Quote:
Originally Posted by mnhegde Congrats friend. Nice purchase. Good choice of color. Is it diesel or petrol ?? What is the onroad cost?? Nice to know things changed at the dealership. Please post some pics of your car.
Drive safe.
aaggoswami : I dont think any discounts are offered at present (new vehicle and its doing quite well). |
=> its a Multijet Diesel. Onroad would be about 9.76. pics already posted and More to come
=> No discounts on the Epack as yet
continuing the saga... sorry for going into Sermons. i am trying to condense the 3 Month experience within 3 Posts.
May 11th to June 21st - No Niggles.. No problems. I am enjoying being Admired at atleast for my car!
June 21st 6 Pm.. dad reverses the scorpio in the pic and brushes against my Rear Right door.
i had exchanged parking places with him that morning to avoid the attack of falling fruits of the "dhoopa" tree. Result Small dent on RR door. next morning visit automatrix for repairs. denting job done within an Hour. Now begins the Nightmare...
Automatrix doesnt have the Vocal white Formulation. To make matters worse they try their experiments trying to Match the pearl white colour of the safari to the Linea. End result on june 22nd - Disaster. the door looks as though it has been removed from some other vehcile and transplanted here!!
June 23rd I again Visit Automatrix and the painters again try their luck at Colour matching. the dupont Supplier also pitches in with his suggestions. in a tri- coat system paint has been sprayed 4 times thats about 12 coats! Colour still doesnt match and am frustrated. Blast the GM sales and ask him to contact Fiat and ask for help. The arrogant person that he is doesnt contact Fiat but some people in Bangalore and some TATA-Fiat dealers who forward a Paint formulation of nerolac. Incidentally nerolac has jettisoned the refinish Industry six years ago! desperate to please me he calls up dupont bangalore who promise to send their paint expert the next Morning.
June 24th The paint expert arrives. tries his hand at Mixing colours and in the evening applies his formulation to find that it is light and bright! adds a little bit of Aluminium Tint to the formulation and applies it again and the colour still doesnt match. By now the door has been repainted 7 times i.e 21 coats of paint! I seriously begin to wonder as to why these A** do not get the OE Paints and use the dupont alternatives. That evening i decide to mail fiat: text of mail is as follows:
Dear sir,
reg: No: KA 19 MA 3050
Selling dealer: Concorde Bangalore
Servicing Dealer : Automatrix Mangalore
Engine no:0016669
Chassis no:MCA11071709004338C0Z
my car has been kept for a minor touch up of the R/R door. the colour of the car is 'Vocal White'. the dealers do not have the paint formula for the vocal white colour. the service head of the dealership M/s automatrix mangalore contacted FIAT yesterday for the paint formulation. he got a reply stating that the same colour formulation as TATA safari Pearl white may be used. however after application of the paint, it is observed that the safari pearl white combination is lighter than the vocal white colour on the linea. the vocal white linea has a light tint of red / brown / chocolate colour which the repainted part seems to be misisng as a result of which the painted part appears brighter and lighter than the rest of the car. kindly request you to forward the paint formulation urgently so that the touch up may be completed today. the initial pictures of the vocal white car are attached.
regards
sunil
I get a reply Immediately the next day in the form of Mr. Vinayak raskar of BASF Coatings who are the OE suppliers of paint to Fiat worldwide stating that he would like to have a look at the vehicle. he sees the vehicle and asks me to drop by the next day at the dealership where he would be getting his head trainer to do the job. The next Morning at 9 the head trainer arrives from Hyderabad and gets down to work. asks the dealership to scrape off all the 21 layers of paint they had applied upto the bare metal and apply the undercoat. later at 3 pm he does the spraying and the door now looks as tho its never been touched up. he keeps the door in the booth and instructs the workshop to bake the paint at 60 Degrees for 30 Minutes.. and goes off for a smoke and i join him!
we return in 10 minutes to find to our shock that the technicians at the workshop have switched off the booth saying that they follow this system where as soon as the temperature is reached they switch off the Burners . The refinish expert as well as the head trainer pray and wish that the paint doesnt Blister and go away and i go home thanking them!
An excerpt of a Mail recieved from the product head of BASF
Dear Sir,
Our Refinish Expert Mr. Vinayak Raskar has attended your complaint of Shade
Mismatch, observed during the spot repair of your car painted in Vocal
White.
Hope the issue was resolved to your satisfaction.
Please feel free to contact us for any further need.
Thanking you & assuring best of our services.
Best Regards
Umesh D. Deshpande
BASF Coatings (India) Pvt. Ltd.
i return home and after 8 days observe that the paint has blistered. all due to the non adherence to standard operating procedures by the workshop! i call up Mr. Vinayak again and we decide that this time the painting would be done at the BASF R &D Lab situated near Mangalore and on July 14th i reach the Lab along with the door, which is again sanded. to our shock and disdain we notice that the previous time the workshop painters hadnt stripped off the paint till the base coat and there were atleast 5-6 coats of paint! we strip off the entire paint, apply Polyester primer and the painting is done and the paint baked at 70 degrees for 30 Minutes. we return back with the door to the workshop at 6 pm and the door is fitted back. So far So good!