[Rajeevraj]

So I was on the way to office today and was as usual stuck in a traffic jam (Marathahalli Bridge- for those who know). Looked outside and saw a huge billboard. 2 things that struck me:

• The content: Wheelswisdom.com - If you love your car more than your spouse (Which many car enthusiasts here may secretly agree to )
  
• The location: 90% of the time there is a Jam at this location. The billboard cannot be missed

So I did some digging on what exactly this was. Found it interesting and potentially useful. Hence sharing here.

Note/Disclaimer: I have no affiliation to this nor have I used their services. Found it interesting -Hence sharing

What services do they provide?

• Decision Assist
• Sale Assist
• Service Assist

Decision Assist has different levels of interaction.

• A PDF report based on your requirements- Silver Package
• A telephonic discussion- Gold Package
• F2F Discussion - Platinum Package (Only in Bengaluru)
• Luxury Car buying (>35L Ex-Showroom)
• The Platinum Package also has the following add ons
  • Complimentary Walk through of one car of your choice at their office-without any salesmen present. (Includes a TD also)
  • Will help place the order at the dealership if you prefer.
• Price for Decision Assist: Not clearly called out. Said to be 'Lesser than the incidental expenses charged by dealers.

My Take: While the discussions and reports would be similar to the in depth information provided by owners and members here, the F2F discussion and Car Walk through seem interesting.


Sale Assist

• A 30 minute Photo Shoot done.
• Price recommendations give
• Hosted on preferred classified sites.
• Price: Rs 499

My Take: More of a helping hand for selling. Not sure how beneficial it will be for a customer. Need to see reviews.


Service Assist. (Only in Bengaluru)

• Book at service appointment through the Wheels Wisdom website. Advance service charges are collected.
• Service appointment at the dealer of choice booked on your behalf
• Wheels Wisdom Expert Service adviser comes to your place, understands the service needs, takes the car for service, ensures unwanted things pushed by the dealers are avoided, verifies all changes and replacements post service and brings back the car.
• Balance Payment Settled.
• Pricing:
  • Hatchbacks: Rs.999 | Regular Sedans, SUV’s, and MUV’s: Rs.1499 | Premium Sedans, SUV’s, and MUV’s: Rs.1999 | Audi, BMW, Merc, All luxury cars: Rs.2999
  • Chauffeur driven backup car: Hyundai Eon (4 seater): Rs.1499 | Toyota Innova (6 seater): Rs.2499

My Take: Looks to be a good service. Key USP called out is that the Service Advisor sent will be an expert who understands all nuances of servicing and hence can provide appropriate advice. Otherwise this becomes like a regular pick/drop provided by the dealers.

Other Information

• Founder: Sandeep Menon-Former VP at Goldman Sachs
• Office Location: RMZ infinity, Old Madras Road
• Website: http://www.wheelswisdom.com/

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

<snip>
Other Information

• Founder: Sandeep Menon-Former VP at Goldman Sachs
• Office Location: RMZ infinity, Old Madras Road
• Website: http://www.wheelswisdom.com/

At first I thought it was a project someone who just graduated out of college came up with; but I've been very wrong before, so no surprise there.


No idea how this service will pan out. There were others in the market earlier, who would do diagnostics on your car of choice and assist in purchases.

Considering the car-savvy membership of Team-BHP, I'm surprised that Mr. Sandeep Menon is not a TBHP member, or is he?

[Rajeevraj]

Originally Posted by mvadg

Considering the car-savvy membership of Team-BHP, I'm surprised that Mr. Sandeep Menon is not a TBHP member, or is he?

No idea. May be he is. In general a lot of content in the site is in line with the general principles promoted in this forum (which is what prompted me to put up thread here). They even have a sticker section

http://www.wheelswisdom.com/product-...umperstickers/

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

Interesting!!
Basically they are providing what you can ideally get with a couple of hours of googling in most cases.

If they can provide help and suggestions with specing luxury cars like Porsche which have extensive options list, that might be useful. But then the regular Porsche sales guy would happily do it for you too for free, provided you know some basic stuff.

Rachit

[GTO]

IMHO, the service is 20 years too late. In a world that has moved online, here's a company introducing offline advisory services for cars. Google claims that over 2/3rds of car buyers research online before choosing their car. Spend a couple of hours reading Team-BHP Official Reviews, Ownership Reports & member comments....and you have more information than you could have ever asked for.

Not to mention, before an Indian trusts your advice, you have got to build credibility. Unless you are a known brand / big face, no one is going to trust your advice. This is especially true in India where we are suspicious by culture. And if someone does need offline advice, they will 100% go to their friends & family.

Nowhere on their website is it mentioned that they don't take $$$ from dealerships. In that case, there is a concern over bias (i.e. favouring a car that provides a higher commission). It's going to be a tough sell. Here's their pricing:

[vedsinghal]

I actually used the ServiceAssist service a few weeks back for my Honda Amaze. I must stay I had a very good experience and have excellent feedback.

Online booking was a breeze (though there was an initial hiccup with the PayU gateway). My car was picked up the next morning and a replacement car+chauffeur was left at my disposal for the whole day. I was given a regular update about the service progress at the workshop (Whitefield Honda, Bangalore) and my car was delivered promptly in the evening. For the first time ever, my service bill was the lowest in ages thanks to Sandeep :-).

[nitin.rai]

21North recently launched mobile app (IOS & Android) designed to bring convenience to people. Its an On Demand Vehicle Service booking Platform to enable app users to connect with authorized workshops for all kind of repair and maintenance work for their vehicle.

One can download the app for link www.21north.in/app. To add to convenience to the customer , 21North also provides verified drivers for car pick and drop.

A 21North ambassador/driver is assigned 1 hour prior to the pick-up time
- After pick up, the app users can track their vehicle going to the service center
- Once the job is completed, the 21North Ambassador will deliver the vehicle to the delivery point.

By using the 21North mobile app, the consumers get cash less payment service and can settle payments over multiple payment options. The mobile app users also get to access the service history and keep it handy. 21North commenced operations in July 2015 and is currently operational in Bengaluru with tie up with authorised workshops of brands like Maruti, Hyundai, Honda, Mahindra, Nissan, Ford etc .

Some of the key features of 21North app are
1) Pay bill online through any of the online payment option
2) Rate the workshop and driver
3) All records at one place
4) Regular notifications

For more details, click www.21north.in

Disclaimer: I am friends with one of the founders but have no commerical interest in the company. These guys are doing real well and thought that interested forum owners may benefit from their services.

[singleton]

There is a new one called Bumpr (on android app store); these guys recently got funded.

I checked out the app; looks good - they do regular servicing, repairs, dent correction, and even car wash.

Haven't tried their services yet, planning to do soon.

[rejoycjohn]

Went through their website, and to be honest I was expecting a better experience.
- The design of the website is at best juvenile.
- I tried to test the site by booking an appointment for a Polo and the total came to be 2499, which is quite steep in my opinion.

Then I went to the "how service assist works", and I thought its worth to put my opinion of it below.

1. You reserve your Service Assist™ appointment on our web site. Payment can be conveniently made online – via any credit card / net banking

.
-> Good start, it makes booking an appointment easy.

2. We pre-book your appointment with the dealership. Then, our experienced Tech Advisor visits your address at the scheduled time, understands service needs, gets the car serviced at the authorized dealership, and brings the car back to you after making sure all problems are rectified per your requirements.
Service Assist Managed car service

-> Not sure the actual value addition here. What it really says is they will provide you a "glorified driver" to pick up your car from your house and then give it to the Actual service advisor at the authorized dealership and convey the message that you told him on your behalf.

I can imagine a few confusion happening here.
For a personal car user, this needn't necessarily be adding any value because other than normal car service anything extra or any other major issues, you would be better off showing it yourself to the service advisor at the dealership than a third party.
When message travels from person to person there is a pretty good chance for it to change direction when it reaches the destination.

For a fleet manager or a businessman this looks good as it saves time and hassle. But he can use his normal driver to take the car to the service station or even use a pick up and delivery service at a much lesser cost.

3. Our Tech Advisor filters out unnecessary optional value added services. This saves our customers money. We strictly enforce manufacturer mandated service requirements – and in most cases decline everything else. We only make an exception when our customers ask for a specific additional task to be done because they need it.

-> Good, It can help customer from fraudulent service advisors who want to take him for a ride.

4. Our Tech Advisor inspects new and replaced components to ensure that every service task is completed as it should be.

-> This is good. I am sure that if a knowledgeable technician checks your car after service on your behalf it will ensure that you are not taken for granted by some of these service advisors.

5.

We pay dealership service charges on your behalf, and bring your car carefully back to your address. You make an NEFT fund transfer to us for the dealership charges we paid at actuals (we send you NEFT bank setup details right after order confirmation). You also have an option of paying via credit card / debit card / netbanking via our payment gateway (please note that an additional 2.3% payment gateway charges will have to be paid if paying via payment gateway, since this is deducted from our payment of actuals).

-> This is a very good feature, but has its USP until these car manufacturers decide to create their own app for managing their service business.

6. Cars typically get back to your address between 5 to 7 PM the same day. Our service advisor has a closing discussion with you where he walks you through the tasks done for the day and makes sure you completely understand the specifics of the care your car received that day, and answers any questions you might have.

-> Similar to point 4. It helps you as a car user to better understand the condition of your car and other feedbacks. This again is pretty much expected from a good service advisor.

We’re highly process oriented, transparent, and professional as we go about giving our customers a service experience unparalleled anywhere in the world. We’re not aggregators, and do not believe in the aggregation model where there’s no control on actual quality levels customers experience. Our staff are our own employees in whom we significantly invest in training, domain expertise, and in our unique org culture.

- Not sure why they want to slam the aggregators, I am sure that the model that these guys are professing has only a very thin line to differentiate between aggregation.

We also don’t burden our customers with one more app to install. There are too many apps out there causing ‘app fatigue’, and we know our customers just want a mobile friendly website!

-Again I cannot get my head around the "Burden our customers with one more app to install" thing. I am sure that when these guys grow bigger, it would definitely take more than a few words to justify the creation of an app then.

- "Service experience unparalleld anywhere in the world" - very high claim - too early I guess.

[sdmn]

Those are great points about their website rejoycjohn. Good review! The website can at best be termed functional, but it does the job I would say.

Specifically on the Polo service fee, I think they charge more for Skoda and VW. Are we surprised? :-)

My take is that their strength is in actual service delivery of getting the car serviced, and in their independence (read no dealer commissions), which I experienced. Some more real customer experiences from forum members should help us all!

[VeyronSuperSprt]

Wheels Wisdom is a new offering in the automotive space. They don't service cars nor do they sell spares nor do they handle any other area directly connected to your service.

What they do is to ensure that you don't get a raw deal from your ASC.

They protect car owners from

(a) Overcharging for service by dealerships

(b) Unnecessary replacement of parts

(c) Swapping parts with that of other cars as some ASC's do and

(d) helps you get an accurate estimate for your body shop and painting jobs etc.

How this works is that they take your car to the ASC directly and coordinate with them on your behalf. They use their experience and expertise to ensure that you get a fair deal.

Their services are available for all makes of cars and are currently operational in Bangalore only.

They have 3 packages that can be taken to avail their services.

They appear to be just what the doctor ordered for most car owners who may not have the time, knowledge or the inclination to invest time to see that their car is serviced properly.

They can be reached at www.wheelswisdom.com

[speedmiester]

I had an opportunity to use Wheels Wisdom managed car service recently for my brother’s car.

My brother drives a Honda City Automatic. He is currently abroad on work and the car was not regularly used. I was driving the car for around 10Kms every week to ensure the car is in good condition. But his apartment parking has rat problem and the rats had damaged the auto transmission wiring when it was parked. The engine was starting, but the car was not moving and the “D” light was flashing.

Though I take care of all my family’s cars myself, this time I was hard pressed for time and could not get it fixed myself.

I had read about Wheels Wisdom and heard good feedback about them. I decided to take their help and called up Sandeep Mohan, who runs Wheels Wisdom. Had a good chat with Sandeep and booked an appointment for the next day. The technical adviser Jeffrin called me prior to get the details and also arranged for a flat bed tow.

The next day, Jeffrin arrived bang on time. He had a look and confirmed my suspicion of damage to auto transmission wiring. He ensured the car was towed to the Honda Service Centre. On complete diagnosis, it was recommended to replace the entire wiring harness costing 11K. Since the wiring harness was not in stock and was on back order, it would have taken at least 10 days for it to arrive. In the meantime, I was offered an alternative to have the wire soldered properly and the damaged connectors replaced. I accepted the repair solution offered as I did not want to car to be stationary at the service centre for so long. The car was fixed and dropped back to my residence.
Total cost came to 2300/- plus the 2500/- towing charges.
Though I was ready to have the harness replaced, it is always good to hear a cheaper working solution. I have had bad experience with almost all Honda ASS in Bangalore and I am sure the Honda Service Centre would not have offered this alternative if I had approached them directly.

Overall I am a very satisfied customer of Wheels Wisdom’s managed car service. I highly recommend Wheels Wisdom. This is of great help to people who are short on time and need a helping hand to ensure they do not get fleeced by the service centres.

Note: I am not affiliated nor associated with Wheels Wisdom in any way, this is a review of my personal experience with them.

[DriveOnceMore]

Any good options for Pune-kars?

[SS-Traveller]

So there's one more layer of people to go through, and one more level where things can go wrong.

These people are apparently going to police the ASCs and force them to produce quality work for one's car.

And who polices the policeman, when he is essentially playing / preying / poaching on the trust deficit between the customer and ASCs, to turn a profit?

[VeyronSuperSprt]

I think it's obvious that policing wouldn't work with any ASC, if at all it would make matters far worse.

And if you're going to police the policeman, then you don't need these services either.

The only thing to do, would be for those interested to have a discussion with them and if convinced, take a call.

Haven't used their services as they are available only in Bangalore.