[amit_mechengg]

ooh man. i and amogh chaphalkar who bought a punto were speaking on the dealerships itself.
the first word from my mouth was pandit is horrible. more horrible is pratham. the only 70% decent ones is the bu bhandari.

man on the first hand there was no car in the stockyard. the sales man was very clever to fool you and take the entire amount to his credit.

even if there was a car lying around he was not sure whether some of his colleague or any of his other branch has booked that car.

all stupid tactics and lack of co-ordination.

well check your PM. some tip

[amit]

The story about Fiat recalling the car due to colour mismatch is lies. The dealer is a crook and you should shoot off an email to Rajeev Kapoor. I will pm you the email id of Fiat's western region Linea product manager so you can bring him into the loop too.

I think you can cancel the booking and ask for a refund. The best part would be if you cancel the booking, buy a Fiesta, City or any car and drive to this dealership in your new car to distribute sweets to them .

[maverickxx2006]

Originally Posted by amit

The story about Fiat recalling the car due to colour mismatch is lies. The dealer is a crook and you should shoot off an email to Rajeev Kapoor. I will pm you the email id of Fiat's western region Linea product manager so you can bring him into the loop too.

I think you can cancel the booking and ask for a refund. The best part would be if you cancel the booking, buy a Fiesta, City or any car and drive to this dealership in your new car to distribute sweets to them .

Thanks Amit for the mail id and thanks each and everyone for the responses and advise.

I have shot off mail to every FIAT email Id I could find and blasted them. Till now there is no response from any one, lets see if I get a response tomorrow.

I had initially approached BU Bhandari, they said they will take 1 month for delivery whereas Pandit said they will deliver the car in one week as they have it in their stock yard, and heres where I fell in the trap.

I was told if full payment is not done then they will give the car to someone and now the trap was complete and I was into it.

Defect in car paint (vocal white) due to confusion in Punto and Linea seems preposterous considering supposedly state of the art robotised painting facility of FIAT.

There can be only two explanations for this, either the dealer is fool or the QA Dept of FIAT is fool. Either way it seems to be Iam made a fool.

Just that with the joy of new car I was blinded and agreed to the dealer.

I cant sleep today with my 8 lacs parked with dealer.

Waiting for morning so that I can rush to the dealer.

Heres what I plan to do

First, BLAST THE BUGGERS
Option 1. Ask for complete refund, no questions asked.
Option 2. If they are apologetic, offer new car and offer some discount and delivery is within one week I may consider getting it.

Then down some pegs and get some sound sleep.

[VahanPujari]

Maverick,

Cancelling the booking & switching to the other dealer is a crap. Check CarsPG thread. He faced exactly reverse situation. BU Bhandari promised him the delivery in a stipulated time & delayed it longer. Whereas Pandit at that time gave a delivery time of 1 month to someone else or CarsPG. It seems Pandit sales guys have learnt wrong lessons by loosing a sale that time.

Switching dealer now may land you into "Aasman se gira Khajoor pe Atka".

Dealers of most of the MFRs do this for tie down the sale. Check various threads here, recent one is Shajufx thread about Fiesta S. He cancelled his Fiesta Booking, hopped around for other cars, got disappointed & came back to his chosen alternative Fiesta S.

Since now you've shooted the mail to Fiat, wait for a day.

Else the other alternative is to go for ANHC, SX4 or Fiesta. The only issue is we decide on a car after so much deliberation that its not easy to change the decision overnight.

Finally, Certain things in life are worth waiting for . Calm down, Increase the pressure cooly on the dealer & there would be solution

[Minardi]

Very clearly, the dealer has cheated. But since the manufacturer in question is FIAT, we want to crucify them. Tell them that their return has 'failed'.

I had reported a very similar incident 4.5 years back. The manufacture in question was Honda. But how can anyone dare to question Honda about A.s.s? Look at that thread. Not even a single blame on Honda. Here is the URL

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...aan-again.html

[VahanPujari]

Originally Posted by Minardi

Very clearly, the dealer has cheated. But since the manufacturer in question is FIAT, we want to crucify them. Tell them that their return has 'failed'.

I had reported a very similar incident 4.5 years back. The manufacture in question was Honda. But how can anyone dare to question Honda about A.s.s? Look at that thread. Not even a single blame on Honda. Here is the URL

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...aan-again.html

Very Aptly said. So true & reflective of how we hammer weakers & spare the stronger.
This is precisely what I mentioned above - Most of the dealers of most of the MFRs do this sale-closing technique.

[geeash]

Car buying is an experience itself. Everybody learns from it. This happens to everyone mate!!. Dont worry stay calm. If you are going to cancel the car and go and book it at another dealer it will again atke more time. since this is recession time all the manufacturers are quoting 3 weeks time to deliver up the car. Just shoot the mail to fiat and wait. you will definitely get a reply

[deepakchiniwal]

@ geeash, I fail to understand what recession is to do with delivery period.

On a lighter note, are the dealers / manufacturers expecting us to loose the jobs after booking the vehicle and hence delaying the delivery of vehicles?

Recession is nothing but a impression on our mind nothing else. Rich are spending like they never did, middle class are trying to save and poor are going poor by day by increase of prices thats all.

[Sawyer]

Small digression/interjection to point out here that there are examples of dealerships in Pune that are doing very well in terms of sales and service experiences. Pashankar is one personal experience of late, even for a car as lowly as the Spark. DSK is another, this by what friends have told me, admittedly for a higher segment car.
Point is, it can be done, if there is a strong will to do it. By well led companies, selecting and training well led and intentioned dealerships. Let's not tar all dealerships with the same brush. Similarly, I am sure that Fiat has some shining examples too, but the challenge that all companies face is about how good is the median performance. And with the poor talent availability situation all around, those that address this scarcity issue successfully will be the survivors in the market. For things such as cars, that are used in a hostile environment as Indian roads, service will remain paramount too. Pure product quality can work for a company making LCD TVs, but is not enough for things such as automobiles. Not in India for a long time to come.

PS: here is part of the post I made in another thread, fyi.
Reading all this, and reading some of the recent posts about pissed of buyers about their sales interfaces with dealerships, I must say that the Pashankar experience was excellent. It is a sharp contrast to the others. I had actually taken it for granted in my usual "I am a customer arrogance" at first, but when I see the contrast, I appreciate the way I was served a lot more. Nothing over the top - just genuine courtesy, people with genuine smiles on their faces, and deliveries to committed dates, to the hour. And the car has started to grow on me as I drive it in Pune city traffic.
The Hyundai experience was good too, but it was so driven purely by the energy and drive of the salesman I was fortunate to come across. I did not get the same sense of alignment of the rest of the dealership organization to serve me. No issues on delivery commitments or PDI, it is just that it did not surpass expectations. Pashankar did. Kudos to them. They have made two follow up calls already to see if all is well. Clearly well laid out processes are at work, and people are putting their heart into them as well. I know how hard this is to accomplish at a dealership level, so clearly GMI too is doing something right.

[Live To Jive]

Originally Posted by RX135

Take the money back and go to B U Bhandari since they seem to be the better among Tata-Fiat dealers, going by sales experience on T-BHP so far.

Originally Posted by CarsPG

I don't agree! In my case BU Bhandari promised delivery in 2-3 weeks but took 10-11 weeks for delivery. The salesperson was not at all helpful .

I heard that BU Bhandari is a good dealer. Cancel your booking and go to Bhandari. This 1 month waiting is all BS. Tell them that you are serious about buying and they will arrange delivery within a week. I was also told to waith 3 months for my VDi. I just said that I am going to buy an Indica. After a day I got a call saying that I can get the car within 2 weeks. All dealers want sales. Just push hard and they will give you what you want.

[Palio_2005]

One of the TBHP members is owner of Pandit Auto. I hope he is reading this post. Maverick PM me for his number.

[jassi]

^^ if the salesman at pandit is really playing around, he is so screwed now ! i bet he didn't expect the whole experience to be posted on tbhp and the owner of pandit to be on tbhp :-)

[neoonwheels]

1. How a car already in stockyard is not given to you.
2. If they ordered it after getting all the money, and now they said FIAT found some defect and car was ordered and all, ask them chassis number of that car.
3. Talk to FIAT personnel and tell them dealer is telling you that fault is with FIAT and validate if the chassis number is indeed correct.
4. If FIAT indeed accepts this fault, simply cancel your booking with Pandit and go to BU Bhandari.
5. My friend had such false promises from Pandit when he bought his Vista. On top of that, they took 3 days for his car's first servicing !! BUB is atleast better than Pandit.

[ajaysurfs]

Originally Posted by sriramv.iyer

I had convinced my friend to go for a Linea - He took a test drive of the petrol version and wanted to try the diesel version.

1. He first tried setting up a test drive for the diesel version - The sales guy fixed a time when he could come (not the other way!) - And didn't show up.

2. My friend tried calling the sales executive at Concorde Motors, Bangalore. But the guy didn't pick up.

3. As a last resort he went to the dealership for the test drive. After reaching there, he called the sales executive - To his surprise, he saw the sales guy walking around and after seeing the call is from my friend, he put it in silent mode, put the mobile in his shirt pocket, and started walking. Unfortunately, he walked straight into my friend - My friend gave him a piece of his mind and then left.

This is for a guy, who wanted to make a full downpayment! I had a bad experience too, with the same dealership, which I'll tell later since it is not related to Linea.

My friend is now taking a Mitsubishi Cedia Sports (that was what I heard last!)

My buying experience is better with Prerana, till now. The sales person (Mr. Ashok) is really a professional. He has promised my Linea MJD Dyn PK (Perla Champagne) by July end. I have asked him to deliver me a July model (which i suppose should take care of any small issues/niggles reported in earlier lot) and that i would like to inspect the vehicle before getting registered. He has agreed to both. Lets see if he can keep his promise!

Concorde just didn't care. When i was going through my final negotiations, i called up Concorde to give me the best quote, given that i was just looking for the best deal possible. However Concorde was giving me less discount and no freebies! Finally went with Prerarana.

[Minardi]

Originally Posted by Live To Jive

I heard that BU Bhandari is a good dealer. Cancel your booking and go to Bhandari. This 1 month waiting is all BS. Tell them that you are serious about buying and they will arrange delivery within a week. I was also told to waith 3 months for my VDi. I just said that I am going to buy an Indica. After a day I got a call saying that I can get the car within 2 weeks. All dealers want sales. Just push hard and they will give you what you want.

I think it is precisely these things that makes a dealer give a car earmarked for someone else to be given to the person who 'threatens to walk out' if he has to wait for a long time. (nothing personal LTJ )