[RMN]

Mod Note : Please do NOT post messages that add little or no informational value to the thread. We need your co-operation to maintain the quality of this forum.

We advise you to read the Forum Rules before proceeding any further. Request to post ONLY when you have something substantial to add to a discussion.

[darkbull]

KIA is known in Global Markets as a car which comes loaded with features for a cheap price. Whichever country / city, they land, the markets are flooded with cars of all shapes and sizes.

In Bangalore, I hardly see other cars. It is usually KIA Sonet or KIA Seltos. I also wonder how the service intervals will be managed when so many cars are due for service at the same day.

The OP’s issue confirms my view that they have oversold their product, with very little thought process on after sales service. Usually companies make money when we go for service. Product sale is only 30% or 40%, but service is what gets them the remaining bracket. Now water in stereo, is an isolated issue. How did it get inside, why no other components were damaged are all interesting questions.

Keep us informed on this progress as I am quite curious, how it got inside.

[scenario7]

Something like this happens with any brand that focuses on aggressive expansion. KIA started off with 260 dealerships which they scaled to 300 in a few months time. This is an absurdly high number for a new brand, even if we consider the relationship that KIA has with Hyundai.

Consider Toyota. Even after 20+ years, they have only 400 touchpoints. Though we have been frustrated by this tortoise speed of Toyota in introducing new products, this approach has definitely helped them to consistently provide decent ASS over the years (I know there are a few exceptions, but I am talking about the overall picture).

Having said this, KIA is absolutely correct in this aggressive expansion strategy. It has made them the fastest brand to reach the milestone of 3 Lakh units:
https://www.team-bhp.com/news/kia-be...kh-sales-india
KIA should now focus on better controlling and monitoring their dealerships and limit dealer expansion only to urban areas where overcrowding is definitely a problem.

Regards

[electro-monk]

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

I have seen vehicles go in and out of the alignment shop in mere minutes with a nice printout, computer will fix everything I guess!!

This happens in Maruti ASS too - I have personally seen this at dealer owned service centers (Bimal) while my car was being serviced (I let it slide as the SA didn't attempt to bill me for it).
I have also known friends getting billed for alignment while the zipties on their wheelcaps stayed intact . Birds of a feather flock together for sure.

[Chinmay]

Originally Posted by nishsingh

Experiences such as these are why I feel I feel Toyota deserves the premium it asks for on Innova/Fortuner and Maruti deserves the top spot. As someone who gets annoyed very easily by poor customer service, I feel wary of committing to car from any other company.
.....
Needless to say, experiences such as these are why I stay loyal to Maruti despite their lacklustre portfolio of cars.

I concur. For me, and I am sure for a lot of owners, peace of mind matters more than bling features. Agreed that Maruti's portfolio is sad. However, they shine on the service front. People tend to forget that service is perhaps more important than a purchase, especially for high-value products such as cars. If not Maruti, perhaps Hyundai, Mahindra, and Tata. But never an unknown and untested brand in the Indian context. I decided on a Brezza primarily because of MSIL's approachable service. I may have to look elsewhere while upgrading from my current vehicle, but would never buy a brand without an acceptable service record. No complaints on the service front so far, and I have been driving for 18+ years now.

[aniketi]

I have very good experience for Wheel alignment and balancing with Maruti. They charge you more than double but they do their job perfectly. Car drives like new after it is done and if any small noise is there, it gets eliminated. Always do alignment and balancing from them only even though its costly.

Coming back to Kia, this is really bad user experience. They need to be better in handling such complaints from customers and stop blaming them. No user will do such things deliberately on his brand new car. Who has time to send car to service station and waste time and petrol for that?

[SedanGuy]

I follow this guy called Tyler Hoover on Youtube and he used to be a used car dealer and now has an impressive fleet of exotic cars thanks to youtube. He describes Month of July as the month of Carmageddon just because of the volume of failures he faces during this time of the year with his personal fleet and from his dealership days.

Looking at the failures on T-BHP, I would says it has been no less than Carmageddon here as well. Just a few posts that I have been following:
1. My own car - Rapid ECU failure - (link (Help needed | Rat damage to my car & ECM damaged | Insurance company blames dealership))
2. Ford Ikon (ant problem (Ants attack my Ford Ikon))
3. Scross (clutch issue (Clutch pedal sinking))
4. Renault Kiger (battery Issue (Brand new Renault Kiger | Battery dead in 2 days | Battery drain problem))
5. Polo (ASS problems (VW Polo's air filter box assembled wrongly after service))

These are just a few i could find, I am sure there are more. But this post is definitely not a surprise. With a sea of Sonets and Seltos everywhere I see, this was eventually going to happen. I hope Op's issue is resolved soon. If not, the traction from this post will definitely help you strong arm the dealership. That was the way I was able to reach a settlement as well. All the best.

[Karthik.thm]

Originally Posted by Rigid Rotor

Re- @Karthik.thm's experience - just a few points:
Did you book an appointment for the 2nd service (with time)?
I have not been denied a service slot if booked in advance.
The 2nd Servicing is at 5 k km, engine oil change is not a scheduled maintenance activity. If you do insist on changing, then write it down in the form for servicing. The SA then cannot overlook this unscheduled activity, insisted by the customer.
The message for service reminder can easily be re-set in a minute. Pl refer the handbook. However, the SA should have ensured the same and that can be given as a feedback point.

Yes, we booked an appointment and they made us to wait. We chosen weekday (Wednesday to be precise) so that service centre would be less busy than say Friday or Monday.

Regarding the service remainder on instrument cluster, KIA themselves admitted that they just performed usual 2nd service checks and service people are busy to clear the remainder messages. SA noted down about oil change on job card but failed to do so.

Also, I would like to point out that customer care was very prompt and very helpful but the main grudge for service centre is they are unable to handle sheer volume that comes in.

[ZB86]

Almost every carmaker in India in recent times has some or the other horror stories with after sales attached to them. Either it is a brand as a whole or some models which just cannot escape such stories.

Some brands find their name sticking to poor After Sales for good. It has become part of their brand identity. Yet it does not impact their sales, and people still buy them.

In reality is it some of the service centers or is it synonymous with the entire brand? How does one take a call with which car to buy, because if we were to go by the experiences, one would wonder if there is any brand which has a flawless after sales to boast of.

In this case, this is unacceptable by the service station, and it is a bare minimum a car owner would expect in return for the hard money they spend. It could be that Kia dealers are over loaded with the sheer amount of volumes the brand has generated in a short span since its debut. But this is where the experience of the car maker comes into play. One can hope over time, the dealers find their groove and Kia also looks at this aspect of the brand reputation.

Maruti Suzuki has seen such massive sales in the last decade that it has found a way to manage the after sales. Tata, Kia, Hyundai will be tested in the coming years with how they cope up with this surge in sales.

[4nd3r50n]

I think the entire experience counts as one big deal-maker or deal-breaker. I am a VW, Ford, Maruti and soon a Jeep customer. Before we zeroed down on the Jeep, we did multiple TDs across segments to settle on that one car for my brother. Kia was also a part of the mix, when the Sonet was launched, and perhaps the strangest TD experience that my brother and I'd ever had. Similar to previous posts, the showroom was packed with folks- some taking delivery, some waiting for TDs- saying it was chaotic, would be an understatement. Reminded me of the the time that Ford had launched the Ecosport, but I'd still say that was bearable. We finally got the TD after waiting for about 2 hours. During the TD, the SA was hell bent on telling us that no other car offers Bose speakers on their cars and to put on the new Jhalak Dikhla Ja remix by Himesh at full volume. Plus snide comments about how other CSUVs were worthless and that the Sonet was at the same level as the Q3! After such cringe moments, when we finally got back to the dealership, and he looked at my Tiguan parked on the service road- the comment was, "Baap gaadi hai!". That entire TD experience was bizarre! My brother's family and I just left after briefly discussing the pricing- again, you must buy the insurance from them and 4-5 months was the waiting period.
Perhaps Kia have overachieved in the little time that they have been in India but they must pay attention to the entire customer experience starting right from the sales. Maybe the SA was a one-off and had not had exhaustive training. But that one SA may have put off many potential customers, like me. And when I'm reading about such after-sales and support, I think we made the right decision in not going ahead with Kia.

[Artyom]

After reading the OP's story I would like to differ with him on the following points:-

1.Unless the issue is being faced by multiple customers one cannot be sure that it's a QC issue. End of the day it's a machine and it is bound to fail. It is unfair to bash the brand left right and centre. Having said that I understand after owning a top of the line model when you face issues one does feel disappointed.

2. In this case it was purely the Service center which is taking advantage of the customer. I don't know how many times I have advised my family and friends to stay with the vehicle while getting it serviced to avoid this kind of issue where all your requests are unheard of and the vehicle is returned back. I find it really hard that folks can spend 3 hours in a theatre but can't spend 2 hours in the service center and then later go through this ordeal. I understand not everyone has that much time but then you also have to realize that in India these things are bound to happen. That is the hard truth.

In my opinion 9/10 times, you can get an expected service and outcome ONLY if you stay with the vehicle and oversee whatever is being done. It has worked with me for the last 6 years and I follow this rigorously to avoid having a sleepless night over these pity issues.

It could be Kia or Hyundai it's pretty much the same what differs is the approach.

[rpmmachine]

Originally Posted by speedfreak77

Not going for any Kia after these two.

Many thanks for the post. You can read so many people suffer from same fraud by kia dealers.

Kia should learn from Toyota.Toyota is selling just because of the reliability and after sales service they offer. Even for out of warranty cars they offer goodwill warranties.

Kia may have captured the market but they were not serious for after sales services.
Soon people will realize that its better to buy another car than to suffer forever. Better to stay away from Greedy manufacturer’s.
Once you buy a car you cannot replace it soon, you have to digest everything and have to live with all the issues.

I do agree that Maruti’s after sales service is top Notch. You complaint and they will be behind you till you agree that you are satisfied. Kia will soon taste the dust. You cannot sell in india forever just because of looks.

Went with my friend to Lally kia Jalandhar and they were not serious at all. He end up buying XUV300 in 2 days only.
People use to search and read reviews before buying. People all over world are aware of true reviews on TeamBHP.
Will never recommend KIA to anyone in life.

[Rigid Rotor]

Originally Posted by Karthik.thm

Yes, we booked an appointment and they made us to wait. We chosen weekday (Wednesday to be precise) so that service centre would be less busy than say Friday or Monday.

Regarding the service remainder on instrument cluster, KIA themselves admitted that they just performed usual 2nd service checks and service people are busy to clear the remainder messages. SA noted down about oil change on job card but failed to do so.

Also, I would like to point out that customer care was very prompt and very helpful but the main grudge for service centre is they are unable to handle sheer volume that comes in.

I am still not sure whether these 'lapses' justify the heading label of "horrible experience at a Kia workshop." I will dare to opine that these are minor irritants at best.

Cars at a workshop are taken on the basis of first-in first-out (provided nothing unexpected is found during servicing). Also, every workshop has an allotted capacity of cars. I seriously doubt whether any ASC (irrespective of brand) 'overbooks' cars for servicing. A car coming in at 1100 h will obviously be behind in the queue and a 40 min wait may not be unusual at that time. Heck, even when I used to land up a busy Renault workshop at opening time, I still had a 15-20 min wait time before the SA could attend.

As I stated earlier, oil change was not a scheduled maintenance activity. It was a customer request. Whenever an item on a job card is left undone for whatever reason, the SA usually calls up calls up to check with the owner.
It appears your friend also did not check whether the engine oil had been changed, as requested by him, when he accepted the car and also did not complain to the staff supervisor about this activity being missed and the SA not following up with a phone call to confirm go-ahead or to skip the oil change.

Originally Posted by 4nd3r50n

... Maybe the SA was a one-off and had not had exhaustive training. But that one SA may have put off many potential customers, like me. And when I'm reading about such after-sales and support, I think we made the right decision in not going ahead with Kia.

An experience with a particular SA at a showroom does not automatically equate with workshop capabilities of either the brand or the dealer. If the SA is generally being a fathead and garrulous, its perhaps prudent to ignore him and focus on the product - since that is what we have come to check, test drive and decide.

The unfortunate part is that it is very much a seller’s market right now (and likely to remain for some time). It’s even more unfortunate that Kia’s vehicles have a huge wait list. Also, it appears to be a region-to region difference. During my recent test drive sojourns across my town, the Hyundai and Kia dealers were quite forthcoming and I had two test drives each of Tuscon, Creta and Seltos. The experience was similar with Jeep Compass and Harrier – all dealers offered TDs of their vehicles.

[Karthik.thm]

Originally Posted by Rigid Rotor

I am still not sure whether these 'lapses' justify the heading label of "horrible experience at a Kia workshop." I will dare to opine that these are minor irritants at best.

As I stated earlier, oil change was not a scheduled maintenance activity. It was a customer request. Whenever an item on a job card is left undone for whatever reason, the SA usually calls up calls up to check with the owner.
It appears your friend also did not check whether the engine oil had been changed, as requested by him, when he accepted the car and also did not complain to the staff supervisor about this activity being missed and the SA not following up with a phone call to confirm go-ahead or to skip the oil change.

First of all I did not mentioned horrible experience anywhere. I just shared my experience with Kia service (maybe wrong thread to share the experience). Infact, I'm worried about SA's mental pressure on handling sheer volume that they handle each day.

Yes, Oil change is not necessary on second free service
but isn't service centre should be customer centric?

My Ecosport was serviced on last December and I suggested to change clutch while general service. SA and mechanic were against this and requested me to drive for another 10 to 15k kms as clutch is still good enough, however I insisted them to change and they did it anyway. This is completely different than Sonet's second service, but the point I am here to make is service centre should be more customer centric than misleading to unsuspecting customers.

My mentioned friend is an average Deepak when it comes to cars, His knowledge of cars has been misused by KIA right from booking to delivery. Now its service centre's turn.

We did complain to service manager about unfinished job and service reminder messages. Service manager is still backing up SA and asking us to co-operate with SA. We did give the car again for a day and adjusted to their terms and timings just because we couldn't argue with SA as we can plainly see what he is going through.

As I said before, KIA service centre is always crowded and they are struggling to handle the volume.

[Rigid Rotor]

Originally Posted by speedfreak77

When I got my Seltos on 31 December 2021, It ran trouble-free for only 10 days when on 9 January the screen went blank like what happened to your car. They blamed it on the illuminated doorstep lights which I got put on from outside. ...decided to get all the extra mods off the car and now it works fine.

I don’t understand how their after-sales works. You get one thing changed and they put every single fault on your head. I changed my car’s tyres to Continentals. The GTX+ variant comes with these okay performing tyres which I didn’t like plus the tyre profile is just too much for that car. I ended up going from 205/60/R17 to 225/55/R17. There was this sound that came from the trunk. It never stopped from the day of delivery till Mid February. I always drive with music blasted to full but sometimes when there was a big pothole, There used to be a huge “clang” noise. I eventually got mad and went to them and the after-sales guy blamed me for changing the tyres and said it is my fault because it might have happened because of a tyre change. I couldn’t understand and went all yakuza on him and then he found out there was some loose part in the trunk and the rear seat belt too was responsible for this.

This is the first time I have dealt with after-sales with this much frustration. I own a Q5 and in 9 years of owning that car, I have never had a problem with the company after-sales. I was very disappointed with Kia. I couldn’t understand how you can blame a loose part or seat belt issue on me by telling me that I shouldn’t have changed the tyres because they were responsible for it? i

These vehicles have multiple electronic services connected on a CANBUS, a vehicle standard which enables individual microcontrollers to communicate to each other. Addition of a non-compatible electric service may cause interference (which apparently did happen in your case due to the illuminated scuff plates). By the way, the user manual clearly mentions it (pg 1-5). This is not specific to Seltos – this stuff happens in almost all current CANBUS vehicles with heaps of gadgetry on board. For example, bung in non-CANBUS LED lights say, to replace the conventional bulbs for your licence plate lamps and see the result! That’s the price we pay for having fancy electronics. Unfortunately there is no going back on tech. So, this problem is generic and not vehicle or brand-specific. It may not be appropriate to take it out on the ASC chap for this.

Re – the tyre upsize. I am afraid that is likely to void suspension warranty. That’s again almost a given for any vehicle, irrespective of brand. The Seltos user manual has a caution on this one (Pg 8-51). While the ASC chap was very right in pointing this out, he was definitely wrong linking the unusual sound to the tyre upsize. He definitely deserves a rocket for that – you could have escalated the matter during service feedback.

Originally Posted by Karthik.thm

...Yes, Oil change is not necessary on second free service. but isn't service centre should be customer centric?

..., but the point I am here to make is service centre should be more customer centric than misleading to unsuspecting customers.

My mentioned friend is an average Deepak when it comes to cars, His knowledge of cars has been misused by KIA right from booking to delivery. Now its service centre's turn.

We did complain to service manager about unfinished job and service reminder messages. Service manager is still backing up SA and asking us to co-operate with SA. We did give the car again for a day and adjusted to their terms and timings just because we couldn't argue with SA as we can plainly see what he is going through.

As I said before, KIA service centre is always crowded and they are struggling to handle the volume.

Come on, let’s be fair - how exactly did the SA mislead your friend? The SA missed out on a (non-essential) customer specified activity and also did not confirm with him before skipping it. That’s just being sloppy at work. Unless you left out something in your narrative which otherwise did happen.

Of course it’s each to his own opinion. As I said earlier, my experience with Kia Epitome is diametrically different. However, I do make it a point to clearly lay down my expectations to the SA and put down in writing the additional activities required. I also check during vehicle acceptance.

You opine that your pal’s (lack of) knowledge of cars has been misused by KIA right from booking to delivery. Now it’s the service centre's turn. That’s quite a strong statement to make. Reasons for the same have perhaps not come out clearly in your narrative, which only describes a crowded service centre, a skipped activity and an overworked SA. If indeed your friend is so convinced then you need to escalate the matter in writing to Kia for appropriate redressal.

I am afraid I do not believe any ASC overbooks cars on any day. Walk into any popular brand ASC in Bangalore and its indeed a very busy place. Yes, they are running at capacity and perhaps your specific ASC may be having inadequate infrastructure to handle customers – reinforcing that opinion of overcrowding – in which case again its worth the while escalating your specific observations on the matter in writing.

Finally to opine whether the SA is overworked or not – that’s the ASC’s area of concern. Our focus should be to get the required service done on time. If there is a lapse, timely and firm escalation must be the preferred option.