[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Advice Section. Thanks for sharing!

[Ironhide]

Amazing article SS Traveller! Painstakingly researched with all the attention to detail that is your trademark make it a fantastic (and eye opening) read!! Bravo.
Five Stars as usual

Cheers !

[Desmosedici]

Awesome Stuff Sir. Thank you so much for taking the pains to compile this. Definitely helps a lot. Superbly detailed.

[arjithin]

Thanks a lot for compiling this SS-Traveller. Two points from my side

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

Dealer sells you a demo car / damaged car, for the full brand-new price.

How to avoid:

Look at the tires. New tires typically have small rubber spikes left from the molding process. if you don't see any of those spikes anywhere, then it warrants further investigation on the vehicle.

Look at the difficult to reach places like inside the wheel arches, below the trunk/rear hatch door hinges, etc. A typical new car will have only dust in such places (probably from the transit/stockyard), where as a used car will have more black color deposits, dry leaves etc. My observation so far is that the typical car washing person at dealerships leave some marks at these places for us to identify the car usage.


For a used car, taking an ownership report from http://Vahan.nic.in is a must check.

[predatorwheelz]

Awesome article dada. Bookmarked, to be read over and over again. Truly very useful.

[chinkara]

Fantastic article.

Another type of Tyre fraud has been witnessed in Delhi recently. In petrol pumps the attendant tells you that he cannot fill 1 particular tyre -- "valve not working". He then recommends you to the neighborhood tyre shop, where he gets a commission.

A variant -- he does not close / damages the valve so that you feel as if you have a puncture 15 mins later.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by chinkara

Another type of Tyre fraud...

Which is why it is so important to step out of the car and supervise what the attendant is doing - filling air, or actually causing damage.

[pganapathy]

Thanks for the thread SS traveller. Really useful and putting it all in one place makes it easy.

All these are actually common sense items if we think about it, but as some philosopher said, sense is not common at all unfortunately.

[HarshD]

Great Compilation. Thank you. A must for everybody. However, what saddens me is that we always have to be 'aware' and follow the policy of 'beware'. Cars are expensive and a person invests his/her hard earned money (loaned or otherwise) in acquiring it. I feel sad and outraged to note that the service providers treat this as a position of privilege and feel the owner is 'lootable'.
However all of us live in hope and one hopes that the day we come where we will keep our minds occupied with constructive and progressive thoughts rather than being on guard always.
Regards.

[sa_kiran]

Here is another scam, which can not be generalized.
Dealer held for fraud, buyers lose cars - http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...sold-cars.html

Imagine buying a car from an authorized dealer, only to have the police seize it.

Many were in for a rude shock after buying second-hand Skodas, BMWs, Honda CRVs and Volkswagen Passats and other fancy cars from a Mahindra First Choice franchisee in Lajpat Nagar.

They have had to surrender their cars to the police as the dealer didn't pay the financier who gave him money to buy these vehicles. The customers are in a fix as the original registration certificates of these vehicles are now with the financier.

[Arch-Angel]

Hi SSTji!

What i liked about this article is how most of the details have been put into the same. Great effort! Last but not the least, keep writing! Its wonderful to have such awareness and i am really thankful to you and team-bhp for making me a better driver and a more knowledgable citizen.

[chinkara]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

Which is why it is so important to step out of the car and supervise what the attendant is doing - filling air, or actually causing damage.

Yes, but a lot of people would not understand. The first incident happened to a colleague, she saw the attendant taking the nozzle near the valve and saying "kaam nahi kar raha hai madam" - how is she to know that it was all a sleight of hand?

Luckily she called up another colleague who lived nearby, who took her to a "trusted" tyre shop and thus the fraud was discovered.

[Sugeeta]

SS-Traveller!! You did it yet again!!!

Your threads are a pleasure to read - very insightful, detailed and needless to say you put in a lot of effort to collating all the material.

I would like to sheepishly admit that I have run into the thak-thak gang 4 more times :

1. Naraina on the ring road
2. New Friends Colony intersection
3. Moti Bagh crossing
4. Opposite Flex factory in Noida on 28th February, 2013

I also am proud to state that I have not been duped any more. But, I also roll down my windows just a wee bit and yell as many profanities as I can. But one line is standard :

Abhi ek taang tooti hai, ab doosri taraf se aao taaki doosri taang bhi todh sakoon.

[Gotham_City]

Many thanks SS Traveller for putting it all together.

This is one aspect of this forum which I love the most. Senior members / moderators put in so much of their efforts to educate fellow road users. And that too, without any tangible incentive. Three cheers for the forum and its awesome senior members / moderators.

BTW, I myself had been victim one of these scams - 'the coolant scam'. It was 5 years ago when I was a newbie driver & had purchased the first car (Hyundai Accent GLE) with my own money. I went for petrol refill at a petrol pump in Andheri E. My car was also due for second service around the same time. The attendant asked me to open the bonnet in pretext of filling washer fluid. And soon he came up with this problem - 'Saar coolant level kam hai. Aapka gaadi garm hokar band ho jayega' (Sir, the coolant level has gone down in your car and it may stall due to overheating). He actually managed to convince me for a top up. In the process, he made my wallet lighter by some 250/- bucks.

After a week or so, I sent my car to service station for the 2nd service. Service center had to drain the coolant fluid as it was filled up to the brim (as was told by advisor, dont know the reason behind it).

So, there I was, fooled by some smart thug at the petrol pump.
May be, I was an easy target considering no history of car ownership.

Will appeal to other users to be extra careful when petrol pump attendants ask you to open the bonnet. If your car is regularly serviced, you probably need not worry about the coolant level. If someone insists on topping it up, give him a piece of your mind. At least, that is what I do these days

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by Gotham_City

If your car is regularly serviced, you probably need not worry about the coolant level. If someone insists on topping it up, give him a piece of your mind. At least, that is what I do these days

Usually there is a coolant reserviour (a white plastic container) in the engine bay. It has markings for MIN and MAX levels which you can refer to.

Just ensure that you're looking at the coolant container, and not the one for other things like wiper washer water or brake fluid!

cya
R