[toiingg]

Originally Posted by Palaver

Actually that's not true. Registration takes a while, usually it takes about 4-6weeks to get the car registered...

Not sure how it works in other cities, but here in Kolkata, the vehicle is delivered (mostly) once the number is allocated, which is done once the car is registered with the RTO and Tax paid. The car is delivered with the Receipt and Tax token, the Smart Card (blue book / RC Book) takes 30-45 days to come.

There are some cases where the customer takes the car on Temp Plates, and gets the registration done by himself.

[sgiitk]

I think there are again noises that a car cannot leave the dealership without registration. I hope this happens soon, with the registration being done in a day max.

[Altocumulus]

Kudos to the dealership and Hyundai

I am surprised at Mr. Rajan's reaction. Any car can have a fault. However the speed at which this got sorted and that he got a brand new car is unheard off. He should be a very happy man instead of reacting negatively.

[shravan2k2]

But, here I am still running to the dealership every other day with my friends Verna which has a nocking sound between 1800-2100 rpm and has been present from the second week itself. But no solution. The team from Chandigarh came and told us they changed the injector assembly and injector pump. Things were better for a week and the same thing again started. Now when I went to another dealer and checked the parts in their system which showed nothing was changed, it was a lie that things have been replaced. Now again at the dealership and some hyundai people come and just made a video and went away. Would be filing a law suit now. Someone spending 16 lakhs and gets a faulty car

[avdhesh15]

Well done Hyundai to get this done without much drama and social media

Are you reading this thread VW? Learn something from this and then you can dream of 5% market share!

[scorpian]

Hats off to Hyundai for replacing the car.
But i have one lingering question in my mind, with so many quality checks etc in place and all the jazz how are defective cars still produced and clear all final checks? Unless of course there is a flaw in the system and it is considered to just let the lemon roll off the assembly line to some unfortunate customer that too in India with such poor consumer laws and long period of wait to get justice.

Personally i feel for someone investing lakhs of rupees and then getting a defective car is like just unimaginable mental trauma. Why cant companies have better quality control to eliminate such issues and thereby save them from all the bad publicity.

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by scorpian

Personally i feel for someone investing lakhs of rupees and then getting a defective car is like just unimaginable mental trauma. Why cant companies have better quality control to eliminate such issues and thereby save them from all the bad publicity.

Not remotely as simple as you've mentioned.. btw I do have some experience in terms of product testing, implementation and final dispatch, it is equal in all products and brands.. there will be some that fall through the cracks so to speak.. why?

1) The product when typically tested only gives an overall outline in terms of performance and reliability. Most of the time the product HAS to reach the consumers hands in order to pass the test successfully, because it needs to endure 'x' amount of usage in 'y' permutations of different situations to be known as fail-proof.

2) A real-world test is the only accurate way to gauge reliability.. for example Macbooks might've performed flawlessly in lab conditions simulating the laptop usage but I've known several people who've cracked the glass trackpad without even putting too much pressure.

3) In automobiles where metallurgy, selective plasticity and wiring are used extensively, one can only hope that the quality of EVERY car produced remains the same because basically, the vendors of the ancillary components remain the same, the metal forging remains the same and the assembly remains the same but no.. its a general assumption in production management that 2% is the maximum scope for product errors (from perfection) but modern quality centric production management has enabled one to cut it down to much less than 1%.. that is actually good. Things are further rectified by improving components subsequently based on feedback and via recalls.

4) Assembly is always a dodgy affair, sometimes the best of technicians screw up.. to err is human and human they are. Putting together the best components wrongly is as good as scrap.

Example of an interior assembly gone wrong.. this maybe due to poor raw material input.. still escaped QC though, or did it hold up during QC and become brittle and ill-fitted over time?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GArPkgdH0sg

Same with a Bimmer :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkNSn9w09Hk

I do think the companies sometimes become so egoistic that they rise above aggressive QC based purely on track record. In this case the Verna clearly had major problems with the engine, assembly, and electrical linkages.. might as well replace it because a lemon is essentially a car with cancer, something will crop up again and again.

In the end what I'm trying to say is that for all companies, we the buyers form the largest testing bed.. and then they ensure that the next generation of buyers no longer suffer from what we did. Many lives were lost in the Toyota sticky accelerator pedal issue, but now they might have solved it for good so that such highly unfortunate incidents do not happen again, same with the Takata airbags crises where despite using highly volatile propellants and being fully aware of it, they continued to mass-manufacture inordinately (QC on a bad product is meaningless). Here in India the famous DSG issue might hardly plague 10% of the users, leaving 90% to have a perfectly reliable experience.. however when the product itself is unstable and is prone to failure or poor performance based on variables like temperature, driving style, software tweaking etc.. no QC can ever tell the future.

[gururajrv]

How many dealers out there would ever do this? I believe 90% credit should go to the dealer alone here and 10% to Hyundai. I’m saying this because it all depends on how responsive the dealer is to the requests of a customer, no matter how good a brand image is!

Kudos to the dealer and he deserves a good advertisement here as he’s upheld the customer focus throughout

He could’ve just played with the customer by keeping the car for some more time without doing anything about it. We’ve heard such stories where dealers take customers for granted.

At end of the day, customer is happy and this news will spread to wider audience. Hyundai is going to get a good name again as they’ve been doing so with all their products. We hardly hear anything negative about Hyundai which shows they’re absolutely customer focused and are 2nd favorite to Indian customers after Maruti. Way to go Hyundai and you should thank your dealer for upholding your brand value.

[scorpian]

@ Dark.Knight.
I agree with all the points you mentioned,however if the customer is the final test bed then in case of any product failures the company should be pro-active and replace the product. How many times have we seen a dealer straightaway replacing a car that has had numerous problems?
I think i can recall only the jeep case and this hyundai case. Most of the time dealerships give a harrowing time to the customer. I would not speak for others but i for sure would not agree and like if my brand new car breaks down.

I understand failure is possible but when it fails why not replace it immediately.Why make the customer suffer?

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by scorpian

I understand failure is possible but when it fails why not replace it immediately.Why make the customer suffer?

Ah, true, but that's where business policy comes in. Even in earlier times, businesses have been cautious and have tread on the side of ignorance, helplessness or simply, denial when it comes to replacement of a product because once something becomes a policy it is impossible to turn the hands of time backwards.

Today, in the age of social media, ever vigilant consumerism and highly demanding buyers.. companies would need to think 10 times before approving something for replacement or refund. Businesses at the end of the day, do try to make and sell the best product but often times it is impossible to assure 100% quality on something like a car which has say, 10,000+ unique components and can fail or not serve the intended purpose at anytime. Samsung which had made reliable phones for over a decade, suddenly found that their Note 7 was susceptible to exploding batteries.. the only reason they did the complete recall is because in case of many injuries or even fatality due to the explosion, they will be sued to the moon and back and can never bounce back after that.

Consumers are the ultimate testing points.. that is undeniable. We can only blame the very poor, if not non-existent consumer protection laws in India, for without them there is no middle party to oversee the battle between consumer and company in case of a faulty product and we're forced to either wait out for years to see the result or to accept whatever the company hands out in the form of a solution. The only way to survive in this country is to buy only what is necessary/barebones and not more.. India can never be a land of excesses like the Great American Dream due to absolute lack of consumer friendly laws.

[paperweight]

It is good that they replaced the car. Yet I cannot help thinking that the QC and QA processes at Hyundai manufacturing in India are not following laid down SOPs - I am certain that if they did, these "show stopping defects" would not happen.
Not sure about the negative things I've heard of Skoda and VW service but I experienced GM's Indian service apathy and shameless fleecing first hand (do you bite the hand that feeds you? Those people will have to learn what a customer is). I'm afraid it seems like good riddance. However, I also feel that education is also necessary:

What needs changing and when - should be followed to the letter. The Chevy people convinced me that "coating the engine" was good and I did it when the car was new - however it simply was a new way to rip off a customer.

I'm undecided between the Verna and the Vento - the latter seems to me the more sensible solid solution - but VW's service record?

Incidentally, I drove for 28 months in the US and Pennzoil oil changes (15 minute) and a change of tyres met all my needs for 70,000 miles - oil, filters, sparks, topping up of other fluids and tyres - these are really you need in a well manufactured car - a GM car - Pontiac Grand Prix SE with a 3.8 litre engine, which never gave me any trouble, in snow, rain, and sunshine.

[thehighwayman]

One should look at the economics behind Hyundai's decision. They sell approx. 2K Vernas each month. Now lets say even if 1% of potential customers change their minds(thanks to forums like TBHP which make it difficult for manufacturers to hide their faults), its a lost revenue of 2 Cr (assuming an average price of 10L) when the replacement car would just cost them 10L, and then again its not a total loss as they would rectify the car and sell it again. Obviously this is based on the assumption that there are only a few cases where complete replacement is required.