[i74js]

For me experience is everything and as we say buy a car is "meetha kharcha" aka sweet expenditure; it should be pleasent.

Its a depreciating asset at the end of the day I believe in end to end service. Maruti has bench-marked it. I stick to ASS for maintenance of my cars unless its something really small which can be managed by FNG.

If a dealership and / or its representative is not up to the mark right from initial inquiry. I will give it a miss. I can switch to another dealership, provided such options are available.

So far, except for buying my EcoSport, wherein I switched dealer, the experience was alright and I could finalize the deal and this includes my purchase of Punto (through Kashyap FIAT).

I like VAG cars and see Skoda machines as value for money but right from buying experience and after sales horror stories including cheating customers by selling dealer modified cars will always keep me away from them.

For me peace of mind matters and that's non-negotiable !

[McLaren Rulez]

Originally Posted by Samurai

However, if one lives in an area where there is only one dealer for the car model, then it becomes a real problem.

This is a good point. However, the caveat is that the after-sales department is usually separate from the sales staff (although this is company dependent e.g. NEXA does it differently from Maruti). So you might end up with a completely different experience when it comes to service compared to the sales experience.

All in all, I'd put more stock in word of mouth reviews of that dealer than anything else if you live in a smaller town.

[gopalnt]

I own a Ciaz. I bought from Vishnu Cars Nexa. The salesperson was very bad that I had to escalate to their Customer Service Manager, but there was no improvement. But I still went ahead and purchased the car. Now I am seeing equally bad service in their 3 different service centers and no improvement irrespective of escalations.

When my colleague wanted to buy a Ciaz, I suggested any other dealer other than Vishnu Cars. He booked a car at Rajalakshmi Nexa. After having paid all the amount, he was told that the color of his choice was not available and offered him another color. He threatened to take legal action and then they obliged for 30000 worth of accessories if he is taking a different color.

So for me, I would think of buying another Maruti because of bad sales experience in more than one dealer. But with Maruti, at least I have choice. What if the car was a Skoda? I have only one dealer in Chennai. If the sales experience is going to be bad there, I don't have a choice but to drop the brand itself.

[laluks]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

After all, how many times have we heard the line - If x brand treated me this way before sales, how bad will they treat me after the sale?

I am reminded of the Scandinavian Airlines, and Moments of truth.

If a brand cannot understand that their true assets are satisfied customers, and they must start right from their first contact, in this case walking to a dealer and expecting at the minimum to be treated as an individual then there is no point any further.

I really do agree, if they treat me like that before putting the money, how will I be treated after they get the money.

[Durango Dude]

Don't know whether it's relevant, it was back in 2005 when I was on the look out to replace my Hyundai Accent, I went to Sundaram Honda, Mount Road Chennai to take a TD of the Honda City GXI: it was the most driver friendly car I had driven then but was bare bones : no safety features, no proper ICE, no features, low on power and to the rub salt in the sales guys pissed me of and I just did a U turn and got a Hyundai Elantra GLS which had all the things the City GXI didn't have. Absolutely no regrets.

[BB311]

Voted Yes based on my experience during last car purchase. I was refused a TD car and the SA's behaved as if they were doing a favor allowing me in Honda Dealership. The experience was with Ring Road Honda, New Delhi (Rama Road Branch) in the year 2015. I ended up buying Ford Ecosport in place of Honda City that time.

Would I do it again? Yes, definitely, if not the car choice I would definitely approach a different dealership. In the end my car is my aspiration and I do not want some nuthead to screw that feeling of achievement whenever I buy this aspirational liability.

[Lego28]

Voted Yes.
I was planning to buy a car back in 2016, when NGT just retracted the ban on 2000cc+ Diesel Cars.I had zeroed in on XUV500 W10 AT AWD.
Unfortunately The AWD variant was only sold in 2.2L variant and was not available in NCR, so I waited till the Ban was lifted.
Went to 3 dealers in Delhi as soon as the ban was lifted in July, none of them had any idea whether and when AWD will ever be back in stock. No one even even did care to call me back because XUV500 was selling like hot cakes in NCR and had a long waiting period because of the NGT Ban and Mahindra's 2.0 workaround engine.
Finally gave up and bought an Innova Crysta 2.8 ZX.
Interestingly, I went to book the Fortuner 3.0 4x4 AT, but the salesman humbly pushed me to TD the new Crysta once, and it was love at first drive. And what a reliable workhorse it has been.


So, when a bad Salesman can make you not buy ‘that’ car,
a good one can help you change your mind and buy ‘this’ car.

[Mi10]

Sales experience doesn't matter to me. So much that, when i brought my Rapid, the Sales guy was so pathetic that he couldn't even explain the features of the car properly. But then, i doubled up for him, and ended up explaining every single thing on that Skoda to my Family effectively convincing (coaxing) into buying one!

In my limited experience, i have always found average / mass market products come with above good / great sales experience ! Whereas the so called enthusiast's cars mostly comes with below par sales experience.
Can't resist, but somehow it feels like great looking girls falling for some random junkie and vice versa !

Not sure why, but i have experienced sales reps asking me to consider:
A Fiesta Sxi over an S
A Limited Edition Rapid over the Top of line Rapid
A DDIS 190 over a DDIS 320


The moment your orientation is not in line with their expectation, they lose the focus on us. Maybe they get little more incentives on specific models! Atleast that is what i felt

[blackwasp]

Originally Posted by GTO

• The salesman was disinterested / rude / unavailable
• A test-drive wasn't offered promptly
• No one returned calls or responded to a web query
• Other similarly negative sales experiences

Super thread GTO. This is not a very clear cut Yes/No type of answer for most of us. I did vote 'No', however, as I am willing to take the risk of this decision. After all I got 2 Fiats one after the other, once with Tata-Fiat JV and second time from a Pune dealer as there was no dealer in Mumbai!

My advice = If you really like the car, please do NOT drop it just because of the sales experience. Reason? You have to live with the car, not the salesperson. Don't let the 15 - 30 minutes of a bad experience with that salesperson affect the MANY YEARS that you'll spend with a car.

I would like to add a disclaimer to the 'sales experience' and say that as long as the car is from certain manufacturers. In India, you can never go wrong with choosing a Toyota or a Maruti. There are plenty of dealers you can take your business to. But for the majority of others, the first point of contact with the brand is the sales person.

It is the actual product & driving experience that will keep you smiling in the years to come, not the dealer. I mean, seriously, think about it = an exceptional sales experience + average car OR an average sales experience + exceptional car. Which one would you really pick?

This is very true, but from my past experience, once a customer gets a bad experience it takes a long while to win back his trust. Today, customer is the king, there is no excuse to that effect. Most dealers and their sales person are just not bothered as long as sales targets are met by hook or crook. Service is what makes a product what it is is. The millennial is no longer concerned about a car lasting 10+ years or giving sheer joy. Just need a fuss free car period.

My point is, don't let one ill-trained person on the showroom floor decide YOUR choice of car. If you love a car, be adamant about it.

Just leaving a couple of small stories here:

1. My uncle recently purchased a small car. I was there for the delivery (on my cycle). The moment I reached front of the showroom, one of the salespersons (I knew 0 people there) approached me and asked if I would like to see a car; when I replied that I was here for a delivery, he immediately told me to park my cycle right on the frontage, near a pole and asked an usher to take me inside and serve refreshments. In another 10-15 mins, my uncle and aunt came and we finished all the formalities and were handed over the car with sweets and a photo. Since it was an auspicious day, and the registration formalities were not done, we just started the car and moved it a bit forward and backward. Actual delivery took place after couple of days. Now, for me, the experience was wonderful and for any car from that brand, I would definitely first go to this dealership. The car was Alto K10 and the dealer was a nearby Arena showroom.

2. A friend wanted a test drive of a hot hatch. Once I went with him to the dealership discussed the car, finalised the price. But he wanted his family to experience the car. So a TD was arranged the next day. He calls me up and says the TD car was dirty, music system was not working, lots of suspension noise etc. Went ahead with a car costing 4X the hot hatch's price. Car is Abarth Punto and dealer was in Pune City.

3. My cousin had finalised an old car. Went to local company workshop to get an assessment done. Was treated like royalty. He eventually purchased the car and sold it after a couple of years due to going abroad, but the after sales experience sold him on the car. It was a 1995 model 330i and the BMW workshop was in Turbhe.

4. I once went to a premium car dealership when I wasn't even of the driving age. On my cycle with a bunch of friends (in summer holidays many many years ago). After loitering about the parking area for a while, 2 of us dared to go in. We were surprised to not get shooed away. Was shown the cars, and allowed to sit in 2 of them. One of their cars is described as 'The best luxury sedan on sale in India. Period'. Yup, the quote is from the S-Class review and the car dealership is Mercedes-Benz.

[silverado]

Voted NO.

Nano : Sales experience was ok, sales person didn't know much about the car, but I still went ahead and bought home a Nano as I believed in Ratan Tata's words and the car itself.

Baleno : Sales person was a chatter box, again not very knowledgeable about the car, didn't even know the features well. I had a good experience with NEXA. But I would have bought Baleno anyways.

[Memnon]

Interesting thread!
If I were 100% convinced which car I will buy them this logic can be applied i.e regardless of the behaviour of the salesman or dealer I go ahead with the purchase.
However in most cases , I think, as customers we are considering 2 or 3 options which are fairly close to each other in our minds. In this case the dealer/salesman behaviour will end up making a difference.
However it is true that for any purchase , even in the case of real estate , we end up having to deal with totally different people once the purchase is completed and in many cases the experience can be very different from then on.

[The Riddler]

I can relate to this thread very well.

Back in 2011, I was looking for my first car & had shortlisted the Punto 90HP. That was the time when Fiat was in a JV with Tata & shared showrooms & service centers. I recollect the way Punto was displayed in a corner & nobody was interested in showing the car. The SA was even giving incorrect technical details, some of the reasons given by him on why Tata was better than a Fiat were pretty lame. They wanted to sell a Tata Indica Vista
I clearly told the SA, what I was looking for & went ahead with the purchase of a car they didn't want to sell.

I still have the car with me. No regrets.

[sridhu]

A counter point:
I think we need to distinguish between the incompetence of the SA and bad organizational culture. If it is the former, that is no reason to reject a car. If the latter RUN! Particularly if the dealerships are few & far between for that car.

(Conversely, good sales experience is no reason to buy a car. It has to be the specs, the driving experience wrt your needs, maintainability etc that determine the sale)

When I bought the Jazz, the sales guy was beyond incompetent- did not know anything about the car, the driving seat was wet (I like to think it was only water!) And he borrowed money from me after the test drive

I still went ahead & bought the car as I knew the dealership & had control in the service department.

VW, on the other hand shows that it does not care about you right from the sales experience. They are rude, dont follow thru, lie and think they are doing you a favour. I seriously liked the Vento when it came out (was replacing my City) and last year, the Polo GT TSI when I was looking for an automatic. Both times the car was excellent but I dropped it because I did not have the energy to deal with the vagaries of VAG. Both times the sales experience was sub-par. So it is not SA incompetence but organizational indifference.

When the EcoSport was launched you could not get a meaningful test drive because of the crowd. As I would not buy any car without a 1 hour test drive, I gave my card and asked them to call me when they can offer me a TD. I also told them that I was looking to replace my car immediately.

Good news: they called back
Bad news: it was after 2.5 years!

I have had consistently good sales experience with Maruti, Hyundai and Mahindra. Also with Toyota. And the service experience has been good too.

Honda has been a mixed bag (stole my platinum plugs) service wise but excellent sales experience.

You need to maintain the car thru its life (in my case, typically about 8 years or 150k km). Even if you have good, friendly neighborhood mechanic, the dealer is essential for more complex jobs.

So the sales experience is an indicator. It need not determine the sale but it has to factor in in the decision.

[sandygordon]

The opening photograph features me getting keys from Sai Nexa Cochin. Out of all the dealers I contacted, I had the worst experience from Nexa, especially my first RM and his TL. I had grey suited guys boasting about the S cross and not contacting me or offering test drive when the S cross was launched. Still I stuck with the S cross and had a trail of e mails with Maruti and nexa experience.

[landcruiser123]

I'd agree with this in big cities. Most brands (maybe not Ford and Nissan) have at least multiple showrooms and authorized service centers.
But in small towns, I think it is safe to stick to Maruti, Hyundai or Toyota.