[GTO]

Thanks to Sumit Tak for sending this in. Heartfelt gratitude for sharing it with other enthusiasts via this Team-BHP page!

Live in a smaller city / town? Always buy your car from a large + established brand (Maruti, Hyundai, Mahindra, Tata etc.). And here's why. Sumit from Shirdi has been explicitly told by Datsun that he now needs to travel 250 km to Mumbai for service / repairs, or 200 km to Pune. For a visit that requires the car to be left overnight, that means two full days spent in travelling (one to drop the car, the other to pick it up). What a nuisance. Making things worse is the fact that the Datsun-Nissan workshops aren't exactly in the heart of Mumbai. They are all in remote places, so it's additional travel time after you enter Mumbai.

Note: I have reviewed the emails between him & Nissan / Datsun.

I bought a Datsun Redigo from Jai Malhar Nissan, Ahmadnagar in 2017. After around 6 months, the showroom shut down.

I've got the car with extended warranty. After a year, I did the 2nd service at Magic Nissan, Nashik (which is 80 km away from where I live). I asked them about who takes the responsibility of extended warranty of my car. Magic Nissan denied any responsibility, saying that the first servicing record doesn't exist on their portal !

The idling level of my car has increased to 2,000 - 2,500 rpm. I called Magic Nissan and told them about the problem. Well, Magic Nissan is no more an authorized service center . I now have to drive the car down to Pune or Mumbai for the problem. I am living in Shirdi, how can it be possible to drive 200-300 km.

I emailed the concerns to Datsun's customer care. They are also telling me to contact their service centers from Pune and Mumbai. I must say...don't buy Nissan or Datsun Cars!

My recommendation to customers stuck in such a situation = kiss your warranty goodbye, find a good local mechanic & get your car maintained by him.

[aargee]

Smaller or bigger, city or rural, one thing that I always keep emphasizing is, buying is one time affair, but, service is for lifetime especially when buying a new car/motorcycle or wide spread ASC if the vehicle is going to see few corners of this country.

One can have a pathetic buying experience, but, it is the service that keeps the owner happy for a long time for a very simple reason, buying decision combined with experience takes hardly few months or days, but, servicing goes for long years.

And many thread here keeps proving that point over & again. No wonder Ford spend few hundred crores to advertise their servicing cost has come down, which indeed paid them off in long run.

[Thermodynamics]

Really difficult for low volume manufacturers to survive at times when even the biggest player in the market is struggling.

Usually they say at the low end of economic cycle, small industries consolidate forming conglomerates in struggle for survival of the fittest. On the other hand when economy booms and reaches the crest, conglomerates fragment and spin off. I guess something like that should happen with low volume players. May be something like, Renault+Nissan+Fiat+VW conglomerate service centers (including mobile centers) might benefit manufacturers as well as consumers.

[SJM1214]

I am from a small(Comparatively) city. The situation is we have showrooms/workshops of established brands like Maruti, Hyundai, Mahindra, Tata etc. We need to go all the way to Ahmedabad for Sales and services for premium brands like BMW, Audi, Volvo. The Problem is there are no local mechanics for these premium brand cars. However, Ahmedabad is just 70km (and Vadodara 40kms) from Anand, so it's quite manageable.

Now my "Comparatively" small city is a district headquarter. I have noticed many people drive more than 100km to come to Anand to service their cars. Or choose to plan to schedule their service on Sundays. IMHO, this is one more (and strong ) reason that Maruti has 50% market share. We have Maruti Service stations at each and every(almost) corners of the country. It's also true that brands like Nissan / Datsun can't afford to have a service station at small towns/villages. However, they should work on regular service camps clubbed with brand promotion in remote places.

[paragsachania]

When my Dad's brother's family picked a Datsun Go, I made quite a few calls to my cousin asking him to cancel that booking mainly for the Service concerns and the product later because they stayed in a small town in Southern Karnataka at Chikkamagaluru where back then (2013), it still had a small presence of Maruti Dealer which itself was an extension of a dealership of a bigger town nearby.

The story today remains the same and I heard from him last week that Renault/Datsun comes once a month/fortnight, leverages infrastructure from a popular FNG on the bypass road and invites the owners for the service - You are good if its basic service.

The nearest service centers for such brands are at least 120-150 Kms away in Cities like Mangalore, Mysore or Shimoga.

I have lot of my own classmates who have settled in my hometown of Belur who have bought Dusters (Very popular here) and drive down to Mysore or Bangalore for service and they don't complain because these are normal services. I only wonder what happens when there is a breakdown or you need to drive to even get genuine brake pads replaced from the service center. I think here is where you end up with counterfeit parts for your car due to lack of choice!!

[porsche_guy]

This is was a concern for us when getting the Vento since Volkswagen wasn't a very old brand in India and we had only one dealership+ASC in the city. It has remained like that now for more than 6 years now. However, the dealer experience here has been fantastic and that has ensured good business for them so I don't see it shutting down soon. Plus the fact that the dealership is owned by the Landmark Group is also a huge positive.

Now, as for other brands, even with Vadodara being a small city, we have never faced problems of too few a dealer here. We have the dealerships of most brands and even multiple dealers of some (Maruti, Tata, Honda, Hyundai, Renault etc.). Even in premium brands, we have Audi and Mercedes here. BMW is still not present but the volumes mean that they organise service camps periodically. Additionally, I've been seeing lots of Volvos nowadays and the rumour is they are opening a dealership soon too! Let's hope that's true

Cheers!

[ksameer1234]

Originally Posted by Thermodynamics

May be something like, Renault+Nissan+Fiat+VW conglomerate service centers (including mobile centers) might benefit manufacturers as well as consumers.

I had exactly similar thoughts. What prevents these fringe manufacturers from authorising good private service centers to service vehicles. As it is, most of authorised services centers do little in terms of repair; it is only inspect and replace.

When one dealer group can have dealership of competing brands, why can't a good garage become authorised service center for multiple brands?

This reminds me of my hometown where there were garages who would claim to be authorised service centers for Bajaj / Hero Honda etc. I don't know if they had any authorisation but they would stock most of the spares of brand so were good for that.

I feel such out of the box thinking is the only way brands like Renault/Nissan/Volkswagen can hope to survive and possibly expand their market in India.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by Thermodynamics

Really difficult for low volume manufacturers to survive at times when even the biggest player in the market is struggling.

Forget others, if the auto groups with small presence start consolidating within themselves, it may workout. Ex - Renault, Nissan, Datsun, Mitsubishi - under one roof.

Usually they say at the low end of economic cycle, small industries consolidate forming conglomerates in struggle for survival of the fittest. On the other hand when economy booms and reaches the crest, conglomerates fragment and spin off.

True! It's already happening. We have Maruti on the other end of the spectrum which is spinning off into Arena & Nexa.

[kiku007]

Interesting suggestion.

It's only after the late 2000s that Showrooms and Service Centres starting expanding in a big way in rural areas. Even before that, people did buy cars from Ford, GM, Skoda etc. and did travel hundreds of Kms to buy and service them. As long as the provided service was good and the vehicle was reliable I guess they didn't mind it. Newer cars have longer service intervals anyways.

Datsun as a brand should have never existed in India. Nissan itself is on life support and lesser said about Datsun.

[SmartCat]

I think Indian car buying public generally tend to follow this advice. That's why it is so difficult to dislodge Maruti and Hyundai from their perch. Only a small percentage of customers end up in this predicament -

- Adventurous first time car owner (who probably does not know the importance of after sales service)
- Those who have multiple cars in the household
- Those who want to own premium cars (Merc, BMW, Audi etc)

[Ashkait Kapoor]

My family had been in a fix back in 2015 when we were in the market to replace our humble alto and with our wagonr taking up the daily chores of the alto, my father needed something better for his weekend/longer drives.

At the time the Baleno was yet to launch and the only other 2 options shortlisted by house members were the Elite i20 and the Polo. The i20 had a waiting period of at least 3 months while the Polo would be home within 2 weeks.

Now, both Suzuki and Hyundai have not just 1 but multiple dealers in Shillong while VW has none, :( the closest being a 100km away in Guwahati (ghy). Even then the Polo garnered more votes in the house and we ended up getting one from guy and since then the car visits the VW service center in ghy once every year.

But when you start talking of distances in excess of 200kms just for a service, things start making lesser sense.

[Durango Dude]

It's small wonder that what's been known to the populace needs to be put forward in this august forum. It's not without reason that people buy Maruti and Hyundai. Even in bigger centers the quality of service of the fringe elements is far from satisfactory with no accountability.

[FrodoOfTheShire]

This problem might not necessarily be related only to smaller less established brands. I have faced this issue with 2-wheeler. My parents live in a small town and 2 years ago, my father wanted to replace his 10year old Honda Activa. I voted for the Suzuki Access after going through the reviews. There was only one Suzuki showroom in town from where we bought it but it closed down 1 year later due to some internal dispute. Nowadays the Suzuki dealership from the nearest town conducts a service workshop once a month to service the vehicles. And I feel bad for recommending the Access to my father. So maybe one also needs to check the number of showrooms/service centres in the vicinity even if the brand itself might be a reputed one.

[hummer]

My cousin bought a Datsun Redigo AT at Shivamogga in Karnataka. They took vehicle delivery from Mangalore Nissan showroom. Nissan-Datsun organizes monthly service camps at Shivamogga, so service is not a problem at present atleast.

It works well for minor services, but could be real headache for major services, body work, parts replacement etc.

They chose jazzy Redigo against the plain Jane Alto AMT which has an established showroom locally, but this choice came with its own share of gains and pains.

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

Forget others, if the auto groups with small presence start consolidating within themselves, it may workout. Ex - Renault, Nissan, Datsun, Mitsubishi - under one roof

That was the whole premise behind the erstwhile Carnation. Unfortunately the promotors were more interested in encashing their own personal goodwill upfront to collect large deposits, and the franchisees were chosen badly. Great idea, flawed execution.