Part Replacement Fraud at Mahindra Dahisar Workshop Please allow me to start with a little background. I am a fanatic when it comes to cars and it is this love for a good value for money SUV that drove me to buy the Mahindra XUV 5oo (W6). I believe it is an excellent car, and despite the various niggles reported on Team-Bhp and other forums, I went ahead and purchased the car the last month, i.e. July 2013.
It is after I purchased the car that the problems started. I discount the many different times I have had to visit the service centre to have the clutch / cylinder replaced, wipers replaced, window winders replaced, steering centred, seats aligned, door beading changed, among a slew of other things. I will state at this point that the staff at Goregaon, i.e.Baijo Thomas and team have been extremely cooperative. However, it is after I have made a visit to the G3 service centre at Dahisar that I have become really perturbed.
I had a little accident (where incidentally ABS did not work??) post which I gave the car to the Mahindra Dahisar workshop to carry out repairs and claim insurance. Work was completed (again delayed) and the car was handed over to me (I should tell you it was in a bad shape, i.e. extremely dirty). A couple of days later I notice that the entire centre console, i.e. from the usb and lighter point till the cooler, has actually been replaced in my car. So some mechanic had the audacity to steal the entire console from my brand new car and replace this with a console that was probably a couple of years old. I called up the service advisor (Shrikant) at G3 Dahisar immediately and was asked to take the vehicle to the workshop. I post-phone my travel and immediately take the vehicle to the workshop where Preyash, Shrikant and other staff inspect it. They checked my car, other cars (incidentally, even the shade of the unit that was replaced in my car was slightly different (faded) from the original shade of the panels in my car)and agree immediately that there has been mischief of some kind and promise to replace this entire unit immediately. They also had an immediate emergency meeting on the shop floor but were unable to pin down the culprit who has committed this act. They also claim to have no CCTV footage so they cannot check back. I leave the workshop with the promise that the entire console and assembly will be changed asap.
A week passes, and since nothing happened and nobody called me (I was following up with the advisor who always had the response that it would take 4-5 days more). Post a week, I decide to escalate to Poonam (AGM –G3 Kandivli - who has been very cooperative and helpful during our purchase). The day I send an email to Poonam I get a call from the service centre that the parts are ready and I should get the vehicle there. I again leave aside all my work and go to the service centre to get this done. I get a shock again when I am told that the centre console has come in but not the bezel assembly. So they open up the car, change the central console but leave the old bezel assembly so they have the pleasure of calling me one more time to the workshop. I am again promised it will take a couple of days more. Again, silence, and I again write to Poonam on Monday, i.e. 19th. (trailing emails) post which I get a message from Preyash (G3, Dahisar) that the bezel assembly is ready and I should go the workshop to install.
I understand this will be replaced and I will get a new part. I also understand from the service advisor that this console takes approximately 1 – 1.5 hours to remove and replace, so the person who did this in my car actually had the audacity and the inclination to commit this heinous act very calmly and without fear of being caught. This also points to complicity of other staff and possibly senior members in this fraud.
Now my worry is; if this visible part, that is not very expensive, has been changed, what else has been changed? There are a multitude of parts that are much more expensive, not visible and easier to remove and refit than the central console. I am sure that the workshop team, since they have not been able to stop this theft of the parts from my car will not be able to commit on the status of other parts in my car. I am a fanatic about my cars, and evidently am now paranoid now about what other mischief my car has been subjected to. Every creak and thud now makes me believe something else I cannot see has been stolen and replaced in my brand new car.
I refused to go to their workshop time and again to replace these stolen parts one by one, and finally they sent someone to my Chembur office to replace some of the parts they stole from my brand new car at their Dahisar workshop. The parts still have not been fixed to my satisfaction, and I also seem to be having an issue now with multiple other parts, which I am not sure is because they have been fraudulently replaced or are a part of the regular set of issues in the car.
The thoughts that cross my mind now are on returning the car to Mahindra and taking a complete refund (including all that I have spent on the car) / or replacing the car with a new car in which I hopefully will not have to go through the same level of issues.
I have written to Customer Care, and Sanjoy Gupta, Head of Customer Care and Head of the Automotive and Farm Division, Mr. Goenka. Two days have elapsed but I have no response from them, which has now made me really mad.
I now plan to take this up in the consumer court as well as get this published in a couple of newspapers. Mahindra should know how they are to treat their customers and not take them for granted.
Last edited by Eddy : 26th August 2013 at 12:54.
Reason: New Thread
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