[narayan]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

The number may be small relatively, yes, but there is definitely an upward trend.

Fully agree. Noted a few other recently reported in the forum along with a few on Toyota as well.

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Not really.

~ 3250 service centers for Maruti, ~1300 for Hyundai, ~650 for TATA, ~250 for Ford. Maruti probably manages more service centers than all the others, combined.

CD - the # of service centers seen in isolation hardly matters. If Maruti has 3250 service centers, they probably have a good # of employees in the service division having oversight on them. The question is, what is going wrong now that a lot of incidents are getting reported ?

Originally Posted by Lone Ranger

One huge advantage of the digital age

Valid point. Digital age has made it easy for the affected parties to report such incidents and the cost of getting the attention of the concerned service providers is almost zero unlike the earlier times when the service provider just may not have responded to you in the manner they do now.


On a different note, I do appreciate the vigor and timeliness with which the dealer management and Maruti regional office owned up the issue and reached out the the customer. In the India context, I still feel this is superlative service and I am sure this dealer and the entire Maruti network will have some tough days ahead in terms of new processes and compliance initiatives.

[Durango Dude]

@ROG_AK: You've become an internet sensation of sorts and your video is trending on You Tube, courtsey Mandovi and Maruti! Sit back, Relax and bask in the lime light!

[Majumdarda]

I have observed the same level of servicing (or lack of servicing) be it on my Bajaj Pulsar, Royal Enfield or Renault Kwid?

Companies, on one hand states that there will be no warranty support if any servicing is done at some outside location, not approved by the company (Service center) "and" on the other hand, its these service centers and their so called highly trained resources who actually "kill your car"!

Yes, I also go to the service center, not because I wish to, but because I am forced to. Yes, I was also cheated during my first servicing, wherein they had mixed plain water in the coolant compartment, and when I showed them proof of their act, they quickly apologized and emptied the compartment, and filled it with fresh coolant, from a sealed box. And yes, their behavior has not changed towards other cars.

These days, when I visit the service center, I see the service manager doing frequent rounds and the boys know me pretty well. But has their attitude changed towards their work? In front of me I have seen other cars where in water (distilled water I hope for the best) is filled in, engine oil replaced without flushing etc.

There is no problem with the manufacturers. They have set up their shops to cater to the need of the customers. Its these service centers who actually make or break a business; at least play a commendable role definitely.

I think its high time, that manufacturers start taking stringent actions against these dealerships/service centers, so that the fear starts looming at the back of their mind. Else, all these apologies and goodies (if any) are just eye wash.

[ROG_AK]

Mandovi Motors makes an official statement on the video.

Dear Patron,

We are thankful for sharing your feedback and at the very outset apologise for the inconvenience caused in this regard. We completely understand that this incident has led to many questions in the mind of our valued customers of Mandovi Motors and would like to take this opportunity to share something with all Maruti Suzuki Car Owners:-
1. Being authorised workshop of Maruti Suzuki our moto is to ensure Customer Satisfaction & Customer Obsession through our expert manpower and high service standards. With our immense efforts and regular hard work we have earned huge goodwill and reputation within the country.
2. As mandated by Maruti Suzuki, there is an exhaustive standard process for carrying services at all Maruti Authorised Workshops including Mandovi Motors which containsstringent list of checkpoints to be ensured at every stage of service. In this case our service executive inadvertently overlooked the process which resulted into dissatisfaction towards the services.
3. However, we would like to assure that the vehicle underwent final inspection before being cleared for delivery and the deviation in the inspection process was swiftly addressed. In this regard a satisfaction note was executed in favour of the workshop which stands testimony to the services rendered by Mandovi Motors.
4. We once again thank you for your valuable feedback and we assure that the necessary corrective steps have already been taken to resolve this error. We also assure all our patrons nothing short of world-class service from hereon.

Best Regards
Mandovi Motors Pvt Ltd

[sandeepmohan]

This may sound like I am supporting the dealer. I am not and you never expect this from the No.1 car company in India.

I am beginning to wonder if it is the scale of operations that causes such problems. Also; I am a not a believer of the "Free" service concept that almost every car company offers. Sounds attractive and probably the reason why we end up with scenarios like this. You pay for consumables and I believe you must pay for labor too. After all, a mechanic is attending to your car.

I bet a large scale Maruti Suzuki service center like Mandovi, Bimal attend to no less than 200 cars a day on average and that is being conservative. Is the mechanic going to have the time to look at fifty different things on the check list in the way they are supposed to? I know they should and this is standard practise everywhere. What are they up against in order to do it? Is it getting the car out of the door asap or going through that check list in detail? The former would be my guess.

Curious to know the actual number of cars that each of these large scale service centers attend to. How many cars a day, how many man hours/car, time/task, are there targets for each mechanic to deliver X numbers of cars/day, etc. For a car company that averages no less than 120k cars a month on sales, the service stations must be operating under immense pressure. It is going to come to a phase where service centers will need to operate round the clock.

[Sebring]

Before buying Tata Nexon I met the service in charge at Aadya. Asked him if they object to customers being around and if he has any issue accepting engine oil that I get from outside. Only after he said 'yes' did I proceed. Had a bad experience regarding engine oil at Advaith Hyundai, which I wont repeat.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by ROG_AK

Mandovi Motors makes an official statement on the video.


So they took so long to find a reply which they could copy paste? I think the damage is done, and they will have a hard time with it. Leave that, they also said that you have signed the satisfaction note - Does that mean from next time I sign the note only after reviewing the dashcam footage and if not they will provide video evidence that something was done on the car?

Of course, it isnt a big deal in this case since it was the second service. I hope they would not do the same with a detailed service. The reply was not a good one IMO.

[asingh1977]

By reply 3: Are they not just denying it, and brooming it under the rug. Just because they owned up (but each time in a conniving fashion asked for media deletion), and were apologetic: Does not exonerate them. That reply is watered down, and realization has not seeped in. Translates to: We are the market leader, can treat clients in any which way, we deem wish.

Is it difficult to comprehend, people can be gravely hurt or killed -- due to lacklustre service. For starters: All the technicians who agreed to those false tick marks, should have been fired. Including the SA.

That reply is useless, and sterile.

[Desi Dybuk]

Originally Posted by ROG_AK

Mandovi Motors makes an official statement on the video.

Forgive my french, but their statement is a whole load of animal refuse. Lacks even a bit of contriteness. They assume that by using big fluffy words in their statement they can put an end to this exposure of their cheating.

Let us try to deal with their points one-by-one

Point 1: Just their marketing fluff, filled with words about their 'Customer Obsession' and 'Expert Manpower & High Service Standards'. Yeah, copied & pasted from a brochure.

Point 2: Even more fluffy sentences about 'Exhaustive Standard practices mandated by Maruti' with supposedly 'stringent list of checkpoints'. They do slip in a word about 'inadvertent' overlooking of checklist by their SA.
Yeah, right! Inadvertent! From the video, it is apparent that this wasn't inadvertent but deliberate.

Point 3: Even more fluffy sentences with big but incoherent words about Mandovi

Point 4: Here they promise to be better from now on.


I deal with marketing spiel everyday & it is obvious from Mandovi's statement that they believe that by using big words & cloaking their kinda-sorta apology within their fluffy marketing drivel, they think they can get away from this scandal. I didn't see a sincere mea culpa in this. Mandovi's management believes that they are only sorry that they got caught.

Maruti needs to make an example out of Mandovi. Shut their operations down permanently or shut it down for 6 months. Speak to the management in the only language they understand: Money. Shutting Mandovi down for 6 months would ensure that the ensuing financial pain would be sufficient to dissuade them from doing this again & would serve as a warning to others.

[trek]

Originally Posted by ROG_AK

Mandovi Motors makes an official statement on the video.

I hate these kind of cookie cutter corporate jargon. They can't even address a person by name, for God's sake you are dealing with a human being not some robot!

Cut the extra filler word crap and address the person like in a normal human conversation.

They didn't even write the name of an individual person from Mandovi, the letter should have been written and signed by ideally the General Manager or Owner of Mandovi.

[arindambasu13]

Originally Posted by ROG_AK

Mandovi Motors makes an official statement on the video.

Utter and absolute hogwash! I mean, even a single sentence of this narrative and so called apology carries a shred of conviction. This is the same kind of marketing jargon that one sees day in and day out, and is nothing but a copy-paste job from their archives which are no doubt kept ready for eventualities of this nature.

I must say that this incident would have shaken the faith of many a Maruti loyalist, and that includes myself. In fact, the strongest perceived point of Maruti was their solid service network and service quality, and this shakes the very foundation of that notion. This requires a much higher level of intervention, from the company (Maruti) itself, who should clearly articulate as to what steps they are going to take against an errant dealer like this. This is the only action which would make other dealers sit up and take notice. Who knows- this sort of callousness might be rampant across service centres across the country!

[isandy]

Originally Posted by Brumby

Recently went to the same MASS for a 6-monthly service, estimate was given around INR 2200 (it was a general service without any oil change or any issues). I informed the advisor that I will wait and take the car after the service is completed. I waited for 2 hrs for the car to come into the service bay, there were a lot of cars and the service advisor kept insisting that I must come later at around 4-5 pm and the car will be ready. I bluntly replied that I don't want to pay INR 2200 for washing and asked them to return my car without service

This exactly same thing happening at Tata Motors service centers at concorde and Prerana in Bangalore. Recently I booked for service appointment asking for early morning slot and when I went on time and told I will wait, enitre team from person taking car for service to customer care incharge come and advise me not to wait as they have huge backlog of cars and can deliver car only in evening at 5. Not sure if this is true.

[Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by ROG_AK

At least if the car had entered the workshop after the wash, I would have given the benefit out of the doubt to them and not posted this.

ROG_AK, as a few others have stated, I really appreciate the way you are handling the entire issue. It would have been quite easy for you (and to your personal benefit as well) to take the video down and get a few assurances from the service centre in terms of personalized attention for your vehicle from now on etc. And they would have gone the extra mile for you considering how quickly the issue escalated within their organization. Instead you chose to attack the broader issue without making extreme statements or conclusions.

On a related note, I was extremely irritated when I saw the reported article on news18, specifically this sentence "took his car to Maruti Suzuki service centre in Mumbai to claim his second free service and to ensure better servicing of the car, the owner installed a small camera on the dashboard" - full story on this link http://www.news18.com/news/auto/maru...e-1548021.html
The article gets a couple of things seriously wrong 1) It clearly implies that you fixed the camera specifically to check how the service went. Nowhere in your post is that even mentioned. My reading of the situation is that the person who wrote that news18 article read the word 'dashcam', didn't know what it really is, and jumped happily over the clear line between reporting and "jump to whatever conclusion suits the story". It would have taken the person 10 seconds to google what a dashcam was and that just because it is called a dashcam does not mean it is fitted on the dashboard!
2) The service centre is shifted from Bangalore to Mumbai for whatever reason. If Mandovi had had operations in Mumbai I can imagine that service centre manager having a really miserable diwali!
It just makes you pause and think that if a news report can get these things wrong from a clearly worded written post, how much of stuff they can get wrong when the communication is verbal. While in this case and context, the above two mistakes are not earth shattering (especially since we had the benefit of reading your post in team bhp first), this is an observation about the news media at large, and why we must be very careful if we are making decisions based on what we read in the papers. In the same vein, in the event that news media want to speak with you, I suggest you tell them to just check for updates on this thread

[sgmuser]

First kudos to your stand even after multiple multiple requests. Shows your grit.

Second, couldn't write off this as one off as the entire chain of stakeholders should be hold responsible including Maruti who does not know how to measure quality of the service provided to customers. They should have a process control and check points to make sure the dealer abide by the standards/procedures set by.

Lastly, most of the auto dealers are questionable in their integrity not just in India, the world over. In India its more common across brands. How many went unnoticed, only God knows! Maruti will hardly do anything as for them this is just one off (which came out!) and they will look for ways to push Dzire to 50k a month.

[arjab]

Free services were always a sham in India. Owner's are forced to take their new vehicles to authorised service stations because unless they get the free services stamped on the service booklet, the new car warranty will not hold.

The main reason for paying scant attention to free services, where the vehicle does not have any complaints, (hence dealer cannot raise any warranty claims), is because the monetary compensation given by manufacturers to dealers for free services are abysmally low. Its in three digits - low three digits! Thus the dealers are simply not interested to do anything.
The moment a service becomes "paid" the dealer perks up as he has spotted a potential milch cow and if the vehicle owner is not very tech savvy, all the better for the dealer.

Also Maruti dealer workshops were never outstanding for their fault diagnostic ability. The main advantage of Maruti dealerships in India is the reach and spread of the Maruti dealer network and the more or less adequate stocks of fast moving spare parts stocked by them.

Not quality of diagnosis or workmanship.

I think our mate, R O G AK has done all of us a great service by documenting for the first time, this malpractice which we were all aware of but could not record as evidence. The way the thread has gone viral all over social media, its not only Maruti, but also all the other manufacturers who will sit up and take notice and be wary from now on.

Many thanks to you buddy and hope your RS now starts getting the "proper attention" and care it deserves.