[RocketRaccoon]

This post is a revelation ! Had you not incurred the towing charges on account of the authorized service center you would have saved even more but yet what you paid was a fraction of what the conniving agent and ASS would have you pay. I stopped trusting Hyundai after I was slapped with a 15K service bill with 8K labor for a regular service. However, I had to use the authorized service center's services when a truck clipped my i20's left side and I decided to claim insurance. The insurance company and Hyundai took me for a ride and slapped me with a bill wherein the insurance company didn't even pay the amount I had paid as premium to them on a 12K bill i.e I ended up paying 9K out of the 12K plus insurance premium making the total cost more than the repair job. After doing a analysis of the situation I realized that the agent had added voluntary excess of 5000 to "attract" me to a reduced premium. Obviously, this was my fault for not checking the policy while paying premium. I will be more careful now. I have switched to 3rd party insurance as the car is 6 years old now. Now I get my car serviced from Heera Motors, Gurgaon and the nice chap charges me only 250 as labor for the full job.

[landcruiser123]

Holy cow. The extent to which these service centers cheat is reaching an all new low.
The service centers are simply taking the circumstances to their advantage and cheating customers. You may have just saved over INR 60,000 ~ 80,000 for an unnecessary rebuild(or the service center may never have replaced the parts)

Always good to have trusted local mechanic who can give you advice on certain matters.

Moral: For big $$$ repairs, always take a second opinion!

[Asish_VK]

OMG

Its shocking to see how these guys are playing big time with the uninformed (including myself), It could happen to anyone, any day. Good that you had shared this with us.

It feels good to know that you didn't fell for their trap and got it resolved with a trusted hand.

I think if you have substantial evidences, you should go legally against the fraud actions or at least escalate it to Hyundai

[nijelj]

I read the post.
Q1. Why did you get it towed to Hyundai?
Ans : Because the car wouldn't start

Q2. How exactly was it behaving when you say it doesn't start?
Ans : There was only a 'tic' noise

Q3. You said that you were looking at the coolant gauge and it had shot up. Why DID it shoot up? Do you have an answer now?

Q3. But when you showed your car to the insurer, he cranked the car and tried to talk to the service advisor and said it is a small issue. How could he crank the car? or if not cranked, how did he know it was a minor issue?

Ans ?

Lets take an example of a car whose engine had actually a water entry issue in the fuel tank and fuel filter

You would be able to run the vehicle for some kms until the accumulated water would cause a hydrolock, leading to crankshaft bending. Then piston could be stuck, in such a way that the engine could not rotate. In this case, if you try to crank, the only sound would also be a 'tic' (if it engages with the flywheel).

Coupled with the fact that this car was part of flood soaking experience, the service advisor would have thought to assume the worst case and give it to you straight. Best case, he would have arrived at the starter winding issue in the first checks. Worst case, he would have opened up the engine and seen no issues and charged you the labour for opening and reassembling the engine head

So not very sure that he was trying to cheat you. He had an entire yard of flood damaged cars to make money off of. He must have worked out the sequence and thought that it engine seizure was a distinct possibility.

Now continuing the example, lets say the insurance guy gets you to write down the sequence of events and submit to him. Incase the engine was seized, he would refuse to pay anything saying that engine seizure was a consequential failure. Now the tables have turned hasn't it?


Let me know what you guys think.

[Sridhar K]

It is just not the case with Hyundai alone but with most other service centers after the floods. My cousin's 2004 alto was submerged until the roof. The car was later towed to ABT and the quote given was 1.75 lakhs with the insurance covering Rs. 50 thousand (IDV of the vehicle). The question was whether it worth spending Rs 1.25 lakhs on a 12 year old car whose resale value is around 80k max. So, it was given for a write off.

The service centers did not even inspect the car before giving the quote. The SOP was that depending on the level of water (running board level, bonnet level, roof level etc.), a standard quote for repair was given assuming the potential parts that would have failed. The logic given by the Service manager is that the service center was so overwhelmed with vehicles, they don't have the bandwidth to do an assessment on every car to come up with an exact quote unless you pay for a special assessment.

Some of the service centers offered new cars with discount after taking the insurance claim from write off which some of my friends have taken

A lot of service centers are refusing to accept non flood vehicles and spare parts availability in the outside market has also been hit. I have been trying to replace fog lamps and mud flaps of my Swift without any luck as it is not available with most Maruti service centers and MGP dealers. I had to get my regular service done outside as well.

If this was the case with Maruti, imagine the situation of Skoda/VW in Chennai during the floods. There were so many write offs.

[cunnuvila]

A good instinct you got there! Saved you a lot of money! Off Topic: Your Santro looks well maintained, interior wise

[captain.torque]

Great Work! Tamarind, I tip my proverbial hat to your presence of mind and honesty. Few people know the value of hard earned money and but you, Sir have not only saved yourself a major chunk of cash but have also taught a valuable lesson to fellow car owners here. Indeed, God helps those who help themselves.

[sudeepg]

Awesome work there, Tamarind..! Salute you there.

What you have experienced is true with Hyundai Service mostly. They charge you for unnecessary work. Hyundai service costs are more although the general perception is that they give good after sales service. But it comes at a high price for an un-informed customer. This is one of the things I was trying to say during the Creta launch. Hyundai cars are very good, but their maintenance costs are very high and one has to be very careful about what "extra", unwanted work they load onto the job card.

This is also one of the very reasons why Hyundai insists on getting insurance through them for a new car. Take a look at Creta threads and see how many had to go through this ordeal. It's a hand in glove game by Hyundai and its service centers.

End of the day, your alertness and patience has paid off well. Good job!

[manu220194]

This reminds of the time when I took my almost 7 yr old i20 for service to a H.A.S.S. The bloke told me that the estimate was 10k (for a 7 yr old petrol hyundai)

On making him explain in detail each and every expense in the breakup, and seeing the non-satisfactory vague covered-up responses, got the car serviced from the same station for 4.5k

[Ameya_G]

Its because of greedy people like these, most people have lost trust in authorized service centers.

A simple example - there was some noise coming from the rear left shock absorber zone for my SX4 VDI. mind you the rear pair of shocks was replaced just a year back. The authorized service center in thane east took it for a test drive and told me to replace the rear shocks. I thought of taking my trusted mechanic's opinion. He took a drive, went under the car, came back up and we took a drive again.. VOILA!! the sound had vanished. All he did was tightened a nut and charged me some 50 INR for it. This is like suggesting open heart surgery for a chipped nail.

[Tamarind]

Thanks to all,

Wanted to share my experience with all here so that the learning can be spread

Originally Posted by gopikb

I am sure both are culprits in cahoot with each other

I personally feel that the insurance agent was trying to help me. After repairing the car with an private mechanic i called him and thanked him

Originally Posted by lapis_lazuli

Or may be it was pure luck on your side. Did you take any special care of the electricals? Harnesses, switches etc? Would love to hear and learn! If not, are you planning to? There could be moisture damage here and there...could creep up later.

Apart from the explained basic precautions before switching on the engine, i did not take any other special measures. But forgot to mention that, once the car was brought home after the floods, i did a hot air blow with my vacuum cleaner on almost all interiors including the water outlet holes on the doors and frames (until a point where i saw no more water dripping when the forced air came out on the other side of the water outlet hole)

Originally Posted by Shubhendra

Please change engine and GB oil, open front axle dust boot check if water has entered there, clean, lube and refit dust boot.

Thanks for the suggestions mate, have noted it down - will ask my technician to check the same

Originally Posted by navin_v8

I will bookmark this thread and share it with my near and dear ones for them to know how NOT TO GET FLEECED by service centres.

I hope your Santro keeps running trouble free. Also if I were you I would escalate this to Hyundai Motor India to save others.

Originally Posted by ajitkommini

I second navin_v8s comment regarding taking the matter up with Hyundai Motor. You cannot allow these cheats to get away scot free - who knows how many other customers they have fleeced like this!

Originally Posted by Asish_VK

OMG

I think if you have substantial evidences, you should go legally against the fraud actions or at least escalate it to Hyundai

I waited all these days without posting this so as to check the performance of the car completely for certain period/Km's. Now that it had run more than 1200 Km's (Out of which 700+ is on highways) i wanted to put this thread on-board

To launch a complaint i should have allowed my vehicle to park on their premises and rust for 1 or more months (till they decide to touch my vehicle) And then pay the parking fees for those many days along with the analysis fees. Only by doing this i would have got a written estimate from them

I took pictures and spent the time to write this post to share the experience, learning consequentially to spread the awareness of Cavet Emptor. So i think if the message/awareness reaches all then automatically....

Originally Posted by RocketRaccoon

I stopped trusting Hyundai after I was slapped with a 15K service bill with 8K labor for a regular service.

Was this a general service performed for 70k Km's ?

[RocketRaccoon]

Originally Posted by Tamarind

Was this a general service performed for 70k Km's ?

Actually this was the service at 40k kms. After this service I get my car serviced only from an FNG. A recent electronic problem has cropped up so maybe I would go to the ASC for that.

[Tamarind]

Originally Posted by nijelj

Q3. You said that you were looking at the coolant gauge and it had shot up. Why DID it shoot up? Do you have an answer now?

My bad. Thanks for pointing it out. It was a typo on the key portion of this issue and i meant to write that "it never shot up"

[Tamarind]

Originally Posted by RocketRaccoon

Actually this was the service at 40k kms. After this service I get my car serviced only from an FNG.

FNG ?
Is that the name of your mechanic shop nearby ?

If you want to change a spare do you get Hyundai genuine or other spares from local market ?
I heard about a court ruling that service centers should sell genuine spares off the shelves, but how is it in practice ?

[Philistine]

Great presence of mind! All I can say is that my experience with Hyundai has been mostly similar. Had a Verna Crdi whose Turbo started showing problems after 4 years of use. I approached two different Hyundai branded service centres in Bangalore for a diagnosis of the problem (low pick-up) before I figured it was the turbo. Both the service centres had different diagnosis - one said it was electrical, the other said it was to do with some filter etc. and this was after multiple trips. After reading up a lot of Team-bhp I figured the actual problem to be with the turbo, as it was opening up only after 2400 rpm. Anway long story short, I never got a was satisfied with the quality of service @ Hyundai and eventually ended up selling the car after using it for a couple of years with the turbo problem (the new owner of the car was made aware of the problem before I sold it to him BTW).

This is just my view: Ever since that experience I vowed never buy a Hyundai again and replaced the Verna with a Punto and have been happy with the $$$ experience so far (even though the FIAT $$$ is not that highly rated).