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-   -   Ichibaan HONDA tried to DUPE me!!! (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-dealerships/3025-ichibaan-honda-tried-dupe-me-3.html)

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Alright!!! Lets settle it now.

Thanks to all of you team-BHPians for your support. Rehaan and a couple of other members consistently asked me about the status of my Ichibaan Honda incident, but I would rather that Autocarindia report it first.

Ichibaan Honda really did not know who they were messing with. When I went to pick up my Vtec, and discovered that it was dented and the fact that they tried to hide it...I TURNED THAT SHOWROOM UPSIDE DOWN!!! Those guys were in that showroom till 10 p.m. at night, and were constantly calling me up and offering me varying levels of compensation. I gave every level of Ichibaans personnel a serious dressing down, with a crash course in integrity and customer service.

I consider myself to be an extremely extremely hard (read tough-###) business person and I wanted blood. After a half day of negotiating with all levels of management at the Ichibaan they finally offered me Rs.25000 and I took the offer. Rs.25000 plus repairing the car back. Also my family was very keen on getting the car home as soon as possible (you know how the new car feeling in the house lingers on).

I called Hormazd Sorabjee at the Autocar office and explained the entire scenario to him, as well as to Rishad Saam Mehta and Mr. Vardhan from the helpline desk. The team at Autocarindia was extremely co-operative and they are the only Indian magazine who are absolutely in tune with the Indian car buyer. Not only did I find them to be extremely pro-active, but they were as angry as I was at Ichibaan Hondas shoddy business dealings. Within 24 hours, they had mailed everyone at Honda Motor Co and Ichibaan. Honda was understandably furious at Ichibaan, and trust me when I say this...everyone at that showroom was H-I-S-T-O-R-Y. You should have just heard the managers tone when they called me to apologize.

Ichibaan Hondas real loss was not the Rs.25000 compensation + dent repair that they gave me. Their real loss has been the 100 odd customers (and thats a modest figure) that have now vowed to visit only Linkway Honda for their City/Accord/Cr-V purchases. Add to that the effect this true story on Team-BHP has had alongwith the entire experience in this months Autocarindia and its six digit readership.

Ichibaan Honda's malpractices have been exposed and I sincerely believe that they do not commit the same error on another customer ever again.

GTO

but let me tell u linkway is not very different..on two ocassions they have messed up with my car...one was at the time of delivery of my new car & other time when my car had gone for dent repairs...i also had had a rear end shunt....

At the time of delivery when i'd opened the trunk to check if everything was ok...i found that the rear tyre was leaking air..i called the manager & he gave me a new tyre but the mechanic there was so horribly inefficient that he took close to 45mins for just changing the tyre !

Another time when my car was ready frm the dent repairs i saw that while the floor of my car was clean the seat covers were soiled ! i asked the service advisor if they stood on the seats & cleaned the floor or what ! plus my mirror locks had been nicked & the SA was saying that they weren't there in the first place..i called the manager of the dealership then (who by now knew me very well bocz of the thrashing they received )also fuel from my car had been taken out..i told the manager & he immed got everyone working on my car...i told him its not worth it & that i'd come just to pick up my car & not to get the work done form those guys..'coz when i'd called & asked if my car was ready they said yes...also they'd said that the accident job would be done within 7-10days while it actually took them 3 weeks ! *

I'd gotten wild at the manager & then he tried to pacify me & told me that he would compensate me...i said i dont want compensation...all i wanted was good service for which i was paying.They later sent me a formal apology letter & gave me a genuine honda trunk spoiler..so now most of the ppl linkway knw me not by name i suppose....

Whew that was a long one ! hope u guys didnt get bored..

M3

Man, it seems that Honda in Bbay needs to do a lot of re-employment. 45 mins to change a tyre??? lol

I dunno about others in Blore but i'm very happy with the way Whitefield takes care of their cars. Every little detail is taken care of, the car is washed till it shines and the interiors are are made dust and dirt free.

Post service, my car looks and feels as good as new. All the replaced parts are neatly placed in the boot.

Can't even complain about that 1200-1300 bill i get for servicing the car. So i move on, happier than i was, when i got there.

Regards...
Shan2nu

my minimum bill is 1800bucks.....just for the regular service....any major thing involved & it goes up....infact my 4th service cost me 5000 ! whoever said honda was cheap

M3

he yguys got a a similar story only hitng was it was with my cielo. remeber my bashed up car ....the pics i had posted in the pedal to metal stories under accident! well i got my car back. i had given it to an autorised place. well the rear bumper, windshield, boot and the side panel was replaced. ... and the whole bill came upto rs 55,000. man the painting alone came to rs 10,000. i mean come on ,,, how much is it to paint all this. just the bumper, boot and side panel.. isnt 10,000 too much to ask. i dont what to say to theese guys . even the painting wasnt all that great. there is dust dots allover. and when i told this ot the owner he told me that just pay the money and he will fix all that later. i was aghast... i was like then why did u do this in the first place. well anyways i wanted the car soo urgently so i paid him and took the car. man i wish there was a daewoo back in india so i could report htis to their company heads..but alas my pitiable plight continues!! now i have to go back someother day and just pray these guys do a good job!!!!

dude in my rear end shunt..my trunk lid, left tail lamp, bumper were replace & some dent that had occured in the stepney area due to impact...now the bill came to 52000 ! the trunk lid itself costs 14g & that too w/o the paint! boy this trunk lid is more expensive than corolla's ! denting & repairing of honda is real expensive...the only saving grace was that i didn't have to pay anything from my pocket...insurance took *care of most of it..i had to pay arnd 12k..

M3

Hey GTO,

so thats what it was all about!!..... its good that you are helping create awareness about the stuff that goes on and especially how the average unassuming consumer gets totally ripped off in situations like this, especially when it comes to cars and electronic devices!
Im not so sure if this will change their ways, but it definitely will make them respect their customers more!
Do you plan to send your car back to them for servicing when the time comes?

RJ, "the bill came to 52000" * "insurance took *care of most of it..i had to pay arnd 40k.."
i wouldn't say that 12k of 52k is "most of it" *typo?

cya
R

You kidding me, right? already got an appointment with Linkway for my next paid service. Luckily they are part of the same group as Auto hangar is, where i got my C.

GTO

Thats nothing- a truck ran into the back of my collegues Honda - every panel short of rear window needed to be replaced - quoted Rs1.3l - bill came to Rs 92k. Not a bad job except that you can see a slight colour difference at certain angles

Hey,

I forgot to mention if some1 could post a pic of the article that would be great as i wld like to see it.

(GTO i still have to do the reseach on ur digicam - just one question though.. dyu want a ultra-small cam? like are you gonna keep it in your pocket? or dyu want a big cam with better lens& hence pic quality?)

cya
R

oops ! indeed a typo..what i meant is i paid only 12k ....thx rehaan

now thats what also bothers me...after all when we are paying such huge amounts for the damages the least they can do is paint matching ! even my car has a very little color diff around the repaired area..

M3

Man, that is so unlike Honda. You know my. 20K service bill came to 2,990. I have never paid them more than 3000 for any service in almost 3 years.

But the big one is due in 2 months time (40K). They said it'll cost me some money, wonder how much that will be.

But seriously, i don't see why you should be getting such a heavy bill.

Regards...
Shan2nu

RJ,

paintmatching is a difficult process, especially metallic colours, and even more difficult when u are matching old and wornout/faded paint to new paint. I've seen some excellent jobs (luckily on my car) and some really bad jobs as well
i guess it depends....but it is difficult!

cya
R

i had been to this Honda showroom at andheri in bombay, dont remember the name, they had the chart stating the service interval and the amount its going to cost.
It should be there at your service centre too.