Hey Guys,
We have finally gone through with it and got the Tiago booked and delivered.
Attached the pictures below.
The booking and delivery experience has been a harrowing one. As much as I am happy to see this red Tiago standing mighty, the experience has been bitter. Nobody should go through such a bitter experience for booking a car.
If any seasoned experts can help me out here, it would be a huge help.
So, I ll narrate the events chronologically.
1. Getting Quotes:
I went to Gokulam Motors Chrompet first as that was the one near by to my home. They initially gave 6 lakhs for Tiago XZ as the quote. I felt that they hadn't given much discount.
The guy who attended to me was Aravind. He called his sales lead and both of them spoke to me. They gave a quotation of 6.05L for Tiago XZ. I came back home.
I then tried calling other dealers in Chennai.
KLN Tata - Ekkatuthangal - he gave a quote of 5.83L.
Lakshmi Motors - a guy named Naveen spoke and gave me a quote of 5.8L, and also said there's a silver color car with July 2019 mfg date that they are taking from Concorde (that's recently shut down) to sell for them and that that car would cost 5.6L. He said "come directly for booking, and i ll decrease even further, will give better cost".
With this information, I went to Aravind at Chrompet Gokulam Motors. He called his sales lead and spoke to me, and when i said about the quotes others had given, they started bad mouthing other dealers. The sales lead was saying that the cars sold by Lakshmi motors (especially the July 2019 car) would be having a lot of issues, probably battery may not perform as expected, and that it would have been in yard for so long, and that the electronics may not work as expected, and so on. Gokulam was basically trying to sell themselves as pristine and pure dealers, someone who opened newly and having new mfg date cars.
I wasn't sold.
So, I asked my wife to check out Lakshmi motors. She went to the showroom. Naveen spoke nicely and showed her around, and she liked the way the showroom was and how she was presented.
So, I went to Naveen and checked out the car along with my mother, took a test drive, understood the features and differences for the XZ model. He said he can work out 5.8 lakhs for a red color (which we preferred) XZ petrol.
I told him the price is still high and asked him to give a comprehensive quote.
By this time we were happy about test drive, and car felt spacious enough for 5 people and the AC, music system, drive experience - everything was great.
So, we decided we can book the car - just have to negotiate it.
By second friday of december, I called up Naveen and asked him the best price he can do. He said he was travelling to Sabarimala and that i should contact Ashok (his sales lead - essentially his boss). Meanwhile, Surendar from KLN called me up and asked me the status. I told him I have a quotation from someone for 5.6L and i need for his quote to be better. He said he'll close at 5.57L and give additional 2k discount if i sent booking advance within weekend.
I said i ll call back, and I called Chrompet Gokulam's Aravind. Asked him what the final price is. He said 5.6L is the best they can do.
I asked both KLN and Gokulam what all were there as part of the 5.57 and 5.6L respectively.
They said that ex-warranty, AMC Gold, B2B insurance were excluded. Otherwise everything given in the price list is included.
With the 2k extra that KLN was promising as discount (and free accessories - mud flap, and floor mats which are basically given with every car by tata itself), even if i paid extra for 1 year worth of ex-warranty and amc-gold, the total came to 5.67L.
I called up Naveen's sales lead at Lakshmi Tata OMR - Mr. Ashok, and I told him I am getting a quote of 5.55L from KLN and that if he can give a better quote, that I would immediately send him the token advance for booking.
He said he will talk to his boss (Manager i guess? Not sure) and let me know. He called me after half an hour and told me that he can do 5.6L. I asked him why would I pay 5k extra and I told him i'll go with KLN and said thanks.
He asked me to wait and that he'd revert back after convincing his boss again. He called me after another half hour and told me that he will give 5.7L with amc gold, b2b insurance, and extended warranty. He asked me to take them as it would be difficult to get AMC gold in second year for same cost as Tata would inspect the vehicle and then only put up an AMC.
I told him even with all those, I am getting only 5.67 from KLN. You give me all those for a final price of 5.65 and we'll close the deal.
He said he will talk to his boss and call me back.
He called me after an hour and said that his boss is not agreeing to go down beyond 5.7L. He told me "please adjust for this one time sir. I will give you best service experience after purchase. I will add 3-4k worth of teflon coating for the car, after purchase. Just do this one help for me and accept 5.7L as final for package with amc gold, extended warranty and b2b insurance".
I asked him "instead of teflon coating, can you give me 4k discount on seat covers or something?". He said "no sir. if we can give any other accessories, we'd give cash discount itself. This teflon coating we can do with the help of service people, so that wouldn't be a problem. Finalize this sir".
I said okay and asked him for account details to send 5k rupees token advance for booking confirmation.
I then read on this thread by Tiago owners that AMC gold may not be as useful for the first year and also echoed in other forums and threads. So I asked Ashok if i ll have the option to opt out of AMC gold before invoicing, and if he can deduct the amount of AMC gold from the 5.7L if we choose to do so.
He said yes, and he agreed for the same.
My mother works at Oriental insurance. This car is being bought in her salary based loan that the company itself is providing as part of her employment. She has couple of close friends from the insurance industry who then took over the negotiation.
I sent the booking advance after that conversation with Ashok.
Then Naveen came back from Sabarimala. The two friends of my mother were in Royal Sundaram and Oriental respectively. The Royal Sundaram uncle called up Naveen and told that he was speaking on behalf of me and my mother - and asked him comprehensive details of the quote given by ashok, details regarding AMC and what are all covered, details about the insurance component and what comes under insurance (so that he can then compare quotes from outside to see if the insurance package they are giving is better or worse).
This guy Naveen had told him "sir i already gave all details to Shravan, you go and ask him".
Now, I am 27, I am adult enough, but if someone as old as the uncle (who is a very close family friend, who wanted to negotiate and bargain for a better price since he is close friends with few dealership owners and he knows what kind of plays these guys do) calls you, even if you as a salesperson have spoken to one person from a family, you should patiently explain everything to whoever asks. After this guy said that sentence without explaining anything to my uncle, my uncle scolded him on phone. "See, these are our kids and we are buying the car for them. We are the ones who are going to process the loan and give a go ahead, as elders of the family. You should explain it to us better than you explained it to him."
Naveen had apparently showed attitude, so my uncle took it up with his MD and registered a complaint. It became a verbal altercation and the deal was almost botched. Naveen then rang me up and told me that he only spoke with me and that he will only deal with me. I told him, these are elders of my family and they have to say okay after understanding everything as I am not privy to the insurance related matters. He said okay and off he went.
Then my mother took over the conversation, spoke to Naveen. My mother's elder cousin rang up ashok in guise of a fresh customer and when pushed for Tiago XZ final price, Ashok had given 5.6L. This cousin brother has contacts in Hyderabad (where my mother works) to get Tiago at less than 5.5L. But then bringing it to Chennai for registration and going through the purchase will be a hassle. So we decided to negotiate it here itself and finalize.
Once Ashok gave 5.6L as quote, my maternal uncle revealed that he was indeed negotiating for us - and that if ashok can give 5.6L to a new customer, he should be able to give that to us.
Ashok and Naveen were super pissed off with this approach, but hey - this is what you do when you need to get the best price, otherwise these guys will fleece us for what we have. We brought to this level from 6.1L (which was 40k less than on-road).
So, finally after all the heated conversations and stuff, they agreed for 5.65L.
2. Booking the car and sending money.
My mother got the loan papers ready, got the proforma invoice, the loan went through, and took few days from december end. Meanwhile she enquired the insurance component that was being given by Tata. Finally we realized that Tata was fleecing us with sub-par insurance package and that we were able to get better insurance package from my mother's friend who is working in another insurance firm. We opted out of tata's in-house insurance dealing and chose to deduct that insurance component of 22k from the 5.65L.
We finally sent 5.43L (by mistake, without remembering the advance amount and Naveen or Ashok didn't say a word about this) instead of sending 5.38L.
4.5L was from the company. Remaining amount we sent through net banking.
After sending money on 3rd, we had requested them for delivery on 6th or 7th as both were auspicious days for us. My mother had come down from Hyderabad for along with her cousin. They were supposed to go back on 8th. This guy Naveen asked them to come on 5th for RTO and pre-delivery inspection. On 5th both of them went and waited for over 5 hours. Some server issue, nothing got done.
On 6th, they went and these guys hadn't done anything properly, so the car wasn't ready for RTO.
On 7th Naveen asked them to come early - around 11 and that he'll get the car delivered by 11.30 - ready for RTO and finish the delivery that day before afternoon itself. They didn't have breakfast (my uncle has low sugar) and they went around 11. He asked them to be seated and told he'll come back in 10 mins.
Meanwhile, 10 mins became 3.5 hours. Despite both of them calling him 9-10 times from their respective phones, he didn't pick up.
After 3 o clock, he brings the car that we are supposed to receive (the red car we'd blocked with the advance) - and it was with all sorts of Crow shit, lots of dust, sludge/mud everywhere due to rain water mud surface i suppose. He said he'll clean it in 10 mins and asked them to take the car, and that they can get it to RTO themselves. He apparently looked flustered, like he'd done some mistake or someone had given him a big dose of scolding or something.
My mother and uncle were beyond pissed by this point yet they told him patiently "we won't take delivery in such a state. Look at the car. You do proper cleaning, go get it registered in RTO and deliver it to our home with all proper papers".
That day we really wanted to take delivery as it was auspicious, and my uncle was keener than all of us combined. He had to return that day for a personal emergency and went back to hyderabad disappointed.
My mother on the other hand was also upset.
That time I reminded her of the 5k advance I had paid and that's when she realised she'd paid 5k extra.
So she spoke to Naveen and he said he can't discount it now - and so she asked him to pay 2k affidavit fees to the RTO from that, and for remaining 3k, she asked him to give a window visor or something fitted with the car.
The next day Naveen rings us up around 3pm and tells us the driver is coming with the car after registration and that it will be delivered.
It was delivered around 3pm. We did an inspection thoroughly of the car.
And a small pooja by our grandmother too.
We then realised that the visor was missing.
So we decided not to sign the delivery challan and said we'll go in person today, to Naveen.
3. Dropping the bomb.
My mother and my wife went today and asked for AMC and Extended Warranty papers.
Naveen said that he didn't agree for extended warranty or amc along with the car for 5.65L.
My mother called me up and from the get go everyone was under the assumption that AMC Gold and Ex-Warranty was included after ashok told me so, and even my mother's friend got into argument with Naveen when he enquired about the AMC details and extended-warranty details only.
So my mother and wife called me up for clarification and i told them exactly what conversation had happened on the day Naveen went to Sabarimala and directed me to talk to Ashok.
Now, today evening I spoke to Naveen and told him "Ashok agreed for 5.7L including AMC Gold, B2B insurance, and extended warranty. KLN Motors and Gokulam were giving without all those for 5.55 and 5.6L respectively. Which sane person would pay 15k extra for the same car same package?"
I sent him the whatsapp conversation screenshot - the conversation i had with Ashok on that day when I asked him for confirmation whether AMC Gold can be opted out of before invoicing.
I sent this to Naveen and told him Ashok had agreed for that, and that that's why we paid our final amount there to Lakshmi motors.
Naveen said "Sir, you please speak to Ashok. I can't help with this."
Immediately Ashok called me.
He said he doesn't remember agreeing to anything, and that the 5.7L package was without AMC Gold or Extended Warranty. I told him I don't have the audio recording, but I clearly remember every word of conversation of that day and i asked him to check whatsapp chat.
He started scolding "sir, you shouldn't confuse us like this. 100 people shouldn't talk to us and confuse us."
I told him "Sir, it's 5-6 lakhs matter. Not summa. Obviously 2-3 people will come and speak to you. But you are only one person right? You can remember very well. So remember properly and tell me"
He was like "I have written down everything and have documentary evidences and nowhere have i written down that i have agreed for AMC or extended warranty". I told him that he was wrong, and that he might have forgotten. He said he will call me back and cut the call.
I rang up Naveen and sent him that whatsapp chat screenshot and told him "if he didn't agree to 5.7L with AMC gold and Ex-Warranty, why would he be saying "yes sir" and "ok sir" to my requesting him to provide me the option to opt out of AMC gold and deduct the respective amount from final total of 5.7L? He agreed then and now he is not remembering.
I showed him the screenshot.
Naveen said "Sir i can't help you with this. You come directly and speak to Ashok".
I called Ashok and asked him what his deal is. He said he didn't ever agree for extended warranty or AMC gold or anything. I took him through every step of the conversation (the one i mentioned in the 1st calls with him) and jogged his memory. He still maintained he didn't agree. When i started pointing out obvious flaws in his argument, he started saying he understood my whatsapp message as "whether i can add AMC gold before invoicing if i wanted".
I asked him "sir, you understand basic english right? Since when does OPT OUT means ADDING and since when does DEDUCT means INCLUDE in English?
He then tried to distract me by saying "Sir i asked you for payment before 25th December, did you pay before that? You paid on Jan 3rd"
I said, "If your terms for the deal had changed by jan 3rd, you should have told us".
He then proceeded to tell "You also didn't give me insurance and opted out of our insurance. I lost the margin in that also. I also took a loss of 8000 for you in the final amount. Why should I do that?"
I told him that he was trying to distract from the main point which was that he agreed for AMC Gold, and Ex-warranty and b2b insurance along with the package of 5.7L and that was why I sent 5k booking advance. I told him that no sane person would pay 15k extra for the same product knowingly. He kept trying to distract me. He said "your uncle spoke very rudely. I told them that this case won't work out and told them we can't go through with this deal and closed it. They only came to us and spoke to us for more than an hour and did this (quoting my mother and her cousin and her friend)."
It was Naveen who called me up to ask for loan processing document, HR MS letter, etc. I asked Ashok why then did Naveen follow up with us for the payment, give us account details, and ask for payment, and followed up on status if Ashok (him) - the sales lead and Naveen's boss had asked everyone to drop the deal and close the case and not go through with the deal?
He then tried to distract again by saying that i am blaming naveen and that Naveen didn't pursue us for anything. In fact after 5.65L was finalized by Ashok, it was Naveen who pursued us for payment and loan sanction letter and stuff.
Ashok then said "Sir, tiago price has increased by 20k in January. I took a loss for you. Now I can't add AMC Gold or Ex-warranty for another 12-15k and take further loss."
I told him, "see, if the terms of the deal has changed, you should have told us before we sent the payment or closing the deal. After pursuing the deal, getting the payment and finishing RTO and everything, you can't come and say you took a loss and so we have to pay for AMC or Ex-Warranty which were supposed to be a part of the deal. If we pay for that, the total amount we are spending goes beyond the 5.8L you guys originally quoted. This isn't right. This is absolutely wrong and do we look like fools to pay 15k extra to you guys for the same product we got for 5.55L at KLN?"
Ashok cut the call saying he is driving and that he will talk later.
4. The Dilemma:
Now, these guys must have done something wrong, and they are trying to cheat/defraud us.
I assumed the good in people and didn't really record the first conversation i had with ashok. We aren't usually paranoid of getting defrauded/fleeced like this, so we weren't storing the call recordings or anything.
But with this whatsapp conversation I am not sure what we can do.
Any help from team-bhp experts would be very very helpful in how we can get what is rightfully ours and what was agreed.
Now Ashok is maintaining that he never agreed to having AMC and ex-warranty and b2b insurance as part of the deal. I point out the obvious flaws in the argument and he's trying to distract us only.
I have the call recordings of both calls spoken today and I'd be willing to share it here on team-bhp if anyone can hear it and give me an opinion (the conversation is in tamil, so any tamil people/chennai people pitching in would be very very helpful).
Now I don't know whom to approach to get this rectified. We have denied signing of delivery challan and feedback form and put it on hold now.
These guys are evidently trying to defraud us and fleece us. I certainly didn't expect this from a new showroom, certainly not Tata, that too here in Chennai.
Can the team-bhp experts advice me on what I can do to get the AMC and Ex-Warranty as promised? Ashok is now saying that we have to pay for it if we want it.
Any insights from the seasoned experts would help us take this case further to solve it. Please help. please:
Congrats on your new car. Drive safe with your seat belts on!
Sorry to hear about the ordeal, but at the end of the day we must remember that salesmen are humans too! It is important for the buyer to remain as a single point of contact as much as you like the salesmen to be. Dragging the whole family into the deal has only made things worse. As they say... too many cooks spoil the broth.
It is definitely good to shop around and get the best deal. But in my opinion you have gone a little overboard in shopping around.
Please arrive at a amicable solution with the dealership. Gift him a nice box of sweets or a small memento, make peace and enjoy your ride!
My two cents!!
Congrats on the Tiago, now that you have the car enjoy it and leave all else behind. I think I'd blame you fair and square for this fiasco: "Too many cooks spoil the broth" saying comes to mind. In the quest to drive a hard bargain we make the experience sour for ourselves with this back and forth cross checks done by you and all other family members; in the process confusing the issue. You need to know that you aren't the only client for the SA. It made a long a confusing reading for us, just can imagine what it must have been like for the people involved. Usually when I have a 'tough' client trying to be smart, I let them go in order to save on the confusion it entails. SA is there for all types of clients but ultimately he is also human.
You bought a car basis a WhatsApp quote or what? Don't you have the quotation with all the components described in detail which are included in the price?
And all this talk of bargaining with 5 people involved, calling up the same person, is plain immature.
I am sorry but I feel very bad for the poor salesman.
Frankly you went way overboard in trying for that perfect bargain and made it into a very bad experience for yourself.
Congratulations for the car. :thumbs up
Now coming to your experience, what were you exactly trying to do? Dont get me wrong. You quoted a price of one dealer to another to get more benefits and you even got it. But you've ended up confusing the dealers as well as me. You've shared so many snapshots but not one paper with the price quotation. Whenever buying anything, especially a car, always get things in writing. Now forget all the ordeal and enjoy your car. :thumbs up
First of all, Congratulations on your new car.
IMHO, you tried to be smart but the dealership has outsmarted you. The dealer seems to be upset with your process of re-negotiation after finalizing the deal and booking the car. So naturally they have decided to make the best of the loophole (of not having the deal details on paper) and you have ended up like this. As other have already suggested, you do not seem to have much of a case to fight with the dealership since what you have done (by involving multiple parties into re-negotiation) has not gone down well with the dealership staff and they will not be willing to cooperate and I do not see any reason why TATA would also involve themselves in such a case because clearly you do not have any written proof of the deal apart from the WhatsApp message which is not really a quotation from the dealership but a mere conversation with a dealership staff which has little to no value for argument.
I would suggest you to move on and enjoy your new car instead of dragging this further. You can always get the AMC, Ext Warranty and Service done from other TATA dealership.
I request mods to change the subject of this thread as it's misleading. One has to follow the basic etiquettes of business. Treat fairly to get treated fairly in return.
This is a little handbook on how not to close a deal.
Like others here I have no choice but to hold you responsible for this deal going bad. Quite frankly you've also put a clickbait title with the expression "Help!".
You need to get used to the business world, once you shake hands or sign a deal, you are free to either back-off the deal if its not satisfactory, subject to provisions of the agreement, else you go through with it at the same terms and conditions.
Its clear that :
- You used two dealers to create a haggling situation (fish market) and became too aggressive in bargaining for every rupee.
- You used various tactics like insurance, teflon, extended warranty etc.. but in trying to extract every rupee discount, forgot that they can use it to manipulate the deal as well.
I'm the last man to support a dealership or service centers, they are rogues masquerading as businessmen but in this case you weren't fair to them either because if you were, you wouldn't use one dealer as a bargaining chip against another, the fair thing to do in this case is to ditch one dealer IF you're getting a better deal elsewhere and FINALIZE.
Remember that in a free market, you are already blessed with many choices and a fair and just scenario both from consumer end and business end. This however, doesn't give you unlimited bargaining power or rights to protest till your price is met, they have as much rights to reject your proposal as you have, and then you move on (it's another thing that most businesses are polite to never let go of a consumer and will try their best to make a deal), remember that they need to make a good profit on their sales as well, automobile margins are amongst the lowest in the overall scope.
Hope my points have been put across clearly. I'm not supporting anyone here, just trying to nail the point home that each deal has a limitation, if you're happy shake hands and close it, or walk off to the next sales point. By not doing that, you're going to sabotage your buying experience and how.
As an example, a relative of mine when constructing a house, kept renegging and renegging on prices, brought many fixtures and raw materials by himself, hammered the contractor on rates for months. Two years after, the house has many structural cracks, and leaks and there are many deformations on the ceiling. The contractor cut many things short and left. The cost of repairs would be twice more than what he'd have paid "extra" at the first shot. Not a direct comparison but yeah.
Congratulations on the new Tiago. Wishing you tens of thousands of miles and smiles (let go off this and enjoy the car).
As you consider yours as hard earned money, remember, the dealers are also struggling to keep their business afloat. After reading your long thread, it has been a harrowing experience not only for you, but for the poor dealers as well. Not being insensitive here, but you just did not play smart, but dirty. So, it is quite possible that the dealers played the same game.
Coming back to your query, unless you have a written quotation or agreement that lists all the promised deliverables and the final cost, I don't think you have any legal standing on this. My suggestion would be to swallow the bitter pill, pay for the AMC and extended warranty, leave this behind and enjoy the car. In the future deals, make sure you get everything in writing and also please do play fair.
