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Old 29th August 2020, 19:46   #91
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Re: Handling charges deemed compulsory by Trident Renault, Bangalore

Even when buying my Avenger bike, I straight away told the dealer to give me a final offer and make sure that handling charges aren't included in that.
I got a complete break up of prices from them and the deal was sealed. The dealer infact told me later that they are aware about illegality of adding handling charges.
This is how a bike dealer operates honestly in spite of having low margins per product.

I own an Etios and dealers will never dare to mess around with Toyota looking over.

Adding 11000 as handling charges equates to one full month of EMI or 2 regular services or approximately 150 litres of fuel. Why would customers bear this losses because some dealer decided to cheat them?

Better to stay away from such dealers and look for some alternate brands. Anyways Duster and the Renault brand itself won't last beyond 5 years unless they come up with some radical products.

The dealer will try some or the other tricks even if the deal goes through and will find a way to get back to you one way or another looking at how one of their representative tried to defend themselves in one of the post in this thread.
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Old 29th August 2020, 20:33   #92
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Re: Handling charges deemed compulsory by Trident Renault, Bangalore

So my opinion is that, it's a better idea to simply include the handling charges in the ex showroom costing. Sure, it does cost a certain amount of money to transport the vehicle etc. I feel this charge is inflated because the dealer is not bringing just one vehicle at a time. I don't understand the need to explicitly mention handling charges and then attracting the wrath of the customer. No customer is going to ask the cost of shipping raw material from vendors to the factory, so why give this break up of handling charges? I was miffed when the Bangalore Kawasaki dealer charged me 11k for the same handling charges. I was like, I mean come on man!
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Old 29th August 2020, 22:30   #93
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Re: Handling charges deemed compulsory by Trident Renault, Bangalore

@LiveToDrive

Reading through this thread and looking at the PDFs of the court ruling, my understanding is:

1. Dealerships can charge a handling amount and can be collected subject to the buyer agreeing to pay for it.

2. It can be contested on a case to case basis which examines the merit of such a charge.

I am sorry to hear about your experience. Dealerships incur expenses such as transporting the car from stockyard, giving you a test drive, providing you with a certain amount of fuel to reach the nearest gas station etc. This seems entirely their prerogative. If you do not feel justified being charged for this, you should just walk away from the deal. In this case, the dealership seems to be firm about this charge.

If you really like the car, negotiate elsewhere on other components where they can allow a discount. End of the day, you should be happy with the purchase and have a smile every time you drive your car.

The decision is entirely up to you and it seems like you have decided to walk away. You are totally entitled to do what you see is ethical, logical and makes financial sense to you. On this forum, people can only offer you their opinion.
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Old 29th August 2020, 23:13   #94
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Re: Handling charges deemed compulsory by Trident Renault, Bangalore

What this whole scenario has done is that, it has made a lot of people 'aware' of the SC ruling, which earlier was not known to a lot of them. So basically, its a loss for all manufacturers, and of course Renault.

Now, people will (and they should) definitely pressurize the dealership to get that illegal HC component removed.
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Old 30th August 2020, 00:09   #95
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Re: Handling charges deemed compulsory by Trident Renault, Bangalore

Well after reading the post and various viewpoints, here are my 2 cents.

Handling charges are minuscule as compared to the price of the product yet the behavior of the staff is in-disposable. Dealer could have adjusted this amount somewhere or might have given some , if not all , discount to retain the customer. The fact that they did not budge at all shows that they would lose a customer as opposed to making some adjustment. Walking away is the right thing to do so as to not get after sales hassles. With this attitude I am sure there might surely be.

I was inquiring about some left over BS4 stocks during Dec 2019 and Feb 2020 for Duster from the showroom @ Mahadevpura. I also requested a test drive. First of all they told me they did not had any stock of BS4 , while an old colleague of mine got one in the month of March from these guys. Second , there were 3 test drive Duster standing in front of the showroom but they never bothered to make that test drive work.
I somehow feel that not only dealers but Renault as a whole in India is trying to wrap up with whatever they have. No offense but that is what it appears to me after visiting 2 of their showrooms.

Also the fact that a single dealer is serving an entire city and probably more than that is another monopoly. The reason I am not going after Rapid is the same even when I just love the product.

After Sales Service and positive attitude still matters, even when the world is going online.

Also the time is gone when the average Joe would step inside a showroom and would give in to the whims & whacks of these dealers.
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Old 30th August 2020, 08:59   #96
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Re: Handling charges termed compulsory by Trident Renault

Quote:
Originally Posted by dark.knight View Post
Now to clear things out straightaway, my only connection with Trident is that I bought 3 Hyundai cars from them, all of which I got at good prices and excellent buy-back as well. I have had problems with their service but never in sales, and I never looked at overall break-up of costs when buying a car
Well, only if you do spend time noticing the break-up of charges, would you notice how much they are swindling you A relative of mine bought a Venue recently and Trident took him for a ride with insurance - nearly 30k more. My relative was impatient and couldn't wait for me to come over and do the talking. The claimed benefits of buying "Hyundai" insurance from Trident was laughable. I am not saying other dealerships are saints. It all comes down to what you are required to pay for and what the dealer is forcing you to pay for.
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Old 30th August 2020, 10:56   #97
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Re: Handling charges deemed compulsory by Trident Renault, Bangalore

Quote:
Originally Posted by PraNeel View Post
Just go to RTO office esp in BLR and try registration / name transfer process etc. If you are not well informed and prepared you will be frustrated very soon and engage the services of an agent.
I am not defending / supporting the dealer here. I am just bringing out the aspect behind these charges.
When I applied for ownership change in RTO in BLR, I had to make three trips to get my RC even though I was well prepared and my file was submitted in first attempt. The process costed less than 500 rupees, while agent was charging 3500.
You had to make 3 trips because you were not aware of the system. And each time they must have asked for missing documents etc. In the end you did manage to get it done without any bribe. But now if you were to revisit them for another vehicle, you are well aware of the documents and process. So a dealer doesn't need to make multiple trips. It is part of their daily routine and they would know exactly what all is needed. So this logic of paying commissions to agents is entirely false.

Last edited by drmohitg : 30th August 2020 at 10:58.
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Old 30th August 2020, 11:16   #98
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Re: Handling charges deemed compulsory by Trident Renault, Bangalore

Quote:
Originally Posted by ankitsharma View Post
Also the fact that a single dealer is serving an entire city and probably more than that is another monopoly. The reason I am not going after Rapid is the same even when I just love the product.

After Sales Service and positive attitude still matters, even when the world is going online.
REnault has one dealer right now but really that should not be the criteria to buy a car. What if they open another dealer? They had 2-3 before but now it has come down.

Similarly Skoda had 2 then Vinayak closed down but now again there is a second one PPS Skoda and Tafe.

Renault is far from closing down. They have the Triber and Kwid that is doing pretty well and the new compact sub 4m SUV coming soon to take on the other compact SUV's.

Where they went wrong was in the Captur and now trying to push the Duster beyond the expiry date.

Coming to handling charges, what irritates me is that they tell you handling charges for transport, numberplate and RTO process.

This is an outright lie and cannot be proportional to the price of the car. Let it be a uniform 5K or 10K across.

I know it's debatable but atleast let it be official rather than lie and try to wriggle the amount under different pretexts.
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Old 30th August 2020, 12:31   #99
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Re: Handling charges deemed compulsory by Trident Renault, Bangalore

I had a similar experience with Mahindra dealer, Approach I took is, I sent an e-mail to Mahindra stating, I like your vehicle(XUV 3OO) but the dealer is charging "handling chargers", I may consider another brand for this reason, I got a call from Dealer next day and he said they are waiving off handling charges or they will provide the accessories worth same amount.
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Old 30th August 2020, 13:43   #100
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Re: Handling charges termed compulsory by Trident Renault

Quote:
Originally Posted by styx71 View Post
Well, only if you do spend time noticing the break-up of charges, would you notice how much they are swindling you
It cant be swindling if I understand their margins already, so from your point of view I got willingly swindled, but read on :

1) I was comfortable with the exchange value which was 20k more than what I got from people who were always asking for the old car but needed a bargain, again to me time is valuable and I don't want to do menial work for all these things.

2) I already enquired about outside insurance and knew the reduction I could've got, but paid the insurance, handling charges and registration charges anyway because I was comfortable with the 6 digit+ discount I got overall plus loyalty bonus rounding off at 1.5 lacs approx.

3) I got a good number of accessories which I would've had to buy anyway and would've costed close to 10k. I found it extremely fair, plus I didn't waste my fuel going for PDI or even to book/pickup the vehicle, again its just a car and not a life changing event.

Overall I am a guy who'd look at the final numbers, I don't want to go into details as long as I know its a satisfactory deal. Plus the 2 exchanges I did get from Trident were more than fair and suffice to say that after capital depreciation I owned both cars for nearly zero, except for running and maintenance costs.
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Old 30th August 2020, 14:30   #101
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Re: Handling charges termed compulsory by Trident Renault

Quote:
Originally Posted by dark.knight View Post
It cant be swindling if I understand their margins already, so from your point of view I got willingly swindled, but read on :

Overall I am a guy who'd look at the final numbers, I don't want to go into details as long as I know its a satisfactory deal. Plus the 2 exchanges I did get from Trident were more than fair and suffice to say that after capital depreciation I owned both cars for nearly zero, except for running and maintenance costs.
Absolutely right dark.knight!.

Even I would not bother too much on the break up as long as the final amount, after taking into account the discounts, freebies, accessories, exchange etc, is a good deal.

If I decide to walk away, I will not get the car I wanted .

At the end of the day, if some buyers just decide that they will not pay anything illegal clearly mentioned in the invoice, it is up to them.

As they say, to each his own.
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Old 30th August 2020, 17:07   #102
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Re: Handling charges deemed compulsory by Trident Renault, Bangalore

After having read the Delhi High Court judgment that Samir Chaudhary posted, in particular, the following averment by the dealers

that the handling charges / logistic charges to which objection is taken by the appellant are not related to registration of vehicles but are towards stockyard services / warehousing charges, driving costs in terms of fuel consumed and people engaged, fuel given following delivery, transit risk insurance from stockyard to dealer’s showroom, polishing and / or waxing and towards other handling costs..

, it seems clear to me that the confident statements that many of us have been making that handling charges are illegal is wrong. There is a prohibition only on adding to registration costs. Beyond that, dealers can charge what they want towards the services they provide to get the car to the customer. If we don’t like it, it is a free market and we should move on to someone else.
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Old 30th August 2020, 19:53   #103
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Will be interesting to see both parties contest each another in court...

A) will Livetodrive file a case against Trident for "extortion of handling charges " ?
B) will Trident or Renault file a defamation case against Livetodrive ?

This will put to rest as to who is right and who is wrong...
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Old 31st August 2020, 01:18   #104
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Re: Handling charges deemed compulsory by Trident Renault, Bangalore

Quote:
Originally Posted by WorkingGuru View Post
Dealers quoting case laws to justify extracting logistical charges doesn't bode well for a "brand".

Indicates the desparate necessity for laws to protect car buyers
You're asking a dealer not to use a law which he interprets to be in his favor. But you also ask for further laws to be passed in your favor. The law cuts both ways.

Quote:
Originally Posted by alikidwhy View Post
This is a forum where we debate over facts and not look at pdf(s) by Directors.

You, as the M.D. at Trident ... yet you act childish and ‘disengage’?
That's a very arbitrary statement.

How is providing a link to a case law not a fact? And why does it matter if it was posted by the director of the company?

Fact of the matter is, only this director and bharatbits have directly linked to the relevant case in discussion here. Both have different interpretations of course(which is expected in a high profile case). It would be better to just pick your side of the interpretation without calling the other side "childish".

Quote:
Originally Posted by drmohitg View Post
So you are saying that the dealer can offer a discount and then have items in the final invoice that are completely unaccounted for and illegal?
Even leaving aside the "illegality" which has has been interpreted in both ways in this thread; this can't be considered unaccounted income in any sense of the word.

All transactions are routed through the respective banks, and this won't escape even a cursory audit of the dealer.

The situation is even stricter when banks get involved in a financier capacity, which is quite often.

Quote:
Originally Posted by click View Post
Airlines shouldn't do it as well and hopefully people look beyond those PR campaigns.

Next point about luxury brand.... They leave no option but for the customer to think this is a inflated quotation and we need to negotiate every line item. The whole practice makes it difficult for anyone to trust dealers on face value.
You're expecting businessmen to behave like saints. Studies have shown that customers across the world prefer the hike-and-discount strategy. Why would companies not cater to that preference?

Quote:
Originally Posted by bharatbits View Post
The court states it is ok to collect handling charges as long as the said charges are:
2. For providing any extras in terms of services, goods, fuel etc. to the purchasers and the purchasers agree to pay
Thanks for the elaborate interpretation of the case. It's clear the court hasn't given a blanket ban or blanket permission either way.

It still seems like this will come down to individual customer-dealer negotiations. Either the customer agrees to the charges and makes the purchase, or the dealer simply doesn't sell the car. End of the day it will turn into a game of chicken to see who gives up first, which will likely depend on festive seasons, time of month/year, assumed net worth of the customer and so on.
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Old 31st August 2020, 02:20   #105
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Re: Handling charges deemed compulsory by Trident Renault, Bangalore

This is news to me. AFAIK, PPS has several showrooms of Ford in Bangalore. Some hope for Skoda fans . Thanks a lot for bringing this to light.
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Originally Posted by Vid6639 View Post
Similarly Skoda had 2 then Vinayak closed down but now again there is a second one PPS Skoda and Tafe.
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