[vnidta]

Originally Posted by mpksuhas

its sad how rash cars are driven when at hands of these drivers. These happens when cars are given for service too.

Trust me, I have first hand experience of this rash driving.., though I have been a passenger during that period

Originally Posted by sajusherief

The same kind of rash driving the happens with all new cars I believe.

As I was quoting, not just Audis, BMWs, even a Hyundai Eon would be driven in rash manner by the drivers who handle the transit from the stockyard to the showroom. Had this experience about two months back when we went for a test drive. One of my colleagues wanted to pick up an older model i20 which was lying in the stockyard (though he decided against it at the end). To validate the road-worthiness of the vehicle, we had to make a few trips to the stockyard from the showroom and all the times, we were ferried forward in one of the test-drive cars on the way to the stockyard and were ferried back to the showroom by a brand-new car ready for delivery. Eons twice and an Elite i20 once to be more precise. All these times, the cars were revved to the limit by the Sales Rep. Yes, he was the one who was driving us around and not a designated driver. Till date, I feel sorry for the owners of those cars. That 10-12kms of drive would negate the dealership's advise to the customers not to revv hard before the car finishes 1500/2000 kms

Originally Posted by sandeep108

mostly they are transported on flat beds

That is still not the case in Bangalore, at the least in dealerships that I know of Let us all hope for a better future.

[Whiplash7]

I think car manufacturers should provide an option to owners to limit the torque produced by cars to avoid such misuse during vehicle servicing or Valet parking. I think ford has such a feature implemented with different vehicle keys. Also some manufacturers limit vehicle performance when the vehicle is being transported from the factory to the dealer.

[Tanveer_2558]

Its a common sight i have seen specially with maruti and hyundai, even honda at times, approximately 2 years back when i had asked one of the guy among 3 others who came out from a brand new swift, told me he covered around 10kms by just paying 20 RS!

Also i have never seen a VW or a skoda being used like this, while purchasing my polo 2 years back i had mentioned the same to the dealership and they assured me that all their cars come with a seal for all 3 doors except the drivers, so there wont be a way the door is opened and if it is they would come to know,
I travel frequently near the chakan plant of VW,and so i come across many polo.vento, have never seen any passengers with the driver but also never could find a seal on any of the door.

[Magemegento]

While we are at it, how much is a good enough ODO reading to have while accepting a new car at the showroom? I remember getting our new WagonR driven 53kms on the ODO some 11 years ago. While I was a little (more) naive back then, my dad was suspicious, and the showroom guys told us that they had driven it from their other branch to this. (Which is like 20kms away). Read somewhere later (memory hazy) that a new car should have done max 8kms on the ODO, inclusive of driving to/from the yard etc. Any idea?

[TaurusAl]

Thanks for your time and effort. I am sure Maruti will take action after making it public.

Just last week similar incident happened with me. When I asked for a test drive they offered me a temp number car with 60 Kms on ODO. This was the Hyundai dealer in Mumbai.

So you really don't know what is your car going through before you take her home.

[fine69]

All that's going to happen, if MSIL decides to take the dealership to task, is that the dealer will fire the driver (again, if they actually will) and maybe come up with a story for the sales rep about why he behaved the way he did. If MSIL decides to be harsh, they might simply fire the sales rep too.

Having said that, it is the dealer's responsibility for everything happening at his dealership and hopefully MSIL penalizes the dealership in some significant way and doesn't approve of the gimmick such as firing a people or two.

[guptamanish]

Shivjeet . Keeping in mind the horrors associated, I personally drop off all my vehicles at the service center and also pick them up. Not only that I actually take time out to know the Manager, service adviser and mechanic working on the vehicle (2 Skodas, 1 Hyundai and 1 Maruti). Believe it or not, even with the most crazy service/s none of my cars stay at the station. After being submitted at 9:30am sharp, in 2 cases (1 Skoda and 1 Maruti) I have taken delivery at even a 9:45pm when they are technically closed. I'm quite paranoid about leaving my cars there overnight and have made them paranoid about keeping my cars also. Lastly, pointing to my Team-bhp stickers on all the vehicles really helps. I don't know if this is a good practice but seem to be working for me, so sharing.

[Santoshbhat]

Groups of brand new Boleros with seat plastic still on and temp plates ferrying a full load of passengers is a common sight on highways.

Not uncommon to see unregistered transit cars driven rashly around car dealerships, customer's cars being offered for TD etc....

To all Auto Companies : Please make it impossible to disconnect the odometer from your cars. With so much software coding available, I am sure its possible. If the ODO is disconnected, you can flash a warning on the screen. To deactivate the warning the dealer should have to requisition a code from the factory. This way you can control your erring dealers and assure customers that their cars are not misused.

[noopster]

I spotted a new Tata Sumo sporting red TC plates and merrily ferrying paying passengers on the NH4 somewhere near Kolhapur/Karad yesterday. Really shocking that a MSIL dealer in Delhi of all places had the same idea. That Swift is somebody's baby! Not taking away from the fact that the Sumo is also somebody's baby, albeit more likely to be used as a commercial vehicle.

I hate the period between a car leaving the factory and the owner taking possession. See so many of these brand new cars being driven with absolute recklessness that it just puts you off from ever buying a new car!

[vinayrathore]

Its high time manufacturers take note and try to correct this. Have seen drivers belting brand new cars redlining at each gear and driving pretty rashly many times. It pains so much to see this when we are in no way connected to the cars and the poor would be customer does not even know about it.

[Pancham]

Very recently, at a city resort I saw a flock of new unregistered Hyundai cars. I thought Hyundai must have organised some workshop for its employees. When I asked one of the resort employees I was told that Mr. XXX is hosting a wedding of a close family member and all those cars are ferrying the guests around.

[aditya101]

These incidents/mal-practices happen because of the oversmart blue collar staff. Issue is compounded if they see the professional managers also take unethical decisions in front of them on daily basis. The problem may be feeding from top of the heap if the "lala" business man is also unethical.

You rely on your people to do the right things, but even if your (owner/manager) heart is in right place, there is only so much control you have over your staff who think they can get away with anything,

[vinit.merchant]

Originally Posted by Magemegento

While we are at it, how much is a good enough ODO reading to have while accepting a new car at the showroom? I remember getting our new WagonR driven 53kms on the ODO some 11 years ago. While I was a little (more) naive back then, my dad was suspicious, and the showroom guys told us that they had driven it from their other branch to this. (Which is like 20kms away). Read somewhere later (memory hazy) that a new car should have done max 8kms on the ODO, inclusive of driving to/from the yard etc. Any idea?

Have you never seen a test drive vehicle with the ODO disconnected? I believe that the above check is irrelevant for one has no way to check if the ODO was disconnected in the past.

[anand_lukose]

Pardon my ignorance but I did hear about proposals to bring a dedicated RTO staffer to a showroom or a cluster of showrooms within a locality to avoid these brand new vehicles from being driven till the RTO.

I am not sure if this proposal was specific to a state or at the national level. But it looks we need this high time/big time !

[Aromal]

Thanks for your time and effort to share the incident with dealership and the community.

Here we saw brand new car using as taxi and there are other ways to spoil a brand new car. Staffs at dealerships are highly innovative in finding new ways to spoil our cars. Disconnecting the odometer and taking the cars for test-drives to using car as a mini air-conditioned rooms. They know every possible way to damage a car. Once I saw a dealership painting under body of a brand new car without even washing the dirt.
Misusing customers car is deep rooted problem among dealerships and I doubt there is feasible long-term solution for it(unless manufactures and dealerships are really bothered about it). At the end of the day it's all about the number of cars they sell and meeting their targets. All they are bothered about is noting but to improve their sales.

Originally Posted by govindremesh

We're expecting our new car which is in transit. Guess I should patrol the stockyard every night from tomorrow (would think of applying a few Casual leaves for day patrolling too)!

Maruti if you want to sell more cars, please give enough demo-cars to your dealerships. Or else they will use our brand new cars for test drives. Not everybody could afford to lose their sleeps and patrol the stockyard
Also consider improving the design of the speedometer cable attachment to the wheels. In the current design, all it takes to disconnect the speedometer is just a simple pull on the cable