[jalsa777]

Posting on behalf of a friend, she's a first time car buyer and has found herself in some dilemma.

A brief of the Issue:

1. Car booked from Concorde Motors and booking amount of Rs. 20,000 paid.
2. Concorde comes back and says registration cost has increased due to higher tax (legitimate claim, but they should have informed about it earlier)
3. Sales guy does not reply properly to queries. Refuses to send a new quote by email. Also, does not have proper details about the music system to be installed. Totally unprofessional behavior.
4. Irked by this response, friend calls Wasan Motors and asks for a quote. Lo and behold, its a Full Rs. 10,644 lower than Concorde, thats almost 4.3%. Also, accessory cost at Wasan is lower, so total savings increase even further.
5. We ask Concorde to cancel the booking and refund the booking amount less the cancellation charge of Rs. 2000 as mentioned in their quote.
6. Concorde says they have already made the invoice because we had promised them that we won't cancel the booking and went on to give her a cancellation charge of Rs. 10,000-15,000 as the invoice has already been prepared.

Advice needed:

• Please advice on further action. Are they right in saying that since an invoice is made they will charge extra for cancellation?
• How can an invoice be prepared without giving even the final quote (after tax increase)?
• Also, how is the difference in price so high between 2 dealers? Concorde Auto is owned by Tata Motors themselves, while Wasan is a private dealer. Am I missing something here?

Here are the details of the quotes:

[amtak]

In my experience, Wasan is way better (even if the car is NANO). Quite surprised to see the NANO touching 2.5 Lac mark (I guess i got mine for 2.3).

[TaurusAl]

Really sorry state of consumers in India. You should approach TATA directly and report the malpractice by the dealer. Usually the company intervenes in the issues like this one. Maruti does interfere and hope TATA does it too.

[S2!!!]

From my experience of working at a VW dealership, if you have just paid the booking amount and not the balance payment, you may cancel your booking anytime. If the car is invoiced by the company (which in this case it has), the cancellation charge levies but that too is a measly amount (anything between 1-3K) and 5-10K for cancellation seems too high.

Only and only once the balance payment is made and if the car has gone for registration may you lose the privilege to cancel. Even if the loan formalities are done by one dealer and if the car has not gone in for registration, one has the option of revoking the contract.

I'd suggest you to ask your friend to speak to the GM of Concorde directly and sternly asking for a full refund or else with the minimal cancellation charge and move on to Wasan or any other dealer offering a better deal.

[esteem_lover]

Until you pay the full amount, they will not make out any invoice, insist on seeing that invoice and check the date on it. TATA might have invoiced it to the dealer, he can always divert your car to the next in line. I am very sure without your full payment, no invoice will be made and the car will not be going for registration.

[ghodlur]

@jalsa bhai
+1 to all that esteem_lover said. The dealer is arm twisting your friend and taking her for a royal ride. No way the Invoicing is done before the final payment is done. Best way forward, write to tata motors and attach this thread link if needed.
Also suggest your friend to get the Insurance done from outside on her own, will save some additional money.

[jalsa777]

Originally Posted by esteem_lover

Until you pay the full amount, they will not make out any invoice, insist on seeing that invoice and check the date on it. TATA might have invoiced it to the dealer, he can always divert your car to the next in line. I am very sure without your full payment, no invoice will be made and the car will not be going for registration.

Originally Posted by ghodlur

@jalsa bhai
+1 to all that esteem_lover said. The dealer is arm twisting your friend and taking her for a royal ride. No way the Invoicing is done before the final payment is done. Best way forward, write to tata motors and attach this thread link if needed.
Also suggest your friend to get the Insurance done from outside on her own, will save some additional money.

Thanks guys.
I will be accompanying her to the Concorde showroom today and will let you'll know how things work out.

About the insurance, I got a quote of Rs. 6247 from outside. While that is cheaper than Concorde, it is slightly higher than Wasan.

[Palio_2005]

Concorde will not invoice the car unless the complete amount is received by them. So in short they are trying to pull a fast one. Max cancellation charges should not be more than 1000-2000 rs.

[jalsa777]

Firstly, there's a mistake in the price comparison table above. Will post the corrected version later.

Coming to the point, we went to the Concorde showroom and they had indeed invoiced the car. Also, on the booking form it was clearly mentioned that cancellation charge is Rs. 10,000. Against these facts, there was not much wriggle room we had. Also, consulted a friend from Skoda, and he said the price seemed proper given the cost of the car.

But the overall experience my friend had with them was very bad, and she had made up her mind not to the buy the car from them. She had to call multiple times for small details and the sales executive had been rude to her.

So, as the difference between Wasan and Concorde was approx. Rs. 8000, we decided to pay up the Rs. 10,000 cancellation charge and headed to wasan directly. Paid the full amount and made the booking. Net loss was Rs. 2000 but peace of mind is more important, right?

[motomaverick]

Concorde Motors pricing has always been 4-5% more than what other dealers offer, i dont know why or how. As an e.g. for my Manza I bought it for 7.65 OTR from Prerana here in Bangalore while for the same variant and month make Concorde were quoting almost 60k more on the OTR price.

Yes, peace of mind is really important so its good you guys went to the other showroom. Also consider the lower price of Wassan the effect of the 10k loss wasnt that much.

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by jalsa777

So, as the difference between Wasan and Concorde was approx. Rs. 8000, we decided to pay up the Rs. 10,000 cancellation charge and headed to wasan directly. Paid the full amount and made the booking. Net loss was Rs. 2000 but peace of mind is more important, right?

Good choice. I think someone in Concorde has made a blunder and Invoiced the car, it does not happen in any showroom.