[em17]

Flashy busy Showrooms, Fancy Workshops but bad after sales. KIA India has really messed that bit and hasn't been able to cope up with the sales numbers and figures. They might be doing brilliant sales numbers, getting a KIA serviced/repaired in India is quite a task.

Like the other, I also jumped into the Kia bandwagon and got hold of the Seltos 7DCT GTX Plus in December 2019. Inspite of usual DCT fears, trusted the Koreans over the Germans a bit , having owned and maintained multiple Hyundai's. Loved the vehicle from Day 1 except for the hard suspension there was nothing Someone could complain of in the Car.

It all Started when the car went in for it's first service. I personally like dropping the car, inspecting the service centre, talking to the advisor etc. Swanky Workshop, Advisors with Tablets .They've actually taken over an Old Porsche Workshop in NCR, pretty impressive I thought.

Nothing much in the car just a regular check up and car cleaning and a small noise from the rear left (Mentioned it to him that this wasn't the parcel shelf noise, as I'd seen it online , and isn't required in my car); all that was required. Specifically mentioned to the advisor not to use a lot of their polish on the dash. That's all. He promised to deliver the car back in a few hours. Satisfied I left.

To my shock when the car came back it was full of polish on windows, windscreen and even the ORVMs. The Noise was still there. The dust still there. They Basically washed the car outside, dressed it with polish all around the interiors and sent it back!! Arghhh. The Noise still present, upon confronting the advisor , I was told, they've done their fix on the parcel tray which is what was causing the noise !Facepalm!!

Cleaned the car thoroughly again , ignored the noise and it was all fine till the SECOND service horror!
Told him everything is fine, the noise had subsided automatically and just go ahead with the regular service.
The advisor Insisted on getting the alignment and balancing from them- refused it right there, He THREATENED ME SAYING WARRANTY FOR SUSPENSION, TPMS AND TYRES WILL NOT BE VALID IF DONE FROM OUTSIDE!! Asked him to give it in writing, told his manager the same who responded saying saying it's done very professionally and I must get it done for better tyre and suspension health /... blah blah blah
Denied.
The car comes back polished again. Guess what, the old Noise is back, the car's drifting onto 1 side. I'm handed a bill which includes BALANCING AND ALIGNMENT. I was furious, i drive back to the service centre and have a heated exchange with the advisor, his manager and the GM who is busy opening another KIA Workshop in a different part of town. The alignment is done again things rectified, I furiously leave. Decide never to take the car back there.

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Meanwhile my Father In Law got himself a Seltos as well, HTX IVT, I warned him of bad after sales , but his experience at another KIA Workshop in the city was quite satisfactory , I trusted that and decided to go ahead with Frontier KIA Gurgaon now onwards.
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The Car was doing perfectly fine, till one day suddenly the Infotainment unit(Centre Screen)/AVNT went completely blank!! Surprised i thought could be a small fuse or some electrical issue. Decided to contact the New KIA Workshop and asked them if they could help. They said for AVNT You'd have to physically be there and drop the car. Decided the get the 20k Paid service and the pending DCT Update also done alongside.
At the service station a technician inspected the system and told me it isnt the fuse but something else, and he'll have a look The Manager assured me whatever it is will be covered under warranty and be rectified. Told him about my previous horrors with Kia Dhingra and why I'd come to them.

The same evening the advisor calls me saying the infotainment has water in it and Cannot be repaired!! WHAT , Water inside the infotainment , HOW, i asked??? He said, SIR aapko pata hoga woh toh!! Except for moisture being absorbed there is not a way that water can enter. I told him is it coz of the rain's because there's nothing else that could've happened. The car was with me all the time, yes it's been raining outside, but there was no spillage or anything in or around the system. He said he'll see and has happened in another car before but KIA didnt help with that either. I personally feel it's intentional if there is water inside the system. The engineer inspected the system along with me and felt the area behind, also saw it was completely dry. The photos and videos sent by the advisor show water in the system/PCB and also behind the screen!!!

Can't seem to understand what to do now, have asked them to talk to top management and revert back with a solution for this, as I'm not accepting this water damage story.

[Karan_n8]

Service is very bad. Sent the vehicle for an insurance claim. Came back with whitish polish on the windscreen on all plastic parts. Looked like it wasn't polish, but acid on the plastic part. Raised a grievance since I knew the SA (guy used to service us in Honda). But the overall condition in which the car was delivered was horrible, filthy rather. And yes the showrooms are crowded and the sales reps are as dim wits as they come.

[Agarwal_Aayush]

Really sorry for your experience and what you are going through! My friend went to look at the Seltos last month and he received a very cold response from the RM. They were not interested in any talks just wanted to get the booking done. No proper information was given during the demo of the vehicle either. Since he wanted Seltos only so he booked with another dealer who was better than the previous ones.

Selling cars in huge numbers is one thing and control over the dealers is another. No wonder Maruti is still the benchmark in service if not for the quality, one complain against the service center and you will receive calls from the service center in no time to fix things and get a good review from you that the job has been done to your satisfaction .

I really hope they replace the whole unit and not try to pin the blame on you for water damage.

[speedfreak77]

When I got my Seltos on 31 December 2020, 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. However, they used this pin and reset the infotainment and it worked again. Eventually, it kept happening for a month until I got so pissed off and 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 shouldn’t have put the illuminated doorstep because it caused the infotainment to shut down and go blank? It’s an outrage. I even own a Sonet and it just came back from the service centre and like you I was also handed an alignment and wheel balancing bill. The car hasn’t even done 5k kms so why would I want to get it aligned and wheel balanced? Didn’t even change any tyres and its bone stock. This is all when I am in Delhi with my family. Cannot be more pissed.

Bangalore after sales of Hyundai and Kia are much better. After reading your thread I am just disappointed. The employees should realise that the company’s main task starts after selling the car to the customer. They only aim to sell their cars and then fool the customers by charging excess money and add things to the service bill to charge more money. Owning both of the popular two KIAs I am not happy. Features are nice but the drive quality is not like how we expected it to be and the car feels like a luxurious tin-can. The gearbox in 6AT feels lethargic and the sport eco modes are just a gimmick. The steering does weigh up though but the car tends to stick to the gear for longer and shifts still feel lethargic and the car gives no confidence whatsoever. Not going for any Kia after these two.

[lsjey]

Thanks for sharing. I almost went and booked a Seltos. My son was championing this as most of his friends have got a Seltos. The response from the Kia sales team was very bad. The opening statement from one of the dealer was that Seltos was in high demand and has a waiting period of 4 months. He was saying this to boast how good the product is and that I should be thankful that he can accept my booking. Did not even offer me a test drive. All this happened in Feb this year.

I decided to go for Honda City instead. I thank god that I decided to go the Honda way.

I think Kia is going through growing pains. The dealers are all very happy, but looks like customers may not be as happy.

From my car buying experience, I think Honda, Toyota and VW employ more experienced sales people. I did not consider Maruti, but I'd believe that they also would be having more experienced sales guys. Kia sales guys were mostly arrogant and lacked knowledge of the product. The same goes for the Tata guys that I'd interacted during the same period.

Regards,
lsjey

[Axe77]

Thanks for this very instructive post. It seems that while Kia has emulated its cousin Hyundai on the product side of things, they are more inspired by the neighbourhood Skoda on the service aspects. If I recall it was a NCR Kia only which had a huge scam around its head unit replacement from a demo car and what not (was caught on a dash cam)

If anyone in South Mumbai is considering a Creta vs Seltos, a strong reason to pick the Creta might just be the relatively better peace of mind and much more number of dealer options.

In Mumbai two things make me uncomfortable with Kia. Why did the Prabhadevi dealership shut shop so soon. These are never a good sign and the last time I saw this was when I owned a Nissan. Secondly, the only South Mumbai dealership is now basically the Autobahn folks who’s infamy in how they handled Skoda is well known (the showroom is again exactly where the Skoda showroom used to be.

Kia should be conscious that reputations are built over years of consistent high quality service. If their dealers give such a shoddy service to their customers it won’t be long before they face permanent market disrepute on this front.

[Dippy]

Originally Posted by Axe77

In Mumbai two things make me uncomfortable with Kia. Why did the Prabhadevi dealership shut shop so soon. These are never a good sign and the last time I saw this was when I owned a Nissan. Secondly, the only South Mumbai dealership is now basically the Autobahn folks who’s infamy in how they handled Skoda is well known (the showroom is again exactly where the Skoda showroom used to be.

Kia should be conscious that reputations are built over years of consistent high quality service. If their dealers give such a shoddy service to their customers it won’t be long before they face permanent market disrepute on this front.

If you are talking about the KIA showroom at Century Bazaar that is Autobahn too. They just shifted to the old location of the Skoda showroom. So essentially the dealership hasnt closed, just shifted. Just a heads up.

[IamNikhil]

Originally Posted by Axe77

In Mumbai two things make me uncomfortable with Kia. Why did the Prabhadevi dealership shut shop so soon. These are never a good sign and the last time I saw this was when I owned a Nissan. Secondly, the only South Mumbai dealership is now basically the Autobahn folks who’s infamy in how they handled Skoda is well known (the showroom is again exactly where the Skoda showroom used to be.

Originally Posted by Dippy

If you are talking about the KIA showroom at Century Bazaar that is Autobahn too. They just shifted to the old location of the Skoda showroom. So essentially the dealership hasnt closed, just shifted. Just a heads up.

From what I know, the Kia showroom had some issues with the building it was in, at the earlier location near the old passport office. The same has now shifted to the old Skoda space next to Reliance Digital, on the one-way road leading to Century Bazaar. The dealer is the same. Unfortunately for them however, both locations were bang on the corner of a signal, leading to some unnecessary double-parking hassles.

[CarMaster_059]

It is a lesson to be learnt. Never buy any car going just by word of mouth. Properly do the research and detailed analysis of at least the mechanical bits of the car. There's google, there's Youtube and there's Team-Bhp.com for that.
I personally go the extra mile and talk to the owners wandering about at the service centres. That's exactly where the real thing comes out from.

[Axe77]

Originally Posted by IamNikhil

The dealer is the same..

Oh ok. I stand corrected thanks. I didn’t realise even at the passport office location it was Autobahn only. In that case my residuary issue still is perhaps that Autobahn didn’t have a good reputation of how it handled Skoda.

[IamNikhil]

Originally Posted by Axe77

...my residuary issue still is perhaps that Autobahn didn’t have a good reputation of how it handled Skoda.

Absolutely! Many close friends and family members have had a mountain of bad experiences with Autobahn over the years. Seems Skoda only has Modi Motors as their sole dealers for Mumbai now.

[Raghu M]

I am not very surprised. My friend wanted to book the Sonet and asked me to come along. The SA was not very helpful, we had to literally wait for 2 hours to get the TD (although it was booked earlier). Every now and then a person keeps coming to serve you coffee. I mean, I want a test drive, just let me drive the car and take a call. Why do you want me to sip coffee and wait for so long? OK, during the test drive, the SA says, waiting period is over 4 months. I said fine but we will not take insurance from you. He out rightly said, we will not sell the car. KIA is ready to loose a customer but not insurance, strange. I know these are dealer practices, when I told I can write a mail to KIA, he said go ahead and do it. You will still have to take insurance from us. It's not just about insurance, I did not like the overall attitude of the staff. The over confidence of mentioning the waiting period did not go down well with me. I told my friend, if I was in his place, I wouldn't buy KIA. He opted out too. I have problems with products that sell in huge nos. Either there are quality issues or you are not given proper attention. I hate both of them.

On the contrary, M&M has been a pretty decent experience. In fact, I would rate them above MSIL (from previous experience). The VVC service center at Nizampet, Hyd has really good staff. They understand your problem and ensure to service it. I will not say they are the best but I think they are getting better.

[RJK]

Originally Posted by Raghu M

when I told I can write a mail to KIA, he said go ahead and do it. You will still have to take insurance from us. It's not just about insurance, I did not like the overall attitude of the staff. The over confidence of mentioning the waiting period did not go down well with me. I told my friend, if I was in his place, I wouldn't buy KIA. He opted out too.

This attitude is expected from MFR’s whose products are a raging success in the market. Similar was the case with VW when they launched Polo & Vento. Look where they are now, not saying KIA will also flog the same products for 10yrs but the attitude.

Instead of threatening to write to KIA, you should do it and show KIA’s response to the dealer, if in your favour.

Anyway, good riddance to KIA, their products aren’t that good to be so arrogant.

Cheers

[Raghu M]

Originally Posted by RJK

This attitude is expected from MFR’s whose products are a raging success in the market. Similar was the case with VW when they launched Polo & Vento. Look where they are now, not saying KIA will also flog the same products for 10yrs but the attitude.

Instead of threatening to write to KIA, you should do it and show KIA’s response to the dealer, if in your favour.

Anyway, good riddance to KIA, their products aren’t that good to be so arrogant. Cheers

Good points sir. I asked my friend to back off after seeing the GNCAP ratings too. I would have written to KIA but since I don't want to be their customer, I thought it was best to save time. They can easily make margins even if a customer looks out for other options but they do not. The test drive was average, the rear AC vents were not throwing out cool air at all. The ventilated seats weren't functioning, I asked the SA what happened. He mentioned it was common in TD cars. The one I was driving had done around 6K. The overall experience was not great to go back to them.

[Gansan]

Many of the dealerships in most cities are owned by political families or families with political clout. They will care two hoots about customer opinion. Just falling short of being thugs. I always seek out company owned showrooms and workshops, or the ones owned by corporate houses. They will be a little more amenable and have systems and procedures in place. If the brand I want doesn't have such facilities in my city, I will seek out brands that do and buy their products instead.

I fail to understand the craze for Kia. It is not as if it is a premium brand. It is Hyundai in another name. In my book the Korean products - not necessarily automobiles - fall in between Japanese and Chinese products.