The First Service + Buying Experience
I gave my car for the 1st free service on (13-July-2009) or rather I went for the service and came back only after settling the bill, the car was serviced at Rana Motors, Okhla. (The dealer from whom I bought the car as well)
But before I write about my
Service Experience. I would like to share something about the
Car Buying Experience as I have just realized that somehow I had managed to miss it while writing the very first/Intro post of this thread.
The Sales Advisor's Mr. Kaushik & Mr. Balvinder. Both were very very helpful they did not degrade the cars of other manufacturers and they also admitted that a few SX4's had problems with the clutch, drive shaft (My Team-BHP Knowledge). They also said that people have difficulty reversing the car, but that was not an issue for me due to my experience with high-booted cars (read Dad's Octavia).
The best part about these two fellows was that they knew about Team-BHP. Hence they were aware of my data source's. I handed over to them my Team-BHP PDI check-list & informed them well in advance of what I was expecting from them.
The Car handed over to me was manufactured in May 2009 (Purchased on: 19-June-2009). It had 38kms on the odometer. The car was driven from the yard in Kapashera to Safdarjung Enclave where the showroom was located or else it would have had around 10-15 Km on the odometer as per the Sales Advisor.
Accessories installed at the dealer were: - Wooden Interior Trim,
- Parking Sensor (made by RD) certified as MGA,
- Carpeted Floor Mats (MGA),
- Rivets on all 4 doors (2 each) right below the window pane on the black strip. To prevent the opening of doors using a scale.
- Teflon Coating I paid a tip to the installer and got it done on the next day which was a Saturday (20-June-2009). What this meant was that the delivery area where the Teflon is done was absolutely empty. Just 2 cars got delivered that day. The Teflon took a long 4-5 hours to complete, I told the guy clearly that I was willing to wait till midnight but the job to be done should be impeccable.
All of the accessories were installed in front of me.
Overall my experience was Very Good: - The staff was courteous.
- They Knew there stuff.
- My Team-BHP PDI check-list was fully satisfied.
- They also gave us a coupon which entitled us to 3 litres of petrol from the neighboring Indian Oil pump.
- Paperwork was in order.
- I have also been told that if I get all the free services done from them then they'll give the fourth service free as well.
- Lastly everything was done on time.
I left the dealership with a and a from there side.
.
.
.
Now for the Service Experience:
I made a pre-booking the day earlier and reached the workshop at 12:30pm, on 13-July-2009. The moment I entered, the guard asked me whether the car had come for running repair or service. Then within seconds the service advisor Harimohan came towards my car (I was still in the car). I got out gave him the keys, he filled a requisition slip and asked me to get the job card made while he would take the car in the workshop. It took 5 mins for the job card to be made and to my surprise my car was the 57th car for the day.
Then I went straight inside the workshop, told him about the rattle from the drivers side door & the hand brake issue. I asked him which engine oil would they put as I was expecting
Idemitsu (read somewhere on Team-BHP) but to my surprise he said
Mobil1 Fully Synthetic Grade: 0w-40. I questioned this, to which he replied that this is what Maruti recommends and it is because of the fully synthetic oil that the service intervals from the 3rd service onwards are for 10,000kms or 1 year (whichever is earlier). This sounded like a reasonable explanation. So I went ahead with it but it made my
1st FREE Service Quite Expensive. In addition to the service I told him to do an under body Anti-Rust treatment as the monsoons have partly begun in Delhi.
I stood by my ride almost through out the exercise, except when the lunch break started and when the anti-rust treatment was being done as it was done in a curtained cubicle.
I used this time to explore the Workshop and discovered quite a few things which had been least expected by me from a car workshop in India. Things such as the following:
- Air Compressors to fill Air or Nitrogen in the Tyres,
- The Best Customer Lounge I have ever been to (In a Car Workshop), they have separate lounges for chauffeurs and for vehicle owners. The lounge was equipped with an air conditioner, wall mounted flat-screen TV (Tata-Sky), Tea/Coffee/Water, news-papers, Auto Mags were available. Apart from all this they had notices on two of the walls which had details on various things such as car maintenance warnings and stuff like Genuine Parts and all, out of the other two walls, one had the flat screen TV and the last one was a completely transparent glass one. From were one could see his/her car being serviced/worked upon (This was the best part).
- Window Etching Machine.
- Small Cafeteria.
After all this exploration I went back to my car, checked the under body coat it seemed fine. Then they took her to the express service bay. Where all the check ups and the engine oil & filter would be changed. This part was done pretty soon in about an hour. I got the oil & filter change done in front of me.
Post the oil change, the mechanical and electrical check-up took place, then the same mechanic made a few adjustments to the hand-brake cable, opened the drivers side door to fix the rattle.
Now the car was ready and it was around 4:30pm. The majority of the time was consumed
by the washing and the under-body coat.
I left the service center by about 5-5:15pm after clearing the bills and taking the advisors (Harimohan's) number as well as the 24hr helpline number.
The First Service Bill. - PARTS
- Oil Filter Rs. 154.67
- Anti-Rust Coat Rs. 1225.07
- Mobil1 Fully Synthetic Engine Oil Rs. 3852.07
- LABOUR
- Service Free
- Anti-Rust Coat Rs. 585.00
- TAXES
- VAT @ 12.5% Rs. 172.46
- On Oil-Filter & Anti-Rust Coat
- VAT @ 20% Rs. 770.41
- Service Tax @ 10% Rs. 58.50
- Edu. Cess on Service Tax @ 3% Rs. 1.76
Total: Parts + Labour + Taxes: Rs. 6,820.00