (one of my friend's dad is an inspector in traffic police ). So my question is:
a. Is this possible or do I have to go through the damn dealer only?
b. If it is indeed possible, what are the steps and paperwork/ footwork
to be done?

Thanks in advance,

Dieseling

[sachinj12]

Originally Posted by Dieseling

Hi,

I'm buying a Swift Vxi (ABS). I have gone through the thread and I had few questions or rather, confirmations to my understanding related to the whole car buying process:

1. After booking the car, when dealer says it is ready for delivery, I can and should go to the yard and do a Pre-registration check, now down the engine and chassis number. Correct?

Right you are.

2. If I do not find car upto my expectation, I can ask for a different car/ cancel my registration. Correct?

Yes.

3. If all goes well, on the day of the delivery, apart from the usual PDI as mentioned superbly in this thread (thanks GTO !), I should cross check the engine and chassis details with the ones in step 1. Correct?

Yes.

4. At this stage also, if anything goes wrong, I do have the full right of refusal to take the final delivery and sign the registration papers?

Sign form 20 after the 1st PDI. Once you sign this, you can't reject the car and ask for a different one. Signing form 20 means you are accepting this piece.

5. Insurance and Car Loan - I can get from outside, if i find a better deal (I know this is true, just jotting down as part of the process)

Yes, but the dealer will try all sort of tricks as he has a % in this.

6. RTO Registration - I do not want to pay the bribe, I can get this done on my own (one of my friend's dad is an inspector in traffic police ). So my question is:
a. Is this possible or do I have to go through the damn dealer only?
b. If it is indeed possible, what are the steps and paperwork/ footwork
to be done?

Can be done, please search the forum, there is a thread on this step by step procedure.

Thanks in advance,

Dieseling

Congrats on the car, happy motoring.

[Dieseling]

Originally Posted by sachinj12

Congrats on the car, happy motoring.

Thanks ! after lot of contemplation, TDs, rejections, internal emotional conflicts, I have settled for a Swift VDi. To hell with Maruti for it's all money no value car in terms of features but what the heck, engine is awesome, responds superbly and the car is a pleasure to drive.

[sachinj12]

Originally Posted by Dieseling

Thanks ! after lot of contemplation, TDs, rejections, internal emotional conflicts, I have settled for a Swift VDi. To hell with Maruti for it's all money no value car in terms of features but what the heck, engine is awesome, responds superbly and the car is a pleasure to drive.

You will change yor opinion in a short time (read few months). I am a standing example for that

[ancientmariner]

Originally Posted by sachinj12

Sign form 20 after the 1st PDI. Once you sign this, you can't reject the car and ask for a different one. Signing form 20 means you are accepting this piece.

Though this is highly recommended, I accidentally happened to sign this form while I was processing my loan. Then during the PDI found that my car was a 2009 model, so rejected it right away. I then called up the loan guy and informed him to NOT hand over the form 20 to the dealer unless I give him a go ahead. Well I guess the loan guy was a gentleman ( he belonged to the dealership though). Finally when I got the car I was looking for, he called me up to check if the form 20 should be given to the dealer.

[sachinj12]

Originally Posted by ancientmariner

Though this is highly recommended, I accidentally happened to sign this form while I was processing my loan. Then during the PDI found that my car was a 2009 model, so rejected it right away. I then called up the loan guy and informed him to NOT hand over the form 20 to the dealer unless I give him a go ahead. Well I guess the loan guy was a gentleman ( he belonged to the dealership though). Finally when I got the car I was looking for, he called me up to check if the form 20 should be given to the dealer.

Well, all I can say is you are extremely fortunate. They know most of us fall for these things. Once form 20 is handed over they would say it's already registered. You see, Customer's Ignorance is their Bliss

[Dieseling]

Originally Posted by sachinj12

You will change yor opinion in a short time (read few months). I am a standing example for that

In what respect? kindly clarify, would like to know about your experience.

[raj_5004]

Is there any excel sheet as such which we can use for PDI?

[rishab.k]

Originally Posted by raj_5004

Is there any excel sheet as such which we can use for PDI?

Just write the word 'excel' & search this thread.You will find it.

[raj_5004]

thanks buddy, i got it. i googled & i found the link!

[theragingbull]

Mumbai folks, I have a doubt.
I'll be getting my VW Polo in the next few days. I live in Bandra but the registration of the vehicle will be for Navi-Mumbai as I have a house there too. So the dealer is saying that my car will come registered from there to the VW Downtown showroom. That means I'll not be able to do a PDI myself since the car cannot travel from Navi-Mumbai to downtown w/o registration. But he says the they have people who'll do the PDI themselves.
So should I leave it to them for doing the PDI?

[sohail99]

^ I would always recommend a personal PDI from your side!(strict one too)

Even them claiming that 'they'll do the PDI' should get you all suspicious!

As far as PDI is concerned, trust no one but yourself!(and the PDI checklist provided here! )

[Thad E Ginathom]

Absolutely. Putting Dracula in charge of the bloodbank is the analogy!

[Dr.AD]

Hello All,

I have booked a Maruti SX4-ZXi, and went to the stockyard today for a PDI.

I was not allowed to drive the vehicle, so I could not check anything related to driving and sounds during motion etc. But I did a visual inspection and everything looked fine. Based on the chassis number, the car is manufactured in July 2010 and I am pretty happy about that.

Now some specific questions. It will be great if the experts could please help me out:

1. The engine had a sticker with the date of 14-July-2010. The person at the stockyard said this is the date of the engine assembly. There was transit receipt (a small piece of paper) in the car with the name of the driver and the date of 16-July-2010. So the person said that the engine was installed on July 14 and the car was sent out in truck on July 16th and it reached Bangalore today. Does this all make sense or something is missing?

2. Three out of four tyres (JK Vectra) had a code of *2610*, which I guess means manufactured in 26th week of 2010. But one (front right) had a code of 2110, which means manufactured in 21st week of 2010. The person there again said this is normal and in some cars all 5 tyres come with different dates. Is this normal?

3. The car had only 6 km on the ODO (6.2 km on both the tripmeters. The ODO does not show decimals, so it just had 6 on the ODO). I am again happy about it, but my question is that is it too less than normal? I had heard numbers like 50km to be normal. So it this too good to be true? Anything fishy?

4. All I could check was starting the engine, and it sounded much louder than any SX4 engines in my several test drives. It was idling at 1200 RPM. I could not wait too long to check if it settles down, which I guess it should. Is this normal again? I now realized that in all my test drives, the engine was already hot and I never did a true cold start. This one was a real cold start, and the person there again claimed this is just normal for a cold start.

5. Now if I say OK, I need to sign form 20 and then I can't change anything. So the next PDI during deliver day (as mentioned in this article) will be when the vehicle is already registered and won't it be too late to do anything anyway? So what is my normal course of action now? Should I go ahead and make the payment and show up in 2 days for delivery and take whatever is there?

Thanks in advance for your answers and help on this!

Thanks,
-AD

[spadix]

First of all, congratulations! The SX4 is one great VFM car and I'm sure you'll enjoy owning/driving it and mainly Maruti's outstanding service especially to their top-end vehicles. Good choice with the ZXi variant as well.

I'm no expert, but I'll use common sense and some experience to answer *some* of your questions.

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Now some specific questions. It will be great if the experts could please help me out:

1. ... So the person said that the engine was installed on July 14 and the car was sent out in truck on July 16th and it reached Bangalore today. Does this all make sense or something is missing?

In my case, my new Civic was despatched from the factory on 19th July and will reach the stockyard day after tomorrow, apparently. Considering that Marutis also come from the NCR, I think the timing is OK.

Also, it doesn't take long at all to put together a car in a mechanized factory. MUL produces many hundreds of cars a day of the particular model that their lines are set up to produce on that day. So I wouldn't worry if I were you.

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

3. The car had only 6 km on the ODO (6.2 km on both the tripmeters. The ODO does not show decimals, so it just had 6 on the ODO). I am again happy about it, but my question is that is it too less than normal? I had heard numbers like 50km to be normal. So it this too good to be true? Anything fishy?

The car is driven from the stockyard to the showroom before it's handed over to you. Find out how far away your dealer's stockyard is from the showroom. That should put this doubt to rest.

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

4. ... I now realized that in all my test drives, the engine was already hot and I never did a true cold start. This one was a real cold start, and the person there again claimed this is just normal for a cold start.

The one time I noticed this phenomenon was in really cold weather, obviously. The ECU in this Ford Focus I rented for a month in Boston in March 2007 (meaning really cold weather at least for the first half of the month) used to rev up the engine for the first couple of minutes after a cold start.

Considering Bengaluru in the monsoons (pretty cold, although not sub-freezing - which was the case in my example) I wouldn't be too surprised. But please cross-check with other SX4 owners.

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

5. Now if I say OK, I need to sign form 20 and then I can't change anything. So the next PDI during deliver day (as mentioned in this article) will be when the vehicle is already registered and won't it be too late to do anything anyway? So what is my normal course of action now? Should I go ahead and make the payment and show up in 2 days for delivery and take whatever is there?

This is the question even I have. I guess one good reason to do a PDI here is to get the dealer to acknowledge that something happened to the car *while it was still in his hands*. Once you drive the car out, any damage you notice later on will be attributed to you only. This is especially true if you go for after-market accessory fitments.

So take a good hard look before you are formally handed the keys over, and take pictures (in their presence) of anything you find for good measure, if they aren't willing to accept responsibility for it on the spot.

By the way, even Honda refuses to let the unloaded car be taken out for a spin. So that's one part of the personal PDI that I won't be able to do.

I guess they are much more worried about liability to consumers than we are about being given a lemon. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Regards,
spadix