[ntrack]

These things do happen in some new cars during monsoon, Though its not as alarming, but one needs to object to it strongly. Its good that another car is being arranged (which is tough to expect from Indian companies).

A separate incidence - in my cousin's New Honda City, it was noticed that after barely 6 months, both front doors had completely rusted from inside.
Although a lot of complaints & confrontations were made, the dealer simply refused to replace them under warranty. Then, finally when Honda officials were threatened with legal action did they replace the doors.

I always see people bashing Fiat for their service quality, however, my experience with Honda (apart from this experience) has been worse. Plus their charges for every repair/parts are mind-boggling!!

[VahanPujari]

Its a bit surprising. Because Linea underbody is coated almost all over, seems with rubber coating as well & does not require any further coating.

Amogh - when you checked Punto underbody, did it seem that underbody is coated with grayish rubber coating on some parts & silver coating in other parts? or was there no coating at all?

[amoghchaphalkar]

Guys,

I request you to look at the larger issue I am trying to highlight here and not pin-point particular points.

The larger picture I am trying to make here is about Quality Assurance. Can anybody assure me that those parts were NOT RUSTED at the point of assembly ? Did you see the level of rusting on the parts ? Do you think this level of rusting takes place in one month ? And mind you, it HAS NOT been raining heavily in Pune. How do I know those parts were not lying in inventory for long before being fitted on my car. All mechanical engineers will agree, PRESS FITTING is never to be done on a rusted part. What if it was done on my car ?

Please don't go by the four pictures I uploaded. There were numerous nuts, bolts and other parts on the car that were COMPLETELY RUSTED. Rusting and corrosion are the origins of part failure. And failure happens only once !! Therefore, I am in no mood to just accept this as "just another incident". And I also won't tolerate the manufacturer treating this as "just another incident"

Now to give you an update of what happened today. A couple of guys from Fiat Quality Assurance were at the dealers service centre today to check my car. He accepted that PDI was not done properly. But a bigger surprise was, when me and my dad asked him about the materials of construction of the rusted parts, they had no concrete answer. I can bring out various points that we discussed today, but that is not the intention of this post. The point is manufacturers do not take these issues seriously when they should !! And maybe we have allowed them to neglect the smaller issues. But me as customer, won't allow them to get away with this.

The conclusion now is that I will be alloted a completely new car and Fiat Quality guys will make sure the PDI is done properly.

[Seeler_Rebeiro]

Amogh - It is heartening to learn that you will get a new replacement. This is good response by the dealer and FIAT (even though they may not have all answers) . When did they promise delivery ?
Relating to your other queries, it is a moot point now but rusting takes place when there is moisture in the air and not necessarily rain.
Hope you get your new car soon and peace of mind.

[neotraveller]

Thats quite a revelation. Looks like your thorough PDI has caught this. So Fiat guys accepted that its not some mild surface rust caused by weather?

I am curious to know what % of people check underbody also before delivery.

I haven't checked underbody of my car (Linea) before delivery
My logic so far was, if the car is sitting in yard for couple of months, its better to check for this rust. But for newly launched models with waiting periods (Dzire, Linea, GP, City etc), there's no need to check.
Seems like everyone has to check underbody in PDI.

Originally Posted by amoghchaphalkar

He accepted that PDI was not done properly. But a bigger surprise was, when me and my dad asked him about the materials of construction of the rusted parts, they had no concrete answer.

[neoonwheels]

Originally Posted by amoghchaphalkar

Guys,
The conclusion now is that I will be alloted a completely new car and Fiat Quality guys will make sure the PDI is done properly.

Now I can see this very car will be allotted to the unsuspected customer. God bless him.

[amoghchaphalkar]

Originally Posted by VahanPujari

Its a bit surprising. Because Linea underbody is coated almost all over, seems with rubber coating as well & does not require any further coating.

Amogh - when you checked Punto underbody, did it seem that underbody is coated with grayish rubber coating on some parts & silver coating in other parts? or was there no coating at all?

Yes there is some coating on the underbody. I won't be able to confirm if it is the same coating that is present on the underbody of Linea since I have not seen the Linea.

It is just that they left the "not so important" parts uncoated. And that's what bothered me.

[royalcruiser]

I had just the same feeling! reminds me of the brand new tata safari thread, in which part of the chassis welding had come off :(

[vijaythacker]

Originally Posted by neoonwheels

Now I can see this very car will be allotted to the unsuspected customer. God bless him.

absolutely neon, not so aware customer would be alloted this car as a call of ready availability of this colour without any waitlist days.Bless him.

[amoghchaphalkar]

Originally Posted by neoonwheels

Now I can see this very car will be allotted to the unsuspected customer. God bless him.

Originally Posted by royalcruiser

I had just the same feeling! reminds me of the brand new tata safari thread, in which part of the chassis welding had come off :(

Originally Posted by vijaythacker

absolutely neon, not so aware customer would be alloted this car as a call of ready availability of this colour without any waitlist days.Bless him.

Hopefully this should not be an issue since they were redoing the PDI and taking care of the situation.

But I will still check the car again when I go there next time. I won't let another customer face this situation.

[ajayr]

Originally Posted by amoghchaphalkar

Hopefully this should not be an issue since they were redoing the PDI and taking care of the situation.

But I will still check the car again when I go there next time. I won't let another customer face this situation.

Can you post the VIN no. of the original car allotted to you so that at least Team-BHPians can be wary?

[itsrenjith]

Hi Amol, guess some smart PDI work saved you the day. I think a majority of the buyers dont even check before driving off. It is really a bit disappointing to see the customers being handed out lemons (Almost happened with me) and authorised dealers changing original spare parts with spurious spares etc. The whole automobile purchase/maintenance process has become a bit of a pain. As a customer, one has to be always on the toes to prevent being taken unfair advantage of. I hope some better independent mechanism comes about in India which would force manufacturers and service stations to be more honest and upfront in their dealings.

He accepted that PDI was not done properly

- I have a question here. The maruti owners manual says that the dealer has to fully fill out the PDI form attached in the owners manual (with various PDI check list items as specified by maruti itself), take sign of the customer and the main service engineer also has to sign on it. In all my purchases, i have asked the dealers specifically for the filled out PDI document with the dealer sign. But never have i recieved it from the dealer. All my owner manuals were handed over to me with the PDI check sheet torn off already. The dealers say that this is standard practice. Is that true..i suppose all the manufacturers have it in their delivery process that the customer be shown this PDI document and the car be delivered only once this is shown and signed. The document then goes back into the dealers records i presume. If this practice is followed as prescribed, a lot more buyers will actually pay attention to the PDI process and hence the delaers will have less chances of passing off lemons and cars with rusted body parts..?

[itsrenjith]

After a lot of thought, I have decided to cancel my Punto booking.

- Hi Amol, that is really unfortunate, i can imagine the kind of anger and frustrations that you might be going through, having been through such a situation myself.

However, i do not think this is a Fiat alone problem. In my case it was a Maruti, we have seen enough of Skoda cases in this forum, i saw a recent thread of Hyundai customer relacing a dented car initially offered to him, we have seen a new tata safari with chassis problem on the TBHP forum etc etc.

So even if u cancel the Punto booking, which other manufacturer are you planning to turn to..?

Since u liked the Punto so much (even after considering the after sales network etc), why not go to another dealer and book the Punto and ensure that you do a super PDI to ensure that the car is clean..?

Just giving you an alternate viewpoint here, thats all. I booked a maruti despite my initial bad experience since i couldnt identify another manufacturer who stood out remarkably better than the rest.

[cranil7]

Amol, Ask BUB guys to replace it or give you another car. Don't even worry about rusting on disk brakes. That is very common. (on all brands.)

That rod seems ok to me. If car was in yard for more than 15 days,s it's bound to happen. (particularly so in rainy season) It will happen on any car. I get rusting on my palio during rainy season. What I have done is to paint it. I do that myself every year before monsoon sets in.

BUB has been a good dealership in my opinion. They should give you another car.
(Get an expert opinion. From Sameer @ BUB)

Anil|1.6 Sports|F. Red|Pune.

[sukrit7]

It shoudn't happen, please refer to this post and amogh it's from the handbook so you can show it to them if you need 2
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...ml#post1382207