[Pancham]

Mods: Please merge this thread with any other relevant thread if you find it necessary

Dealing with a sales advisers from car dealerships involves a lot of mutual trust. Trust involving the customer not cancelling the booking just before delivery, the customer not receiving a car that is a lemon (with the knowledge of the dealer) and the sales adviser not lying to the customer at every step.

Part 1

I had booked a Hyundai Santro Magna Silver (MT) on 10 Oct 2019 with Saini Hyundai (previously Spring Hyundai). Actually, we (me and a close family member) were supposed to book one Santro each, but ended up booking the other one with another Hyundai dealer in the city (Kolkata). I preferred Saini because it was closer to my house and we have bought all our Hyundais from them. The problems started right after handing over the booking amount to the sales person.

2nd October: I visit the showroom to learn about the offers on the new Santro. To note, the Sales Adviser and I never discussed the car till date. Primarily because I knew almost everything about the car. I had rented the Santro twice through Revv.
Coming back to 2nd Oct, the SA (sales advisor) was at the door. He greeted me and introduced himself.

2-9th Oct: I speak to the SA few times. He assures me that once I finalize the car he will be able to give the final quote with discounts and all, that is, discounts over and above the standard 30K cash et al.

9 October: He visits my residence to collect the booking amount. He came from his home so had no documents, money receipts to give me. I asked him about the offers. He assured me that I will get the following offer:
- Cash discount of 30K+10K on the final qoute.

Before booking, I specifically request for the following (on the basis of which I said I will book). A couple of those requests were:

1. Match the quote with that of the other dealer to which I was told I will get a better deal. (which is actually the cash discount mentioned above ~ 40K)

2. Allocation of a car from the latest production batch (Aug-Sept 19)

3. Check if the car is in stock since I needed the car by 28th of this month. This is because I live in a different city now and I will be returning from Kolkata on 28th. So I had to get everything done by 28th and leave.

All the above met with a positive response from the SA. None of these were mutually exclusive. I was told all of these are possible.

I TRUSTED him and handed over a cheque of INR 5K as booking amount.

10 October 2019

I visit the showroom to collect the money receipt and Customer Docket. The SA, with a 'man on a mission' face comes to me and tell me "hoye jabe"-"ho jayega"-"it will be done". I eagerly wait for the customer docket.

He comes back and tells me, "management is not agreeing to the discount amount".

This was the first RED FLAG and i should have just taken my cheque back (he had not encashed it) and left. He tries to sell me Teflon coating et al. Finally the discount figure comes to 30K + 8K. I was actually not concerned about the 10K but was more miffed because I got played. He lured me to book and then backed off from the offer. It was my mistake to not walk out.

Continued in Part 2

[Pancham]

Part 2

I would not disagree but I was a bit suspicious when he accepted all my conditions. The only way to find out that the car that I wanted was in stock was to obtain the VIN. He had claimed that he has the car in stock so providing me with the VIN would not have been a problem. So I started following up for the VIN. He kept promising me to send the VIN by End of Day, but to no avail. This went for a couple of days. Also, I told him that I want to visit the stockyard to see the car for a PDI before registration. To every request his initial response was positive but the follow-on responses were all negative and in the line of "sir, let me see/check, "sir, it is difficult" or "sir, stock yard is in Budge Budge which is far from the city", etc.

12 Oct 2019

He did provide me with the VIN. He confirmed that the car is from the Aug-Sept batch. I looked up and it turned out have a production date of 11 May 2019.

I called him up, "Sir, let me check. But sir, you will get the latest model, etc. etc."

My only grouse is that HE LIED. He said he has been in dealership for 3 years. If that is true, I cannot digest the fact that he could not decode the VIN and know which batch the car belonged to. I raised hell. I said I will cancel the booking. I could also foresee that because of all this chances of getting delivery by 28th were bleak so I decided to cancel the booking.

The SA apologied. "Sir, ar bhool hobe na" (there will be no more mistakes).
"Sir, I have spoken to the management (GM) and he has reallocated your car. You will now get a car from the latest batch. But sir, as soon as I give you this VIN please transfer your share (Down payment) of the funds."

I told him I am not transferring any money till I see the car. We both agreed to disagree.

Another Red Flag

I tried to reach out to the SA's senior, Mr. Subhojit Bogi on Saturday. Not to complain but to gauge the situation. How is buying a Santro so difficult. However, he did not respond to any of my calls and asked the SA to check with me what the problem is. A senior from Saini Hyundai not wanting to address a customer's issue and avoiding his calls is a cause for concern and appears really shady on part of the dealership.

15 October 2019

"Sir, new car has come. New batch. Just arrived. Production date: 30 Sept 2019". For a moment I was happy. I asked him to share the VIN, looked up and turned out to be 3 June 2019 car. I could not keep calm. I texted him that I am cancelling the booking.

As if all of this was not frustrating enough, he started explaining, "Sir, few months old is absolutely fine. It take 1-2 months for the cars to come to the showroom from the factory".

I reiterate, these are actually not deal breaking moments. I was just annoyed with the fact that he kept lying every time till he got caught.

I cancelled the booking. I asked for the exact procedure to get the refund. After he realised that I will not budge, his tone changed slightly, "send a mail to this id. I am sending you the id". I wrote quite an elaborate email marking the regional sales team of Hyundai the exact reasons.

Within 5 min of receiving the mail the SA texted, "Instead of writing such a long mail write that you are cancelling because you did not get a 'current' car". This was his exact tone. (I have kept all the screenshots of his whatsapp texts). For the nth time I lost my cool and asked for the exact procedure for refund of booking amount (will I receive a cheque or through NEFT?). He replied, "first write the mail then it will take 1 month". I told him that I have already sent the mail with actual reasons and I am not re-sending anything else. He said 'ok' and conversation ended. During this conversation he also said, "show me which month car you are getting" - from the new booking/dealer.

Conclusion

I cancelled my booking and immediately spoke to the dealer from whom we are getting the other car. He confirmed that there is one piece available. I transferred him the booking amount and within 15 minutes he sent me a scanned copy of the Customer Booking Docket. He also shared with me the VIN which I checked and found out its a Sept 2019 car. So far so good.

[Chetan_Rao]

A majority of customers don't care for 'details', and trust dealerships to do right by them out of mutual goodwill.

Some do act in good faith, but most these days take advantage until they run across a discerning customer. A dealership doesn't deserve business if they refuse to accommodate reasonable demands from a customer just wanting to make sure they're getting what they paid for.

I do feel sorry for salesmen sometimes. Most are often poorly (or barely) trained, and have limited decision-making authority. No excuse for lying, but it's not all roses on their side either.

[Pancham]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

A majority of customers don't care for 'details', and trust dealerships to do right by them out of mutual goodwill.

Some do act in good faith, but most these days take advantage until they run across a discerning customer. A dealership doesn't deserve business if they refuse to accommodate reasonable demands from a customer just wanting to make sure they're getting what they paid for.

I do feel sorry for salesmen sometimes. Most are often poorly (or barely) trained, and have limited decision-making authority. No excuse for lying, but it's not all roses on their side either.

Agreed. Desperate times. But nothing justifies lying to a customer who is giving you business.

Sometimes I feel ignorance is bliss. If I were oblivious of all this, life would have been simpler.

[Chetan_Rao]

When a friend was buying a Creta from Trident(?) Hyundai Bangalore (the branch near KR Puram Station/Whitefield Road intersection) two salesmen there attending us (a senior and a new under-trainee) genuinely had no idea how to read the VIN, and they couldn't give the full VIN (Hyundai stamps the full VIN only under the driver's seat, last character is missing everywhere else) until I showed them the flap it's stamped under.

Not necessarily true in your case, but often the salesmen go by what they get told because they don't know (or don't care to figure out) any better. 'Tell the customer it's a fresh car' happened to us with the first allotment too. We didn't budge, so they switched to 'can't share VIN until full payment'. Offering to take our business elsewhere finally got things moving and we were given the full VIN and access to the car for PDI.

[blackwasp]

Originally Posted by Pancham

I cancelled my booking and immediately spoke to the dealer from whom we are getting the other car. He confirmed that there is one piece available. I transferred him the booking amount and within 15 minutes he sent me a scanned copy of the Customer Booking Docket. He also shared with me the VIN which I checked and found out its a Sept 2019 car. So far so good.

There are good dealers and then there are bad dealers, sadly, your first experience was on the negative side. I just don't get it why sales guys do this. I used to be one myself, but I had realised very early on that being upfront with the customer was the best policy. If its happening it will, else say no.

Regarding discounts, the moment a certain amount is fixed, standard practice is to get approval on email from manager or a signature on the booking form / docket. I think the first salesman missed doing this and the later on the manager back-tracked.

Most sales guys are just paper pushers. They want the target to be achieved by any means possible. I think for that particular car, there must have been an extra incentive hence he wasn't clear upfront.

[ariesonu]

Pancham da,

From your post, You never tried meeting any senior from dealer personally. You ONCE tried talking to immediate senior of your SA. Yes you indeed had a LEMON of a SA but entire dealership cannot be bad.
VIN is still a puzzle for most of them.
Chetan & Blackwasp have already made further remarks that I would have made too.

Regards-Sonu

[Pancham]

Originally Posted by ariesonu

Pancham da,

From your post, You never tried meeting any senior from dealer personally. You ONCE tried talking to immediate senior of your SA. Yes you indeed had a LEMON of a SA but entire dealership cannot be bad.
VIN is still a puzzle for most of them.
Chetan & Blackwasp have already made further remarks that I would have made too.

Regards-Sonu

Dear Ariesonu-bhai. Good to receive your response.

My posts do not claim Saini to be the worst Hyundai dealer ever to have seen the face of Earth. I believe I very much wanted to direct my attention to the SA and his senior.

If I go by your logic, I should reach out to each and every SA in the dealership and interview them to get the best buying experience. A dealership is what its SAs are since they are first point of contact with the customer. Just like any other business.

If I am employee and dealing with a client and my client has a bad time, my company's reputation will be at stake.

Also, there is a limited resource called "time" and an underlying opportunity cost that exists. I did try to reach out to his senior who did not respond since he was very busy. Then why should I again disturb them, when I can take my business elsewhere.

UPDATE
The senior whom I tried to contact on Saturday (but did not respond) called me last evening to understand the situation. He was extremely apologetic. I explained to him everything and he asked if there is anyway he could fix the situation. My response was negative as I had already booked the same car elsewhere. It was a polite conversation.

[Pancham]

Update

The car has arrived and the SA has sent me a few pictures. Will be going today to do the PDI. Hopefully will get delivery by next week.

Some tricks by this dealership:

I get a call yesterday, "Saar just wanted to inform, if you take insurance from outside you will not get the 4th year free warranty offer from Hyundai". I asked him to send the Terms and Conditions mentioning this.

Fortunately, right after the call with the SA, a Hyundai India personnel called me to know about the Saini Hyundai issue. I told him about this and he said Hyundai only recommends taking insurance from them so there are no such restrictions. I can avail the offers irrespective.

[Altocumulus]

This is the attitude all over Kolkata. I had a harrowing experience while buying the Duster and ultimately had to get the Head of Customer Support of Renault India involved to get the multiple issues sorted. The moment you decide to take insurance outside , some freebies get deleted. The reason being they are not actually freebies. They are actually paid by you out of the cut the dealership receives from the insurance companies which goes upto as much as 30% of the premium amount. In my case I got insurance for 15k less outside and then paid 4500 for the promised freebies as accessories from the service center.

Bhpian jkds still has issues which are not yet sorted for his Duster which we bought together.

[Pancham]

Update:

The car was delivered by Mukesh Hyundai on 26 October 2019 (on time). However, the registration process could not be completed because of the Diwali rush. Meanwhile, Hyundai has not been very responsive to my requests to process the refund of the booking amount (partial or full) which I paid to the previous dealer. The regional office also has not been returning my calls.

Technically they should refund the entire amount since I just changed the dealership and eventually bought the same car.

Some pictures:

[akash_v12]

Originally Posted by Pancham

The car was delivered by Mukesh Hyundai.

Sorry for bumping this post up.

Hi Pancham Da!
Thank you for sharing your experience with us. My grandparents had bought their Santro Xing from Mukesh Hyundai and it was not a pleasant experience at all. They messed up the order completely - right from the delivery date to the posting colour. Now, my grandparents will be upgrading to a newer Hyundai. Which dealership would you recommend in Kolkata?

[Pancham]

Hi Akash, it depends on your luck (A LOT). Also, the SA you deal with. We bought our i20 from Saini in 2011 and it was a good experience. Looking back, I may not give Mukesh Hyundai a 10/10 but the SA was very responsive and he picked up my call every time I needed any clarification.

Do give him a call if you want: +91 8777691736 (Sameer). Also, do post here how it went.

[neil.jericho]

Originally Posted by Pancham

Meanwhile, Hyundai has not been very responsive to my requests to process the refund of the booking amount (partial or full) which I paid to the previous dealer. The regional office also has not been returning my calls.

Technically they should refund the entire amount since I just changed the dealership and eventually bought the same car.

Some pictures:

Did you get the refund amount from the previous dealer? Did Hyundai support you or continue to stone wall?

[akash_v12]

Originally Posted by Pancham

Hi Akash, it depends on your luck (A LOT). Also, the SA you deal with. We bought our i20 from Saini in 2011 and it was a good experience.

Hi Pancham Da!
Thank you for your response to my query. I will let you know how the purchase will go through (around Aug-Sept).

My grandfather has it fixed this time that he will not (& by not, I mean not ) buy from Mukesh Hyundai. I've heard good things about both Saini & Bengal Hyundai up till now. Any contact with the SA will be done by me and we would like to maintain a good relationship with the Showroom.

Any ideas on how Bengal Hyundai is?