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Recently my car completed 3000kms and was due for 1st free service. I had taken the car after prior appointment to concorde (ambattur, chennai) service centre on 02 june for the same. I was attended by Mr.Prabhakar who said he was the service advisor looking after the linea service. He bought in a jobslip and asked me about the complaint if i had any. I had a few niggling issues which i told him. The issues were
1. A rattling coming from rear left door
2. A small sound coming from the left front wheel.
3. Sound from the steering wheel when turned
4. Mileage tuning
I was given a copy of the jobslip and was told that i will be contacted at 4pm and will be told when i will get delivery of my linea.
I did not get a call till 4:30pm so i called the service advisor, who told me that the job is complete the car has gone for road test and washing . I can come and collect my car. I went there by 6:30pm to collect the car

To my shock the car had not been washed properly and was greasy.It had deep scratches on the boot and on the left Fender just above the left front wheel. I had given the car in the morning without any of these scratches as i maintain car well. I asked the advisor about it who rudely said these are not scratches and will go by rubbing and went off to see some other customer. He also said since i complained he would ask Mr.Purushotaman to do the rubbing to take the scratches out. But sadly even after rubbing the scratches are still very grossly visible. The advisor said after that "these are small scratches i cant do anything more about it". I was shocked by the reply and went to meet the customer service relationship manager Mr.Shiva shankar who came and inspected the car and said the same reply . After some fighting the CRM finally agreed to send some to my house (as my house is 35km from the service centre) to see if the scratches can be removed.
I was in for ever more shock when the service adviser did not even bother to tell me what repairs he has carried out after this issue. He simply gave me a bill for amount Rs.3214 which i paid and he asked me to sign in the bill. He didnt explain what was written on the bill or what parts were changed and what was adjusted to rectify the complaints i had quoted. He had not even shown me whether the underchassis and internal panel anti rust coating has been done or not, nor did he give me a warranty card for that ( 5years warranty). I found the warranty card in the glove box later when i came home. I was not given a feed back form deliberately which i asked for it and got it and i have written about the issues i faced there.
Here are a few pics

Well it seems Tata-fiat can never improve. Tata will always handle cars like a truck. So sad to see 1st servicing being done so badly:Frustrati, am so angry seeing the way they returned the car with scratches and inches of dust everywhere. They just took joyrides in that car it seems

1. Send a stern mail straightaway to Mangesh.Kodalkar@fiapl.com. Let him handle these idiots. When i sent a mail to this man the showroom owner himself called to apologise and have kept his number with me incase they treat my car badly.
List out your car details at the end of mail like regn no, date of purchase, your dealer, mileage run etc. Expect some response from him.

2. Get hold of the owner of your dealership and talk with him. What are they treating a 8 lakh car like, even a M800 is serviced better than this.

Very sad to see this incident. Fiat may make good cars but tata will kill those too with their truck'y service like they killed Palio.
Am counting my days now, 20 days left 500 kms left and my 1st service is due, dont know what will happen now.

Thats bad Geeash... These guys need a lesson to be taught. By the way, 3000+ rs for 1st service...:Shockked:.. How did it cost so much? what did they change to cost you 3000 bucks..

Regards,
Sathya

Thats the price for the Antirust by dinitrol. The scratches and stain marks are for free:Frustrati

I have gone for dinitrol and not 3M because of few reasons.
These guys have done antirust to complete underbody including wheel arches, all doors, bonnet and boot internally and also running board , boxsections, nhollow sections, joint, cavities and out of sight areas with a warranty of 5 years for the cost of Rs.3214

In 3m it seems the warranty for underchassis painting only is 5 years. For doors and other areas it is 2 years only. It also costs 3500 for underbody and 2k extra for other areas if i want it to be complete. So i thought it is more advantageous to go for dinitrol as NVH is not a issue for me

I have already sent a mail not only to mangesh but to a quite a lot of others in highprofile in fiat. The CRM has offered a apology and now someone from 3M is on the way to rectify the scratches ,though i have taken the pains to clean the interior all by myself. Waiting To free my hands to choke them........

Aswin,
what is the status now?Whether they fixed it?
Have you spoken with Siddha CSM.
I am going to VST Motors on Saturday (6 jun 2009) around 10 AM.
If you are free,Please join with me.
Siddha also come there.we will speak with him directly and possible,Solve your issues in VST itself.Definitely he will do the essential things.
I know VST Service GM,Works Manager,Service Engineers.they are very close to me.I had a lot of friendly talk with them.
They also help to resolve your issues.

The 3M guy is on the way now. They say he can remove the scratches for sure. Waiting for him. Will keep you posted.

No problem i can come with you.

Karthik,
I have read your thread and VST service centre was the most polite and rectified all issue including those anti roll bars and vibrations stuff in your car.
Some other member also mentioned that whenever he went to the service centre they cleaned his car? "unknown member to me", please identify yourself.

BTW, no Linea owner from Delhi here? Strange, everyone in Chennai is buying the car and not in delhi lol:

geeash
3M guys will remove the scratches for sure. I think in vahanpujari's case also 3M guys removed some water drop marks. Do PM me some other contacts in FIAT, who knows when i may have to use them. Think a call has gone to your CRM thats why he is offering an apology now.

Its me, I've experienced it

Hmm geeash waiting to see the response from fiat. Maybe you should threaten them with going public on team bhp about their shoddy service :) . On a serious note this kind of servicing is unacceptable.

How I wish I could set up fiat a.s.s and care for these beauties the way they deserve. Hope its just an one off thing.

Sorry to hear about your bad experiences :(. Mine has pretty much been the same. In the first 2 months of ownership my car has been to the workshop 5 times. A majority of those times it hasn't been washed properly. They have scratched it at multiple places also. The worst part is that the rattling, squeaking and various sounds still continue. The last time it came back from the service centre a majority of the sounds were fixed but within 2 - 3 days they all were back!

I met Mr. Kodalkar at a Fiat meet organized at the dealership by the Palio Yahoo Group. He has promised to get the issues fixed. The dealership has been much more responsive after that but it seems like they just don't know how to fix my car. They to have promised to have all the scratches and sounds fixed ASAP.

Hopefully things change for the better soon. Good luck with the 3M stuff. Do keep us posted.

The 3M buffing and waxpolishing is done. The clearcoat scratch on the fender and the boot is now gone for good. But still there is a very small deep scratch present on the boot which cannot be removed according to the 3M guy. But since it is very small and not very visible unless it is looked for i decided to leave it. As for the car interior i have cleaned it myself with vaccum cleaner have applied formula1 multipurpose cleaner polish toi it and car looks as good as new.

I have sent a email to top notches in fiat explaining them my mind and my inbox has been flooded with apologies from Mr.Vickram and Csm from concorde and others. They called to ensure i was satisfied. I have explained to them all things are not rosy.

here are the mails i have sent

This one is after the buffing is done

Yes,The Service Engineers are not well experienced.
They even didn't know how to remove wiper blades from the bonnet.
There is so many clips and screws in Linea.
Even to reach front bumper setup to increase or decrease torque,they need to remove Wipers and the plastic covers.
For plastic covers have alot of clips here and there.
without proper knowledge and clips whereabouts,no one can open it up without cracking the clips.happened in my car too :(
same again in the Door pads.


In every Service Centre you can see this following points.

Reckless driving inside Service Station.
careless handling of vehicle.
use improper tools to open up.
While washing,they used to move here and there with water tube scraching the car body.
For them, this is somebody's car who spend his hard earned money for buying this lovable car.

they have to think,if it's his own vehcile, whether they handle it in such bad way.

People who handles car in service station have to rethink and treats atmost thrifty.

Management of the car dealer must train up their service guy in these aspects.

Given a proper training to the Service Engineer will resolve problems.

we, the FIAT/Linea Owners are expecting this from FIL.

Get a transfer to chennai.we are all enjoying our car and monthly LINEA OWNERS meet and have a fun.what you tell ?

Well said Karthik, But unfortunately on the ground the situation is different.

providing service to a entry segment car and servicing high end cars are two different ball games e.g. a waiter in a small resturant can not become a waiter in 3 star or 5 star hotels. the fineness and skills needed are different.

ofocurse skills can be imparted by training etc, but basically the mindset has to change from all, car comapny, dealerships as well as service personannels. if sales people can be chosen and trained, service people also be chosen and trained.