[nnandi]

RNS and Pratham (formerly known as Solar) have been and still are quite bad for servicing. But Mandovi is good. No (personal) idea about Sagar/Bimal/Kalyani as never have been to them.
In general MASS is recommended for paid servicing as they do better job than showroom guys. My part of town (Hebbal/North Bangalore), people (including me) go to Pushpak Motors. Their contact number is: 9900266607. They are good and Shashank (their SA) is very knowledgeable.

[abhisheksircar]

I own a 2006Dec model Swift vxi. I bought it from Pratham motors and have been servicing with them. I was pretty happy with their service. For a couple of years I was in Kolkata and since 2011 I am back in Bangalore. Couple of services with Pratham now and I have realized they are not the same Pratham anymore.

I had given my car for general servicing and I realized that the tyres are suddenly bald although my spare wheel has enough tread to it. With every servicing I used to ask them to rotate the tyres. My clutch was extremely stiff and being the single driver of this car I can very well make out the difference. Considering the fact that my car has driven 40K kms I went to the nearest Bridgestone shop and changed all the 4 wheels although I was not able to convince myself that I did not notice my tyre in such a bad condition before. The clutch was another thing which I failed to convince myself that it was a general wear and tear.

I escalated it to the manager (AGM) who came and tried to again explain the same thing that it was a usual wear and tear. I could just tell him that unfortunately I cannot prove it to although I am sure something is wrong at the service station. I also told him of an instance when the right headlight went fused and I had to change it. I went to the speed service location and a technician came and replaced it and asked me if I need the bill or not. Since I was in a hurry, I asked him to forget about the bill and next moment he got me a bulb and changed it. When I went to pay him, he asked me to sit inside the car to pay. I did not pay any heed at that time but later realized that someone just lost a proper bulb. On highlighting this to the manager, he started queuing up the service men in front of me to recognize the one. I was not able to recognize the one. I almost felt like being in a crime scene.

Recently I had a scratch on the car which I had described in one of the posts in the forum. I went there for repair and the manager came and met me asking if I was convinced with his explanations given previously. I still was not although I requested him and the service adviser to take care of the car this time.

To my surprise, this was the worst of all experiences.

One thing they are good is that they car get cleaned very nicely which makes you realize that you car was pampered a lot till you start looking at it closely.

1. The side beading had numerous scratches and they did not think of replacing it although I had called them to replace it. I placed the order of the team-bhp sticker also. Now if they replace it, they say, they will have to repaint it as taking it out and putting it back might result in aberrations. Net result, I am stuck with this.



2. The door handles had to be replaced because of the accident. The newly fixed ones now do not close completely till you give it a budge.

3. The rear lamp still has coating of painting although they charged for removing and putting back the tail light assembly.



4. There were scratches in the bumper and I had asked them to just do some brush painting so that I could fix it in one go later. What they did was un believable. I am no maestro in painting although I can vouch that I could do a better job. To top that, there is no match to the colors used. It's red, that's all. The white bit is a light reflection and the paint touch up is the blotch under it. I could not believe that the delivered it to me in this state.



5. There were multiple mild scratches like some tool bag or something kept on the bonnet and then removed. I showed them to the service advisor and he managed to remove part of it using a rubbing compound and asked me to come later for the whole thing to be removed. But he could not answer how it happened.

6. My Pioneer AVH-P4000 DVD touch screen head has just one message on the screen, "Screen Image May Appear Reversed". I cannot do anything on the screen now. The screens or the display button is not responding. This is something that I faced in the previous service too as my car on receiving was on a local station which I never tuned to. So someone happily played with it.



I am surprised that all this happened after I speak to the AGM who was supposed to ensure that this car is taken care of. I wonder how it would be otherwise. I got calls from them to come back and fix these issues although I seriously do not have the guts to take it back to some place where it is attended to so carelessly.

This post is 2 fold. One is to make the readers aware of how carelessly the cars are being taken care of in the service station. Two, where next. This is the first time I am thinking beyond these authorized dealer service station. I am ready to go anywhere in Bangalore where the car can be geuninely taken care of. I have a service due next month.

Any genuine pointers to a good service station for my Suzuki Swift will be highly appreciated. I was considering Carnation, but I read not so good reviews in the forum. How is Team Tech Auto off Sarjapur road ? That's the one that has the most recent reviews.

I saw some posts on this but there were very old to be concluding on a solution. Moreover I did also wanted to highlight the poor service provided by Pratham.

[ramie2400]

there is a reset button on the Headunit and can be done just adjust the settings again simple,it happens due to camera polarity kept to Ground,it should be at battery.

[mayankjha1806]

Although i have not specifically used Pratham, but in smaller cases where in i have used Pratham and Bimal i have found both to be bad. If you car is out of warranty then its better to take it to local garage and get things done in front of you for basic service. What remains is specific problems that need fixing which cannot be completed in few hours and for that you need to find a reliable garage.

Till now i found Carnation at Marathalli to be good but some others have found it to be not so good. Do take a look at them or others. Even i might have to move away from Carnation as the SA who was known to me no longer works there.

[nirmaljusdoit]

This is really strange, is this the ORR outlet ? Ive been going there from 5 yrs for regular repairs on my Swift & though such minor issues do crop up regularly, they have been attended to & resolved on priority !!

The root cause i feel is the large number of manpower that they have & the attrition.Highly doubt that the mgmt. would be intentionally creating issues, most of them seem to be handiwork of inexperienced mechanics.

Suggest you speak to Rajkumar & visit & sort out the issues. I have found him to be a thorough gentleman who gets the problems fixed ASAP.

In fact he even once offered me his personal car to reach home when the work was delayed around 8 pm at nite. I politely refused, but appreciated his offe

I have written several appreciation mails to Maruti about the pleasant experiences i have had there

Edit : My Swift has successfully completed 61 K kms in 5 1/2 years, also thanks to getting it serviced there regularly !

[anandpadhye]

OK, so if I try to get the gist of it:

1. You think they swapped your tyres for some older ones?
2. You think they replaced your clutch plate with some older one?
3. You asked for the headlight bulb to be replaced in a hurry and they actually did it (but later on you think they replaced yours with a working one from some other car)?
4. The Pioneer touch screen settings were disturbed (BTW, this is an after market fitment, right)?
5. Some regular scratches here and there and body work that they did not attend to very seriously, and may have added to it...

Hmmm...I am not sure what to say!

For the tyres and clutch, please confirm the facts - in all fairness.

For headlight, may be you have not posted complete story, but without it, I do not see the reason for doubting them! They gave you a working bulb, did some other owner complain that his bulb stopped working?

It's really sad if they rested their tool-box on your bonnet while working, but scratches on bumpers - come on - these things keep on happening. That's what bumpers are meant for. As they say in the software industry while closing a bug that's actually not a problem - "resolved - working as designed".

Chill...

By the way, do you drop your car for service or stay with it while it's being serviced? Makes a huge difference.

And please, no offence meant, it's surely not a service experience to be happy about, but did not find anything "terrible" either, honestly.

[abhisheksircar]

Originally Posted by ramie2400

there is a reset button on the Headunit and can be done just adjust the settings again simple,it happens due to camera polarity kept to Ground,it should be at battery.

Thanks Ramie. Will look for the reset button. Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

Although i have not specifically used Pratham, but in smaller cases where in i have used Pratham and Bimal i have found both to be bad. If you car is out of warranty then its better to take it to local garage and get things done in front of you for basic service. What remains is specific problems that need fixing which cannot be completed in few hours and for that you need to find a reliable garage.

Till now i found Carnation at Marathalli to be good but some others have found it to be not so good. Do take a look at them or others. Even i might have to move away from Carnation as the SA who was known to me no longer works there.

I have spoken to the Carnation service manager. Fingers crossed. Hope it turns out to be a pleasant experience. Although he was honest to give a heads up that not all might be MGA. They could be OEM parts.

Originally Posted by nirmaljusdoit

This is really strange, is this the ORR outlet ? Ive been going there from 5 yrs for regular repairs on my Swift & though such minor issues do crop up regularly, they have been attended to & resolved on priority !!

The root cause i feel is the large number of manpower that they have & the attrition.Highly doubt that the mgmt. would be intentionally creating issues, most of them seem to be handiwork of inexperienced mechanics.

Suggest you speak to Rajkumar & visit & sort out the issues. I have found him to be a thorough gentleman who gets the problems fixed ASAP.

In fact he even once offered me his personal car to reach home when the work was delayed around 8 pm at nite. I politely refused, but appreciated his offe

I have written several appreciation mails to Maruti about the pleasant experiences i have had there

Edit : My Swift has successfully completed 61 K kms in 5 1/2 years, also thanks to getting it serviced there regularly !

I was also happy with Pratham untill these last couple of services. Unfortunately I did speak to Mr. Rajkumar (AGM, Pratham) and he was indeed well spoken which was pretty assuring. That actually irked me that with all the pleasant words, soon after it was carelessly handled. Anyway, time to move on. I agree it would be result of inexperience but at least after highlighting the issues they could have checked the car before delivering to ensure that the experience does not turn out worse.

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

OK, so if I try to get the gist of it:

1. You think they swapped your tyres for some older ones?
2. You think they replaced your clutch plate with some older one?
3. You asked for the headlight bulb to be replaced in a hurry and they actually did it (but later on you think they replaced yours with a working one from some other car)?
4. The Pioneer touch screen settings were disturbed (BTW, this is an after market fitment, right)?
5. Some regular scratches here and there and body work that they did not attend to very seriously, and may have added to it...

1. Swapped tyres or never rotated as I had always asked them to. What was surprising that my spare wheel had all the tread possible and can be used for another 10K kms as confirmed by the Bridgestone team although the rest of the tyres were bald. When I say bald, there was no treading at all.
2. I do not know what went wrong, but it was extremely stiff after the servicing. When I say extremely, it was really really stiff. After few 100 kms of driving, it has eased down a bit or may be I have now got used to it.
3. I had no problems with what they did to me but after my concerns on probable parts getting swapped and the service man insisting on taking the money inside the car and not outside makes me think again.
4. The service manager used to harp that the servicemen will not touch anything that is beyond their task and that's what I wanted to highlighted.
5. Minor scratches has been a concern cause that's not what I would expect from a place where I actually gave it to be fixed. Anyway, what really bothered me is the way they tried to fix it.

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

Hmmm...I am not sure what to say!

For the tyres and clutch, please confirm the facts - in all fairness.

Frankly, I have nothing more to confirm. For the tyres, the spare is as good as new and the other 4 were bald with no treading at all. The way I follow my car, I would have surely noticed the tyres reaching this condition. As for the clutch, I unfortunately have nothing to prove here as well but I know it became extremely stiff after the servicing. The service manager says that it is not tampered but again, I really do not have anything to prove.

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

For headlight, may be you have not posted complete story, but without it, I do not see the reason for doubting them! They gave you a working bulb, did some other owner complain that his bulb stopped working?

The complete story. I noticed the front right headlight fused. I went to the showroom in the quick service area to get it fixed. I was assigned a service man to fix/replace it. He looked at it and confirmed that the bulb had to be replaced. I asked him to change it and he asked me if I need bill or anything and highlighted that it will take a longer time if I asked for a bill. I agreed to not take the bill and for a quick solution. He soon came with a working bulb and got it changed. I was outside checking the bulb and immediately took out the wallet to pay it. He asked me to come inside the car and pay him. That's what raised my suspicion that things were wrong in this deal. Did some other owner complain; no idea at all. But if it was a fair deal, he could have just taken the money outside only.

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

It's really sad if they rested their tool-box on your bonnet while working, but scratches on bumpers - come on - these things keep on happening. That's what bumpers are meant for. As they say in the software industry while closing a bug that's actually not a problem - "resolved - working as designed".

I was not worried about the scratches in the bumbers. What bothered me is the way they tried to fix it. It's just a blotch of a mismatched red paint on the area scratched. Have a look at the pic attached. Glad that they tried it only on the bumber.

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

Chill...

I surely am but not with Pratham Motors.

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

By the way, do you drop your car for service or stay with it while it's being serviced? Makes a huge difference.

For servicing I usually stay back although if it is beyond a day like the one required for body repair, I have no other option than to leave it with them.

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

And please, no offence meant, it's surely not a service experience to be happy about, but did not find anything "terrible" either, honestly.

I was probably pampered with good service to have come up with such a title and after speaking to the manager and getting an assurance which completely went the other way, I could not come up with a better title !

[abhisheksircar]

Any one with a lead to a proper Maruti Service Station other than Pratham ? Preferably within 5-10 kms of HSR layout although I do not mind driving anywhere in Bangalore if it is worth it. Mahindra guys have special treatment for cars owned by team-bhp members. Priority attendance, discounts etc. Anything like this for the Swift

[mayankk]

there is a setting in AVH series for rear camera, where it can be switched for battery, and another thing.

the "other " one changes the input for rear camera to constant from only enabled when reverse is engaged.

touching the screen or mode should pop the menu for a few soconds to let you get to the settings.
Howver, since you say these dont respond, the reset is the pinhole next to the disc slot.

[Schoudhury]

Oh,that's bad.
I also service my car over there and till date found them to be good.
But yes, i have a fixed SA whom i give the car and kind of have a good rapport with him.

You can check this thread

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...-voting-2.html

And also try Suraksha Bommanahalli, Hosur Road.

hope it helps

[abhisheksircar]

Originally Posted by ramie2400

there is a reset button on the Headunit and can be done just adjust the settings again simple,it happens due to camera polarity kept to Ground,it should be at battery.

Originally Posted by mayankk

Howver, since you say these dont respond, the reset is the pinhole next to the disc slot.

Presto. It worked. Back in action. Never noticed the reset button next to the disc slot before ! Thank you very much.

Originally Posted by Schoudhury

Oh,that's bad.
I also service my car over there and till date found them to be good.
But yes, i have a fixed SA whom i give the car and kind of have a good rapport with him.

You can check this thread

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...-voting-2.html

And also try Suraksha Bommanahalli, Hosur Road.

hope it helps

This is a good thread to follow. Thank you. I used to work with Moses in Pratham who was really good but for the last few services it was someone else who took it due to the availability. I guess I should have stuck to Moses.

[menonrajesh]

I purchased my Swift in 2006 Sep from Pratham, ORR and everything went well in the honeymoon period. Sooner than later I had my share of bad experiences (in plural) with them and eventually moved on to Surakshaa, Bommanahalli in 2007. Still staying with Surakshaa.

[abhisheksircar]

Originally Posted by menonrajesh

I purchased my Swift in 2006 Sep from Pratham, ORR and everything went well in the honeymoon period. Sooner than later I had my share of bad experiences (in plural) with them and eventually moved on to Surakshaa, Bommanahalli in 2007. Still staying with Surakshaa.

I have been finding Surakshaa as a wise decision for the next move based on the reviews on team-bhp.com. Will check them out soon. Although I would be visiting the Hosur branch.

[guyfrmblr]

Originally Posted by abhisheksircar

4. There were scratches in the bumper and I had asked them to just do some brush painting so that I could fix it in one go later. What they did was un believable. I am no maestro in painting although I can vouch that I could do a better job. To top that, there is no match to the colors used. It's red, that's all. The white bit is a light reflection and the paint touch up is the blotch under it. I could not believe that the delivered it to me in this state.

I think they are suffering from color blindness. Looks as though a kid has drawn something using sketch pens. How can they do such a shoddy work being an authorized service center? Meanwhile I'd got some deep scratches on my i20 and got it patched from a local garage. The job was very neat. I could never make out that a patch work had been done. See for yourself in the pics.

Before:





After:

[abhisheksircar]

Now that's a patch job. I agree, mine was a training workshop for freshers.