[katsumoto]

In the outskirts of Bangalore


Remember, CrAzY dRiVeR’s compilation of all the recent issues with Hyundai, especially about Creta’s breaking ability? I read the whole thread just after arriving home giving token advance for this car…! Had Heights of buyers remorse to start with.

Now going back, how did it start, It is been a year, since I had owned car. In Sep, 2019 I sold my Getz Prime 1.1 GLE (P) through olxcashmycar. Thought I could manage with Uber/Zoomcar/Drivezy. I did manage a while, had a chance to drive superb cars like freestyle, Captur, Verna, Duster, WR-V and not so inspiring cars to drive like Baleno, Egnis etc…

This is when I got to experience the torque nature of the diesels especially the low ends, Duster 110 PS, freestyle 1.5 TDCi are fantastic to drive and really enjoyed it but 80 KMPH top end cap seemed to plague me on the long drives. And thought enough is enough started looking for diesel cars. I usually take very long time to decide weighing the possibilities and if things look right, I take quick decisions.
Based on my driving likes i started my search with OLX for freestyle / Ecosport (Not looking for ecoboost / Dragon Petrols), Duster 110 PS.

My criteria started with freestyle / Ecosport / Duster Diesels.
If Huyndai Creta, Petrol / Diesel anything is fine.

My idea was 3 years / 30K and it should be pre-worshipped. Colour or Variant are optional.
Wanted at-least 2 airbags / ABS / EBD and good sheet metal to cover / Good Breaks

Freestyle diesel was nearly non-existent for my criteria in OLX, For other cars, Most of the dealers cars showed 30K mileages whatever be the age, This is some thing i found fishy. I started around Oct 2019 and it is been Feb 2020 still i couldn’t short list any cars with OLX. One car (Hyundai Creta 1.5 P from a friendly looking dealer in HSR the mileage showed was around 35K but in the service station last reported was around 78K) Some individual sellers cars were really looked genuine but some were not interested to be inspected from Service Centre some were quoting ridiculously high prices and not up for any negotiations.

During this process I came to know about Spinny in bangalore. The cars really looked nice their report was really useful but the pricing didn’t seem to be attracting me much because i found it pricy. Then I came to know about Cars24. Their report looked legitimate and their process looked genuine (They inspect the cars from the owner, list on their platform so that buyer can select, inspect and then buy - Cars24 gets commission from both buyers and sellers and they seemed to have their own financial arm for loans and they do vehicle ownership transfer)

Again here also freestyle diesel was non-existent Ecosport was priced high. I have only seen 2 freestyles when i searched for the car, both the owners didn't respond to their adverts.

One more problem i found was that it became difficult to get service history if approached directly. Most owners were busy and asking me to get the service history nobody i have interacted is been able to accompany me to get the service history.
"How can I buy a car without inspection and history?"... This is when owning Hyundai Getz prior came to help. I knew a service advisor from Trident and kept a deal with him (I bring a potential car to inspect, he will do the service history verification and inspect the car for a nominal fee He will share that with his colleagues for the work) With this being the deal, my search is now restricted only to Hyundai cars.

In Cars24, I was looking for cars with no issues on Engine / Transmission / Clutch / Suspension etc.. They used to have comments for each items and I read them and I select it only if it doesn’t have any problem for these items (and 5* for these items). Some cars were ridiculously priced for the report i have seen. Short listed few cars and i was assigned an executive from Cars24, He was a nice dude. Then the COVID-19 lockdown happened. Everything went hey-wire and nothing was moving for 2 months, In these 2 months i re-grouped my thoughts, thought i could negotiate better because of the COVID situation. Waited for the activity to resume. Meanwhile selected 3 cars from Cars24, All 3 were ready to be inspected after the lockdown, showed it to my advisor, One was having ODO tampered by a good margin one was having suspension issue which was not listed in Cars24. The last one car looked promising It was 2015 July 1.6 CRDI SX (0) price quoted was 10.5 L. I was fine to offer 9.0L before the inspection of the car, subjecting to inspection. Owner wanted to have somewhere around 9.5L. It was very well maintained, top notch condition, driven around 35K There were no scratches (Not even in the boot) I was really impressed looking the car. It really looked spanking new.

First site of the car


While going to service Centre



My mechanic looked at the car and he found the Clutch to be very hard (35K for replacement) and link rod bush had leakage (2K for changing) But otherwise he found the car to really solid, no accident history and well maintained with Hyundai service through-out. I have not yet drive the car. For inspection the driver of the owner brought the car and while going back I took a test drive and found the clutch to be really tight. As per Cars24 listing there was no issue with Clutch (If it is hard Clutch - they used to mention). The cost was as told by my Mechanic and it became a dilemma to me now. The initial euphoria of having seen the car eroded and I wanted to take informed decision. I told them whatever my mechanic said and also I came to inspect the car based on Cars24 report and i didn’t expect this surprise, so i want to take some so asked them to give couple of days to think.

During Inspection









In the last service (Advith hyundai) The owners service adviser seemed to mention about the hard clutch but the owner ignored because i believe he was planning to sell, This I came to know later. I told them I can match 9.5 L But the cost of these expenses should be wived off. So it is fair I give them 9.1L, The owner told his service advisor mentioned the cost of replacement to be around 20K. So he wanted 9.3 to seal the deal and that was the final amount for which we finished the deal. The owner is nice to talk to and sensible to negotiate (they are from business family - He mentioned one of the founder of Karur Vysya Bank was his Grand mother) as opposed to dealers and individuals in OLX (They, the potential sellers don’t know how to negotiate at all, they just stand with a price and not really ready for further meaningful negotiations for any reason, IMHO).

Now starts the ordeal with Cars24.

When I started the Car search with Cars24, they took my basic documents and because of my CIBIL report I was told i will easily get 90% loan amount at 10% Interest rate from Cars24. I gave the token advance 20K and 1% Commission on the spot and we agreed to meet after couple of days (Once the loan is approved from Cars24) for the remaining payment and delivery of the vehicle. I was followed up with finance team of Cars24 and next they mentioned I got the loan approved for 7L. I asked them for the terms. After few not so resourceful calls finally i got the call from Cars24 mention that I get 7L loan with 18% interest rate and the loan dispersion amount would be round 6.2L (They had lot of attachments like loan insurance, processing fee and some GPS like device to fit in the car so that they can track the car) My Ears gone red hearing these things. I mentioned there is no reason for me to get 18% loan + 10% processing fees when i can get my pre approved personal loan for 13% without any approval process and with 1% processing fee.

In a hindsight, if i re-think again, It was in June, So may be because of COVID situation finance companies were started making loan process tight, so my CIBIL score may not be a concern to them but the 10% fee for their different riders was simply not acceptable. When I mentioned this to my Cars24 executive, He was all listening muted, then went silent there was no response from him for a day. I thought this is because they already got the commission, Now I am on my own to close the deal, they wont care much which is what happened.
Next day I asked the Cars24 executive to schedule a meeting for final payment (I was saving for car, So i could dip into that without loan), He said he was busy, I can go ahead and do the final payment and take the delivery. Ha ha nice, Very nice, I thought. I politely asked him "why can’t he accompany me is it because you already got the commission? Why don’t you accompany me to get the delivery and get whatever gift we wanted to give you for the deal?" I reasoned him a bit and then He told "why are you talking like this sir, we are not here for commission and I can do the delivery don’t worry sir…" After all the gyaan, He scheduled a meeting with the owner next day, This time I went with team-bhp PDI list and with couple of friends.

Did the remaining amount payment next day and took the delivery of the vehicle. Owner mentioned he had asked his driver to give a car wash. Nice gesture from him. When we went to take delivery, He had everything ready (Documents, Spare key, boot net etc…) It was a nice gesture and good to deal with a gentleman like him. As promised after the delivery I gave the vehicle transfer work to the cars24 executive for a fee and then gave him the assured gift (I gave 2K cash, I don’t normally find sweets to be worthy gifts), We were planning for a parting lunch but because of COVID situation we just parted after having Coffee.

Now it is been 4 months and 5K kms with 2 highway rides,

Likes,

Creta Diesel top end SX(O) with 34K Mileage
Powerful 1.6 CRDI D4FB engine with softer suspension (This is definitely not fun to drive like Freestyle)
6 Air-bags
list of comfort goodies which Hyundai brought to this car which i am not used to own earlier.
So far no breaking issues
Looks / Feel nice and new.
No Rattles whatsoever
Good A/C.
Good Audio/Video quality with the onboard ICE


Dislikes,

CrAzY dRiVeR’s thread
2015 models doesn't upgrade to Google maps, have to relay on Maps Of India with the ob-board ICE.
Doesn't have strong sheet metal like Ecosport at the same time not like Baleno or Egnis either.

[GTO]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[Ragavsr]

This is the first example i have seen of someone buying a car through cars24.

The red flag here is that 20k advance taken by cars24 is non refundable and there are stories of people who were bullied into paying the token without a thorough inspection of the car like you did.

No one quite knows that 20k goes to cars24 or the owner. Plus commissions are usually paid post completion of sale , not after giving token advance usually in sectors like real estate. This is predatory behaviour at best, similar to them paying 1 rupee as token amount and charging a cancellation penalty of 5000 rupees.

I have sold my car to them and took their instant payment option. Had a decent experience. I would suggest all potential cars24 users to be vigilant though. I'd never buy from them if the 20k token amount is non refundable.

[katsumoto]

Originally Posted by Ragavsr

The red flag here is that 20k advance taken by cars24 is non refundable and there are stories of people who were bullied into paying the token without a thorough inspection of the car like you did.

20K token advance to owner and 1% of the car resale value as commission to Cars24. Yes, this is non-refundable if we try to back-out the deal.

Originally Posted by Ragavsr

No one quite knows that 20k goes to cars24 or the owner. Plus commissions are usually paid post completion of sale , not after giving token advance usually in sectors like real estate.

In my case, I directly transferred all the payments to the owner and 1% commission as cash to Cars24 executive. Barring that incident where he went non responsive for a while, he was generally helpful. But you are right, In general people's tendency in service sector is not right once the payment / partial payment is done. We need to be cautious at each and every transaction.

Originally Posted by Ragavsr

I have sold my car to them and took their instant payment option. Had a decent experience.

Looks like they are following different models of operation.

[rachitarora1985]

Originally Posted by katsumoto

In my case, I directly transferred all the payments to the owner and 1% commission as cash to Cars24 executive. Barring that incident where he went non responsive for a while, he was generally helpful. But you are right, In general people's tendency in service sector is not right once the payment / partial payment is done. We need to be cautious at each and every transaction.



Looks like they are following different models of operation.

Congrats for the car and wish you many happy miles.

Glad that you did not face the same ordeal like me. I was myself searching for a car through multiple platforms (Cars24, Droom, Spinny, Olx) but none of them eventually worked out. While the inventory was good on Droom & Cars24, both of them were too casual in their approach. Every time I selected a car on their websites and had shown my interest, each time a new person claiming to be my allotted relationship manager would call me. Imagine explaining your requirement on each call! (I memorized it like the "tell me something about yourself" part of an interview). If it was not enough, whenever I requested for fixing a meeting with the owner to see the car, they always made some excuses to fix a meeting. This is despite the fact that in some cases, the difference between my quoted amount and owner's demanded amount was 5-10% only. Maybe they thought that I wasn't a serious customer. Eventually, they could only arrange 1 meeting in 3 months and did not even care to be present during the first interaction with Owner. No wonder that I did not buy through them.

[archat68]

Don't like to hijack your thread but I'll also like to share my experience a car through Cars24 in Delhi.

I was searching for a AMT automatic used car in Delhi for around 4L with age around 4 years. Searched various sites. Finally a 2016 Wagon R Vxi AMT ran around 33000 KM was chosen by me. The car was in decent condition. Mechanically OK, serviced in time, and odometer verified through service records. The deal was fixed for 3.35L. In addition I had to pay Cars24 Rs 10620 as their fees. Rs 3.35L was paid to the owner directly. There was no problem with the deal as such. The car was also fairly OK. No hidden "surprises". One thing I must mention is that I was expecting that I will make the payment to Cars24 and will get a GST invoice from them but at the last moment it was revealed that was not the case. Slight disappointment there.

Now the biggest disappointment part. I opted for RC transfer through Cars24. I must say I'm very transparent here. Since I'm recently transferred to Delhi whenever I negotiated for a car purchase I showed all my papers and asked them whether based on them RC transfer is possible or not. In this case too I presented all my papers to them which was satisfactory as per them and paid them a fee of Rs 4500 for RC transfer on 8th Nov 2020 which is 2 and half months ago. Till now the RC has not been transferred and most dreadful thing is their complete lack of response. They are completely silent until I raise a query. Mostly at first they'd say that my RC transfer has been completed without even checking. But after persisting it'd be found that it is still pending at RTO for the want of some paper that I have already submitted to them. This is happening again and again. They have not even shared me the RTO acknowledgement of the receiving of the RC smart card. At present I don't have any proof that I have submitted the RC for transfer.

So, this is just a caution for all prospective buyers.

Hope it helps someone.

[katsumoto]

Originally Posted by archat68

Till now the RC has not been transferred and most dreadful thing is their complete lack of response. They are completely silent until I raise a query.

Ditto, They took a while for me too. I checked the parivahan and found that it is pending for RTO Challan. When i sent them the screen shot of the pending payment screen, viola... the transfer happened in 2 days.

this happened for me when selling my Getz with olxcashmycar too. They kept on telling me that the transfer is not happening because it was a rural RTO and i believed them for a good amount of around 9 months. I checked parivahan and it was due to pending payment. When i mentioned them this over an e-mail again the transfer got completed in 3 days.

I still believe they delegate transfer work to third parties and they mostly mess up because RTO payment is not high comparing the fee they collect from us.