[altius]

I would expect VW to launch Vento with 1.2 TSI with DSG on the near future. So hopefully you will get good discounts on current Vento 1.6 AT.

Originally Posted by click

Hi Hayek,

Am promised the car around 20th. the dealer should get his hands on her by 15th. Am busy going through various detailing threads, as maintaining the colour will be a challenge. Anyways new offers are due tomorrow from vw for this month, hopefully i can get some more benefits before the delivery.

[click]

Update: finally got the delivery yesterday. It's a lovely car. Shall start a ownership thread after some time once I have got enough Kms under the belt to know the vehicle a little

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by click

Update: finally got the delivery yesterday. It's a lovely car. Shall start a ownership thread after some time once I have got enough Kms under the belt to know the vehicle a little

Congrats. I am sure you will really enjoy this car. We are approaching 5000 km on our car, with mileage around 8 kmpl. Unfortunately, we had a minor fender bender and have a small but nasty gash near the left rear door. But the car continues to run beautifully apart from that. (Touch wood)

[Hayek]

Had the opportunity to drive the Vento a bit more than normal since my Superb was not available for a few days. Taking the car on my normal office route as well as a Nariman Point to BKC run via the Sealink gave me the opportunity to do a real world comparison between the Vento and the Superb.

The Vento's AC works quite well - and is arguably better than that of the Superb for rear seat occupants. The engine is more noisy than that of the Superb, especially if you try to push the car. On the JJ flyover and the Sea Link, the power difference between the Vento and the Superb became obvious. Acceleration is a lot slower and the push that you get when the turbo charger kicks in was missing. However, once it gets to speed, the Vento is as stable as the Superb - I felt fully comfortable with the Vento at my usual Sea Link speeds (slightly above the limit imposed by our colonial masters:-)).

The other thing I observed is how light the steering of the Vento feels. The Superb's steering is much better weighted, while the Vento's wheel has a play station like feel.

[noopster]

Originally Posted by Hayek

The Vento's AC works quite well - and is arguably better than that of the Superb for rear seat occupants. The engine is more noisy than that of the Superb, especially if you try to push the car. On the JJ flyover and the Sea Link, the power difference between the Vento and the Superb became obvious. Acceleration is a lot slower and the push that you get when the turbo charger kicks in was missing.

Your Superb is the 1.8TSI right? Well then hardly a surprise that the engine feels so much more powerful and quieter
The AC in the Vento feels more powerful than the Superb probably because of the smaller cabin size. The Superb is cavernous inside and deserves a better AC than stock VW/Skoda!

However, once it gets to speed, the Vento is as stable as the Superb - I felt fully comfortable with the Vento at my usual Sea Link speeds (slightly above the limit imposed by our colonial masters:-)).

True. The Vento feels so *grounded* at high speeds. So much so that I felt the much-vaunted handling capability of the Linea T-Jet not that much different from my Vento when I drove it (of course the engine is in another league!)

My own Vento AT has crossed 41,000 km now- approaching third service.

[Hayek]

Time really flies. Its seems just a short while ago that we got delivery of our brand new Vento after the long saga detailed in this thread, and the car is already approaching its first birthday. Thanks to our driver quitting, the car has completed only 6300 kms in this time. Am certainly glad we went for the petrol AT and did not put up with the heavy clutch of the diesel. We gave the car in for its first service about 20 days early, since we are going out of town for a Christmas vacation later this month. The first reminder that a service was due came from VW Downtown, whose representative called up with a reminder call. We booked an appointment at their Lalbaug service centre with a pick up and drop option. The service was duly completed in a day, and was uneventful to say the least. We asked the service centre to turn off the horn alert while locking and unlocking the car. They proposed conducting a wheel alignment and balancing, but we asked them to hold off on that as it is much cheaper outside. Damages came to about Rs. 8,550. The interesting thing was that VW Downtown has an online bill payment facility on their web-site, and so one was actually able to avail of the pick up and drop service despite their refusal to accept cheque payments. Certainly something for other dealers to think about. So what has our experience been over this year? Fairly good, so far. There have been no issues with the car except when an idiot hit it while parked causing damages to the bumper and door which were repaired under insurance. Of course, we have not been able to take the car for a long drive - the best it has done is city to suburbs runs. That is something I hope to correct in the near future. The bill is attached for reference.

[Hayek]

Quick update. Took the car on its first really long drive, all the way to Mahabaleshwar and back via the Expressway - Wai - Panchgani route. The car was a pleasure to drive throughout, even if not capable of providing the same acceleration as the Superb. Handling was good as well - there were probably only one or two occasions when I felt nervous while cornering at high speeds. The car was great to drive on the ghats as well. I topped out at about 90 (units can be guessed). Fuel economy was mediocre - fill to fill between just after Pune (there is a McDonalds there) to Mahabaleshwar, local running to Tapola, Panchgani et al and back to just before Lonavala (the expressway rest stop) was just 10.5 kmpl, and overall mileage probably 12.5 kmpl.

The car also crossed 10,000 km in the process.

[Hayek]

Updating this thread after a really long time. And must say, I am not doing this in a happy mood. In fact I am ending the year on an incredibly sour note.

What happened? Most of the year passed relatively uneventfully. The car had a run in with a BEST bus back in August, but insurance covered the damages. My wife got a new driver, and hence the car started running a lot more than earlier. All was well until last week, with the car having reached ~ 15,900 km. I had bought the car in December 2012, and time was ripe for the second service. I called VW Downtown, but they didn't have appointments immediately available, and hence I had to wait for 10 days for getting the car serviced. In the interim, the car passed its second birthday. 2 days later (while I was out of town), my driver called me. The car was refusing to start. The battery was dead. That was odd, as the car is heavily used and there was no reason for the battery to die. I thanked God for having taken an extended warranty, and called the VW helpline.

The first funny aspect was that they wanted the VIN before accepting a complaint. Why, I couldn't fathom. But talking to them was like butting your head on a brick wall, and I looked through my emails to find the soft copy of my RC Card, and called back with the VIN. The person who answered this time seemed more helpful, and promised to have someone call my driver to get the car restarted. Two hours later, my driver called saying no one had reached out to him. On calling the helpline again, I was told that since the car was 2 years and 2 days old, the free road side assistance was not available. But they had obviously not thought it appropriate to call me and let me know that was the case. We agreed to their paid roadside assistance, and got the car restarted for Rs. 400.

On the appointed day, we sent the car for its scheduled service, and also asked for the battery to be checked. The service itself was uneventful - damages were Rs. 12,500 including a 3M interior cleaning. But they called back saying the battery has to be replaced, and I would need to shell out Rs. 7800 for that. I flipped, and explained that the battery had conked out at 2 years and 2 days - and I had a 2+2 year warranty for the car. But they were unmoved. I escalated to both the service supervisor and VW. The funny thing is that VW customer care claimed the battery comes with just a 1 year warranty (even though no such thing is mentioned in my warranty booklet). The dealer claimed it had a 2 year warranty but that the extended warranty did not cover it, and that VW insisted on strictly adhering to the 2 year term. After 2 days of fruitless calls to the VW helpline and the dealer, I had no choice but to accept the car back without the battery being changed.

What amazes me is the following:

1. A battery conks out in 2 years, when the standard products on the Exide website have either a 4 or 5 year warranty
2. VW Helpline claims that the battery has only a 1 year warranty (even though that is not mentioned anywhere in the warranty booklet). And why would they buy batteries with a one year warranty? Are they buying reconditioned crap?
3. The dealer claims there was a 2 year warranty but the extended warranty does not cover this. This is despite VW having given me an FAQ (below) which talks of the extended warranty as a pure extension of the original 2 year warranty. I could not check the extended warranty booklet as its in my office but I received that booklet months after getting the car - and was clearly misled at purchase
4. VW does not bother to even send me an email acknowledging my complaint or to for,ally respond to me. Even Skoda does that.
5. VW does not seem to mind pissing off a corporate customer completely over a Rs. 7000 battery.

Frankly, to my mind, this is a case of clear cut fraud by VW. They sell an extended warranty as if it is an extension of the original warranty and then invent all kinds of exclusions. I would have sued, but the amount concerned is too small - so have just followed up with a post on their FB page (which does not appear to the public) and an email to their Customer Care and MD. I wish we had the concept of punitive damages in India - they clearly need to be awarded in such instances to deter such fraudulent activities. In fact, I am so pissed that I may sue nevertheless - even if it amounts to cutting my nose to spite my face.

Anyway, let's see what happens. Perhaps I am to be blamed - for buying a VW product after all the issues I had with Skoda. But I must say that the responsiveness from Skoda whenever I had a problem was far superior to the crap treatment that VW have dished out.

Caveat Emptor.

And yes, Happy New Year.

[coolboy007]

Happy new year Hayek, sad to read your update but this is how VAG is behaving in India. I was fuming when i read that they did not even bother to call and inform you that free road side assistance is not available and it will cost 400, heck, a guy paying 11 lakhs for a vento wont mind paying 400 bucks to get his car started, not calling a customer and letting him wait for hours is downright poor service.

VW's warranty policy is extremely poor, i had issues with my Vento's suspension at 34k kms and have extended warranty, infact car was under standard 2 year warranty but they told warranty on suspension is just 10k kms, rejected the claim. All brands give atleast a 30-40k kms warranty on suspension parts.

Had brake shuddering issues due to warped rotors at 12k kms and same crap of warranty on brakes till 10k kms was dished out to me, got the work done at a garage outside from my pocket.

Wonder why VW runs away from warranty claims, they are too stingy when it comes to parts replaced under warranty, photos, videos, the process is damn too long. Maybe Skoda treats you better because you own a Superb, not their entry level Rapid. The cars are so good to drive but the service experience and company support is downright pathetic, even Fiat offers better service for our Linea, they changed a part under goodwill warranty after expiry of extended warranty.

[pixantz]

Wait a minute. Are we missing a detail here? Because as far as we all may know, all automobile batteries purchased in India with the car or separately have a separate warranty card which comes with the battery, stamped with the vendor stamp complete with date of sale. So is it different in your case Hayek?

[Hayek]

I don't have any such separate warranty card. And the main car warranty does not exclude the battery, even though it excludes all kinds of other things. Don't recall receiving such a card with any of my other cars either. My Skoda had a battery failure too, about 1.5 years after I bought it, and the replacement was done by the dealer, without ever asking for the battery's warranty card. I went through the checklist of things delivered to me by VW, and there is no mention of such a separate warranty card. I don't know what manufacturers you have dealt with, but VW did not explain this to me.

[noopster]

Sad to hear this Hayek. My Vento AT battery conked off in its third year as well which shocked me since am used to them lasting 4 or even 5 years. VW gave a very casual explanation that this is the normal lifespan of a battery. I got it replaced by an Exide dealer rather than at the service centre. Anyway it was out of warranty since I hadn't opted for extended warranty.

Incidentally both Hyundai and Ford replace battery with no questions asked under warranty. Got this first hand from brothers Manson and Vid6639.

[hillsnrains]

Even for my rapid TDI, I have to pay from my pocket. Skoda straight away rejected to replace battery under EW. It seems I am the first one to replace Rapid's battery. I am not sure about other Skoda vehicles like Laura, Superb etc.

[achopraa]

Originally Posted by Hayek

I don't have any such separate warranty card. And the main car warranty does not exclude the battery, even though it excludes all kinds of other things. Don't recall receiving such a card with any of my other cars either. My Skoda had a battery failure too, about 1.5 years after I bought it, and the replacement was done by the dealer, without ever asking for the battery's warranty card. I went through the checklist of things delivered to me by VW, and there is no mention of such a separate warranty card. I don't know what manufacturers you have dealt with, but VW did not explain this to me.

Originally Posted by hillsnrains

Even for my rapid TDI, I have to pay from my pocket. Skoda straight away rejected to replace battery under EW. It seems I am the first one to replace Rapid's battery. I am not sure about other Skoda vehicles like Laura, Superb etc.

This is what the following link states in case of Skoda vehichles

Skoda New Vehichle Warranty

Tyres & Batteries

Few components originally equipped on SKODA vehicles like Tyres, Batteries etc. are not manufactured by us but supplied by other vendors.

SKODA warranty shall not apply for such parts & purchaser of the car shall entitle as per the warranty provided by the respective manufacturer / vendor.

Should you experience difficulty in obtaining warranty service from these manufacturers, your authorized SKODA dealer will assist you in resolving the concerns.

[pixantz]

Thanks for putting things into clearer perspective achopraa. I was trying to say the same thing some posts ago. The warranty statement you have shared consists of points that are more or less almost the same as in all warranties of vehicles whether two or four wheeler sold in our country. Especially the battery and tyre warranty setup. I think that some manufacturer's dealers pull up the details of sale of a car and do the needful themselves on other vendor warranty issues, while some don't take the trouble.

Most buyers are oblivious of this small fact/detail and tend to have issues later. I also heard that some sellers don't bother to handover the battery warranty card to the customer either deliberately or because they do the needful themselves or some other reason best known to them. Warranty proof for tyres are mostly the bill, I guess, but batteries always have a proper, and I mean proper warranty card. A physical warranty card. And the buyer has to take care to see that the battery dealers stamp and date of sale are mentioned on the card for validity.