My Vento is finally back the way she looks best. Picked it up from the service centre yesterday. Had handed it in last Friday to get the following jobs done:
- HV AC unit replaced. Massive air flow issues earlier. New one works fine. Covered under warranty.
- AC vents (2 nos.) replaced. The Vento has absolutely pathetic quality of AC vent plastic. I made this an issue: my car is otherwise well maintained and the broken vents are an anomaly. Nobody even touches them most of the time. Covered under warranty.
- My front VW logo had been flicked from the service station during the second service a few weeks ago. I insisted they replace it FOC. Done.
- The grill/wire mesh behind the front logo fell off, possibly because I drove 300 odd km immediately after getting the car logoless. The SA told me he couldn't replace this FOC and I said fine. Cost: 2452/-
Issues:
- The SA told me that work had commenced only on Tuesday. Apparently some AC technician went AWOL. When the SA told me this, I almost burst out laughing recalling
Behram's post.
- Billing was royally messed up. They generated an invoice which had EVERY item related to the AC as "pay" (there were numbers like 99,999/- and 31,000/- in that bill). Apparently posted transactions cannot be reversed easily. They gave me a receipt for the amount I paid them and promised to give me the actual bill after a week. Am not holding my breath.
- They initially said everything would be covered under warranty (I was skeptical), then said the wire mesh thingy would cost 550/- and finally this afternoon told me it would cost 2200/- plus tax. Not done. Any service center worth their salt OVERestimates and underbills. Not vice versa, and certainly not by so much.
- 2% charge on credit card. This is crazy. Cafe Coffee Day happily accept my card when I buy a 46/- latte from them. Luckily I was carrying cash.
- Car was cleaned in and out- a good touch- but reeked of benzene when I picked it up. Dashboard looks nice and shiny now though.
- There doesn't seem to be much supervision of the SA's and they are woefully undertrained. The billing process took 25 minutes and eventually was wrong anyway.
- No soft skill training either. They talk loudly in Marathi among themselves assuming I don't understand what they're saying. They are obsequious but it seems superficial and fake. I didn't raise my voice at all since I kinda felt sorry for the young SA who was doing his best.
- Funniest thing is that the SA tells me as I am leaving: Sir you will get a call from VW in a week, please rate us as "Excellent". I listed, good-humouredly, everything that had gone wrong in this service encounter, but he said "Please, sir". So I said I would see what I could do.
Overall I got what I wanted and had to shell out slightly more than what I expected for it, but it's still reasonable. Still, Vidyut (VW Pune) guys come across as highly unprofessional in whatever they do, sales or service. I seem to have lucked out in both sales and service that I at least found a person who was willing to go the extra mile, but the owners and management are strangely aloof.
Doesn't inspire confidence, frankly. This is still a relatively new car- what after it ages and starts coming up with real serious issues?
Car needs new tyres badly- have been advised not to drive it beyond 35,000 km on the stock Aceleres. Am thinking 205/55 R15- will start research this weekend.
A new ICE would be nice yet. But will it happen? Stay tuned...