[arjab]

Originally Posted by thesilentone

When my Swift came back after service, the service engineer requested me to give a good score.
.......he was literally pleading with me to fill up the form with a positive feedback. Any bad score seems to have a serious impact on the dealer from Maruti.

These are all a part of J.D. Power Customer Satisfaction Index norms. Maruti takes JDP CSI Scores v.v. seriously and has a dedicated team at National level and at all regional & zonal offices to implement and continuously monitor JDP CSI scores. Plus Maruti officers are empowered to penalise hefty amounts against their dealerships. Any score less than 800, the dealership is staring at huge penalties.
It helps when the OEM in question generates high volumes as any penalty will adversely affect the dealership operations and the OEM is in a commanding market position.

The problem lies when OEM / model volumes are low - if you penalise the dealers too often, the dealer proprietors will turn back and ask you: " Kya S'aab - gaari to waisay nahin beekta, phir iskay upar aap, (OEM that is), penalty laaga rahein hain - aagley mahiney hum 20-gaari kum wholesale karenge" - and its back to square one! At the end of the day, OEM zonal and regional managers are answerable to their big bosses at Headquarters for their committed numbers and everyone gets cold feet if numbers do not stack up.

[desdemona]

Any score less than 800, the dealership is staring at huge penalties.
It helps when the OEM in question generates high volumes as any penalty will adversely affect the dealership operations and the OEM is in a commanding market position.

The problem lies when OEM / model volumes are low - if you penalise the dealers too often, the dealer proprietors will turn back and ask you:

Exactly right, which is why any further improvements in the Fiat dealer sales and ASS will happen only once or at best alongwith further increases in sales volumes. Volumes have picked up smartly over the last 4-5 months and demand for the new linea is not bad, there is a new punto coming which will do well, followed by the Avventura later in the year. Whether the break from Tata sales and ASS has been a FULL success will only become obvious after these launches i.e., next year.

Fiat India's sales and service network managers have their work cut out this very vital year. Mangesh &co are responsive and active already. More of the same is required to fully tune-up the dealers' operations and processes, as sales volumes increase.

[jaswant]

Originally Posted by arjab

These are all a part of J.D. Power Customer Satisfaction Index norms. Maruti takes JDP CSI Scores v.v. seriously and has a dedicated team at National level and at all regional & zonal offices to implement and continuously monitor JDP CSI scores. Plus Maruti officers are empowered to penalise hefty amounts against their dealerships. Any score less than 800, the dealership is staring at huge penalties.
It helps when the OEM in question generates high volumes as any penalty will adversely affect the dealership operations and the OEM is in a commanding market position.

The problem lies when OEM / model volumes are low - if you penalise the dealers too often, the dealer proprietors will turn back and ask you: " Kya S'aab - gaari to waisay nahin beekta, phir iskay upar aap, (OEM that is), penalty laaga rahein hain - aagley mahiney hum 20-gaari kum wholesale karenge" - and its back to square one! At the end of the day, OEM zonal and regional managers are answerable to their big bosses at Headquarters for their committed numbers and everyone gets cold feet if numbers do not stack up.

Many thanks for the sharp fact based analysis. This tells everything about maruti's success. I have finally decided to cancel the Tjet booking as today the
dealer sort of gave few more weeks to wait. This car i liked so much so that at the time of booking kept wondering why people spend almost 10% extra on likes of Honda City, which clearly is no match in several crucial parameters and even list of features.

One model of honda city (i dont remember which one) didn't have alloys(15'')
no leather interior and still was costing 35k more than the Tjet emotion.

But the whole experience has made me realised why Fiat is nowhere in the competition. I sincerely wish they get their Acts together because line Tjet Emotion variant is so much more car than its price.

Now i guess i will have to go for skoda Octavia 1.4, there is a car available with dealer right away. But it definitely is too pricy if we directly compare with Tjet.
Will also take a look at new fluence, any more suggestions for a quick look, guys?

Car will be used by family with very low running, features, build & comfort top priorities.

[_raVan_]

Originally Posted by jaswant

One model of honda city (i dont remember which one) didn't have alloys(15'')
no leather interior and still was costing 35k more than the Tjet emotion.

Now i guess i will have to go for skoda Octavia 1.4, there is a car available with dealer right away. But it definitely is too pricy if we directly compare with Tjet.
Will also take a look at new fluence, any more suggestions for a quick look, guys?

Car will be used by family with very low running, features, build & comfort top priorities.

Sad to hear about your bad experience with Fiat. Why not try some other dealer?

Also, about the City, the City V is priced at par with Tjet Emotion and feature wise, both are almost equally matched. If you are moving away from the Tjet, why not give the new City iVtec a try? The Vx costs a bit extra but is fully loaded.

The Octavia (base variant) will cost you almost 5 to 6L more than the Tjet.

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by jaswant

Car will be used by family with very low running, features, build & comfort top priorities.

Take a look at the VW Vento TSI.

Another car that gets completely ignored is the Suzuki SX4. This is a very good car. Don't bother with the diesel though.

[khoj]

Good that you decided to cut the chord. Be done and move on but to what ? You are now considering vehicles that are in completely different class both segment and price wise.

From the segment above for family use etc etc why not get the Altis with the automatic gear box in case you guys are going to self drive. Since usage is going to be low the minuscule drop in milage on account of the auto box would not matter. There is still nothing in the market to beat the rear seat comfort of the Corolla. Do discount the diesel though, it is best left for the taxi wallas.

From the same segment one could look at the Honda City AT.

Coming back to the TJet, in case you are still keen, why not buy from another dealer. Infact fellow Tbpian

Parimal

should be abler to help you out in this regard. He is a VVIP customer at Balaji Motors in Thane and has helped many a folks (myself & a few other Tbhpians included) buy Fiats from them. Have tagged him & if required you may take up the matter with him directly

Regarding comfort, I must warn you that the rear seat of the original Jet is a tad hard compared to the likes of City etc. Now, while this is very good for long distance journeys it may be a bother for short commutes in the initial days before one becomes used to the seat. Do check the same on the new one, per inputs they have made it softer but better to confirm.

Originally Posted by jaswant

Many thanks for the sharp fact based analysis. This tells everything about maruti's success. I have finally decided to cancel the Tjet booking as today the
dealer sort of gave few more weeks to wait. This car i liked so much so that at the time of booking kept wondering why people spend almost 10% extra on likes of Honda City, which clearly is no match in several crucial parameters and even list of features.

Now i guess i will have to go for skoda Octavia 1.4, there is a car available with dealer right away. But it definitely is too pricy if we directly compare with Tjet.
Will also take a look at new fluence, any more suggestions for a quick look, guys?

Car will be used by family with very low running, features, build & comfort top priorities.

[desdemona]

Hi Jaswant. Sharp dealer practices in the context of long-ish waiting for the t-jet are unforgivable. But at the expense of not going in for what is the best (VFM) car this side of 15/lakhs?!

How about trying another dealer: you are in Mumbai after all? I have a very good impression of and have heard praise for esskay in prabhadevi (Gokhale road), for example. I know about "once bitten...." but still! The dealer we are getting our t-jet from here seems ok so far.

[jaswant]

Originally Posted by khoj

Good that you decided to cut the chord. Be done and move on but to what ? You are now considering vehicles that are in completely different class both segment and price wise.

Thanks a lot to all you guys for all these inputs. Seeing your responses i thought i will share the whole story so far. Actually this car is being bought as our second car to be used by my wife only.

Although it will be mostly chauffeur driven but she herself is pretty enthusiastic driver so i knew performance is also one of the factors.

When i asked her about comfort parameters she was not too concerned about the suspension but Leather Seat is a must and comfortable Angles for Seats.
So Mainly it was about Exterior Looks, Interior Beauty, Comfortable Seats and list of features & 1 surprise factor which u will find below.



The budget was decided from 10 to 15 lakh on road.
And deep inside i was pretty much confident that i will go for hondas/toyotas thinking about their reliabilities. For the sake of making her feel she is the owner of the car i casually told her to short list some options.



In a few days she comes up with only two names written on a piece of paper and casually slipped it to me. It read Skoda Octavia & Fiat Linea Tjet.


Now i am obviously surprised asking her whats this?
Baaki caron ko kya hua?


She replied "I want a car which is not seen everywhere on the roads, so no Honda/hyundai/Maruti/Verna-sharna" Her exact words are these.


I say "Ok what about VW Vento?"
Her Reply "That was on the list but it is also too common on roads."


By this time you can understand how helpless i could have been in choosing the car, As a big Criteria here turned out to be less seeable car.
Still i went ahead and asked her why only these two?


So she says they look beautiful, are very less common and the Engine spec data. Rest we will decide by actually checking out the cars in flesh.


I didn't just believe the third part, did you say "Engine spec data? What do you mean?"

She replies back "see these two cars have the best N.M upon CC ratio and thats a sign of good engineering"


For a moment guys i felt like its not my wife in front of me
but my B.Tech Project's Guide Professor in my 8th Sem back in college &
he giving me some Gyan how not screw up in the presentation.


I just realised she did her engineering better than what i Did,
only if that NM-CC thing made any sense. Any of you who know better
can throw some light on that.


Anyways she checked out both cars and i think she also sensibly picked Fiat as the price difference is Huge. She really liked the interior of the car, the way the door sounded (yeah she is very particular of this door sound check test which she uses to see if the car is strongly built or not). I also feel Linea's Built is stronger than City or verna. Probably equivalent to VW cars.

Finally we booked Tjet Emotion and then as you guys can see through my posts what happens next. That explains Khoj why i mentioned Octavia as the next option as it was actually the only option earlier.

And as a final twist today when i went to pick up the refund cheque, Dealer requested to wait till tomorrow morning as he said he can get the car Billed some how. I also got a call from Mr. Pramod Dhane assuring something will be done by tomorrow morning. I would be the happiest guy if Linea comes as i know she will not settle for City/vento and will have to buy damn expensive Octavia

Actually the whole experience talking to Mr. Mangesh & Dhane was very good as i can say they seemed trying their best all the time. Always took my phone calls and called back promptly when they couldn't. Just the dealer Experience was very rough till now. Thanks again for all your Inputs. Will post if Tjet is coming.

[jaswant]

Originally Posted by desdemona

Hi Jaswant. Sharp dealer practices in the context of long-ish waiting for the t-jet are unforgivable. But at the expense of not going in for what is the best (VFM) car this side of 15/lakhs?!

How about trying another dealer: you are in Mumbai after all? I have a very good impression of and have heard praise for esskay in prabhadevi (Gokhale road), for example. I know about "once bitten...." but still! The dealer we are getting our t-jet from here seems ok so far.

Yes buddy part of me never really wanted any other car than this after all the rules of the game already set by the actual person for whom car is gonna be.
as you can read in my previous post fiat Tjet is definitely the best VFM car
No doubt about that.

I am from mumbai but this car i wanted to be here in pune as recently i shifted part of my business here and will live here partly. If tomorrow this dealer give me the car i will take it happily and will try some other dealer also if they can get the same colour car soon. Thanks

[khoj]

Lol, the lady knows what she wants.

Originally Posted by jaswant

She replied "I want a car which is not seen everywhere on the roads, so no Honda/hyundai/Maruti/Verna-sharna" Her exact words are these.

I say "Ok what about VW Vento?"
Her Reply "That was on the list but it is also too common on roads."

The rest was seeming to be a bit too good to be true, until I read this.

I just realised she did her engineering better than what i Did

At the risk of being bombarded by the VW fan club, I must say that the Fiat has a far superior chassis and body structure than it's peer. Proof is within the pages of this forum in the accidents and ownership threads alike.

Anyways she checked out both cars and i think she also sensibly picked Fiat as the price difference is Huge. She really liked the interior of the car, the way the door sounded (yeah she is very particular of this door sound check test which she uses to see if the car is strongly built or not). I also feel Linea's Built is stronger than City or verna. Probably equivalent to VW cars.

Well, I hope it works out for you. Irrespective of that do note that buying a car from anywhere in India and registering it in your local/desired RTO is fairly simple and doable. I flew down from Dilli, bought the Jet+ & registered it temporarily@Thane, drove it back North and registered it here. So buying in Bombay and registering in Poona will be equally simple.

Originally Posted by jaswant

I am from mumbai but this car i wanted to be here in pune as recently i shifted part of my business here and will live here partly. If tomorrow this dealer give me the car i will take it happily and will try some other dealer also if they can get the same colour car soon. Thanks

[Guite]

Originally Posted by jaswant

She replied "I want a car which is not seen everywhere on the roads, so no Honda/hyundai/Maruti/Verna-sharna" Her exact words are these.

I say "Ok what about VW Vento?"
Her Reply "That was on the list but it is also too common on roads."

Exactly my wife's opinion. She want a car which is not too common on the road, and likes the appearance of the Linea. To me one problem with the Vento is that it does not have a unique identity. As seen from the front unless you see the full length, you don't know it a Vento; it could be a Polo.

On a side note, with cruise control ON, when you puch the stalk to increase speed it momentarily pulls the car wherein you can feel a sudden change in speed. This scares me a bit. I would have preferred a more gradual acceleration.

[Blue Bird]

Originally Posted by jaswant

Yes buddy part of me never really wanted any other car than this after all the rules of the game already set by the actual person for whom car is gonna be.
as you can read in my previous post fiat Tjet is definitely the best VFM car
No doubt about that.

I am from mumbai but this car i wanted to be here in pune as recently i shifted part of my business here and will live here partly. If tomorrow this dealer give me the car i will take it happily and will try some other dealer also if they can get the same colour car soon. Thanks

So did you finally get the Tjet?? as I am also planning to pick this up and i have not yet interacted with any dealer but my plan is to pick it up from ahmedabad.

I guess the car is the best that you can get but the dealers
Fiat has realized this issue but the change i guess will take some time.

The Octavia is good too , amazing performance!! I havent done much research beyond the 10lac segment so even though I suggest the new Corolla Altis please reconfirm.
Regards.

[jaswant]

Even I was always sure this thing works. But last year before i joined Team Bhp i was in hunt for F30-28i, in that process i called almost all the dealerships of the BMW thinking will get the car transported to mumbai. At last Bird Auto Gurgaon came up with the only car left over and liked the deal also but They categorically denied any possibility of registering in MH. I even took the matter to BMW but nothing happened. I guess it was just BMW's hard headedness and nothing more or may be some other secret reason of the Dealer. Anyways latter i had to go for F10 from Mumbai.

Originally Posted by khoj

Irrespective of that do note that buying a car from anywhere in India and registering it in your local/desired RTO is fairly simple and doable. I flew down from Dilli, bought the Jet+ & registered it temporarily@Thane, drove it back North and registered it here. So buying in Bombay and registering in Poona will be equally simple.

The dealer has actually confirmed that he got it billed already and will be able to give the car in 2 to 3 days. Although i have heard this same thing from them last month also but only this time i got it confirmed from Fiat too. So you can say its really coming man. If they betray this time around then i would just say a goodbye to Fiat & take a plunge of 6 Lakhs and buy the Octavia.

Originally Posted by Blue Bird

So did you finally get the Tjet?? as I am also planning to pick this up and i have not yet interacted with any dealer but my plan is to pick it up from ahmedabad.
Regards.

[Raps]

Originally Posted by jaswant

The dealer has actually confirmed that he got it billed already and will be able to give the car in 2 to 3 days. Although i have heard this same thing from them last month also but only this time i got it confirmed from Fiat too.

Even I was in a spot of bother before buying FIAT Linea T-JET, There is quote from GTO "Stunning looks & "vault-like" build " which is really true. Purchased in Jan' 2014, taken her for long drive last week, covering on good roads and bad roads from BLR- Shimoga - Hubli - Dandeli - GaneshGudi - BLR. It is indeed bliss on highways. Exactly this car is not seen much on roads, yet people will definitely give a stare

If the car is dispatched from plant, try to get VIN # which is being billed in your name from the Dealer. All the very best.

Cheers,

[jaswant]

Finally friends the car is here.
Had some spare time so paid visit to the yard to have a look.
after quiet a turbulent four weeks i didn't expect its gonna happen just so quickly.
Thanks to Mr Dhane & Mangesh for pushing things aggressively in last few days.
They have also mentioned about giving some sort of compensation for the so much of delay even after paying full amount. Commendable gesture, and this also
gives an indication that the delay was not intentional.

My sincere advice to those booking cars in this segment is have a look at Linea.
It is tremendous value at current price, especially those going for Honda city.
Cost of honda city variant is exactly 49k more than Linea Tjet deal i got & that comes with fabric seats & Drum Breaks on rear wheels. Looking at the demand increasing i feel the discounts on linea might shrink in future.

But still Linea as a whole package should always and will be compared with cars of segment higher for all practical purpose.

The Sales & Customer Service is questionable but i could sense it from all my
conversations with fiat team that they have all the right intent to improve it.