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Old 31st October 2014, 12:43   #1
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Chevrolet Extended Warranty: Now purchase within 34 months (not 36)

On 11 June 2014, Chevrolet India had launched a 'Chevrolet Complete Care' program that received a warm welcome from automotive world, including Team-bhp itself.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...e-program.html

Out of the many key points of this program, one of the main points was the extended warranty:
  • Apart from the company's existing warranty, customer can extend the warranty for two more years or till 150,000 kms at affordable rates.
An extended warranty assures the customer that the company has faith in the reliability of its product, and is willing to care for the customers for long run. As always, offering of extended warranty is a positive step towards creating trust.


The website for this extended warranty http://www.chevrolet.co.in/owners/ch...-warranty.html states the following:
  • Peace of mind motoring for up to 5 years / 1.5 lakh kms.
  • Flexibility of Purchase till the last day of standard warranty.
However, here is where the sneaky part begins. If a customer that is approaching the end of standard warranty approaches the company for buying the extended warranty, they are now turned away by citing reason that now the extended warranty can be purchased only till 34th month, and not 36th month as publicly declared.

This strikes me as not just a shady practise, but a sort of bureaucracy where a company can change any policy and can actually mislead customers by false advertising. Had they felt the need to change the extended warranty buying customers, they should have announced so publically, and should have kept a 'effective from' date.

My vehicle is of 16 November 2011, one from the first batches of Diesel Beat. Since this 34 month policy is in effect from 1st September 2014 (as per internal mails), I am not eligible for purchasing the two-year extended warranty.

And this is not limited to Beat alone. This is a change for ALL the vehicles from Chevrolet. Despite mainly mails, facebook posts, calls to and from dealership, the problem hangs in a limbo with no solution in sight. It is no different than running from post to pillar in a government office.

This is just one example where the advertised policy is different from the actual policy, and company is actively misleading customers. There may be other areas where such mischief is not even yet come to light.

All I can say is, this practice of one sided policy change and active misleading does not suit a company such as Chevrolet. But India hai, sab chalta hai! Buyer beware.
Attached Files
File Type: doc Bulletin - 50 EW policy revise.doc (466.5 KB, 445 views)
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Old 31st October 2014, 12:56   #2
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re: Chevrolet Extended Warranty: Now purchase within 34 months (not 36)

May be prudent to await an official response before drawing conclusions, but this is just one of many situations that lays bare the pathetic state of consumer rights in our country. This might turn out to be a case of a shady dealer misinterpreting a bulletin, but the lack of response so far is not encouraging.

A developed country would see them sued for intentional misrepresentation, but well, no point bemoaning what we don't have.
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Old 31st October 2014, 18:47   #3
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re: Chevrolet Extended Warranty: Now purchase within 34 months (not 36)

^^^ This is not dealer specific or city specific. I tried two different dealers in Pune with same results. Also Balaji31582 reported that he faced the same in Chennai, so this is a change in actual policy by Chevrolet.

Meanwhile, the chevrolet India warrany has been modified to say the following:

The standard warranty can be extended by one or two years at nominal price and can be purchased two months either before the basic warranty expires or before the warranty period ends, i.e. up to 34 months or 1,00,000 kms, whichever is earlier.

I have the screenshot of 19 September 2014, where they had not modified it. It is only after getting feedback about the discrepancy of words (may be me only) have they changed it.
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Old 31st October 2014, 21:56   #4
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re: Chevrolet Extended Warranty: Now purchase within 34 months (not 36)

I have experienced this in November 2010, when I had a Spark I had asked for buying the EW from Kropex, they declined saying that EW has to be purchased within first year, I still remember the face of SA when I used to show him the CPCOO booklet. Looks like GM has completely lost its focus and in a state of where we are?
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Old 1st November 2014, 00:17   #5
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re: Chevrolet Extended Warranty: Now purchase within 34 months (not 36)

This news is shocking for me. Nikhil Automobiles and it's SA's are cheats if this is true. This is how my incident goes. It was the 3rd year for my Beat and hence standard warranty was still remaining. There were a couple of issues with the car especially with the front struts. They were promptly replaced under warranty. So far so good. One fine evening i notice that there is a noise coming from the engine bay and it seems to unsettle the car a little especially while at standby. I get to know that it is the A/C fan which is vibrating and needs to be replaced. So i go to the Service center and ask them about extended waaranty and guess what, they deny it. The reason being extended warranty can only be bought at the time of delivery/pre-delivery and not later. Since this is our first car, i did not have an idea about the same so guessed it must be some policy. This is news to me that in Chevy you can buy extended warranty till the 34rd month.
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Old 1st November 2014, 07:16   #6
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re: Chevrolet Extended Warranty: Now purchase within 34 months (not 36)

Hi friends,
I have come across some news from Chevrolet-They are going to discontinue the Diesel SAIL/Sail Sedan. So please avoid buying such cars. I am still not 100% sure, though. Chevrolet is India's most loss-making car company. They are already in deep waters. Only the Cruze and the Beat are selling in India.
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Old 1st November 2014, 13:08   #7
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re: Chevrolet Extended Warranty: Now purchase within 34 months (not 36)

I told GM back in 2012 they should bring cutting edge cars like the Sonic sedan and hatch back instead of SAIL products designed in China.

"Never listen, never learn" seems to be their mantra.

Less said of the authorized service dealers, the better.
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Old 2nd November 2014, 07:24   #8
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re: Chevrolet Extended Warranty: Now purchase within 34 months (not 36)

Quote:
Originally Posted by ani_meher View Post
However, here is where the sneaky part begins. If a customer that is approaching the end of standard warranty approaches the company for buying the extended warranty, they are now turned away by citing reason that now the extended warranty can be purchased only till 34th month, and not 36th month as publicly declared.
Thanks for the thread so that any owner who didn't cross 34th month can decide and continue the warranty.

This is certainly a shady practice and something that should be questioned by someone in court, though I'm sure some fineprint somewhere would have mentioned that they reserve the right to change policies from time to time.

At a minimum, Chevy should have contacted all owners when they reached the 32-34 month period informing them about the change in policy and giving them the choice to extend it, even if a couple of months early. In my eyes, that would still have been an acceptable trade practice.

This is most likely due to some very inefficient higher level management in Chevy who doesn't know how to implement things properly which we have already observed in other areas too, where they seem to be simply going like a loose cannon that lacks any direction sense!
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Old 2nd November 2014, 10:34   #9
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re: Chevrolet Extended Warranty: Now purchase within 34 months (not 36)

I had opted for extended warranty unknowing about this 34 months restriction. But while opting, SA people mentioned there is a 34 month restriction, and mine was about to complete 34 months within a week. I didn't bother much as I got the warranty extension anyway. I casually inquired why the last 2 months are not considered. Their reply was that, few system update/paper work is involved between the branches and head office of Chevrolet, and hence they use this 2 months as a buffer.
They didn't mention about any policy revision at that time.
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