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How I got duped at Maruti, Hyundai authorised service station

I asked the advisor of what they have done and instantly 4-5 persons came near my car and started discussing something. And at that time I was certain that I have been duped.

Thanks to Shikhar Oberoi for sharing his ordeal with us. Heartfelt gratitude for sharing it with other enthusiasts via this Team-BHP page!

Hello, this is Shikhar from New Delhi. I wanted to share two recent incidents with you.

1. Hyundai service centre.

Gave my Hyundai Elantra for service and the dashcam was on. I asked them to change horns and do wheel alignment and rest of the service was free of charge under Hyundai's scheme.

Got the car back, and I saw on the dashcam that the car never reached the alignment station. Reported the same to the advisor and he sent me a fake alignment report. Went to the service centre again and found out that I was correct, and they just charged me for the alignment without doing anything.

I got a call from vice president of the showroom and he returned me the amount of the bill that I had paid. I didn't want to escalate further, so the matter was closed.

2. Gave my car to MASS for 30k service of my Vitara Brezza Vdi AMT. This time they removed the dash cam cable.
I asked them to change all the necessary things mentioned In the service manual and put all the replaced parts in the boot as ford does.

Got my car delivered back home with a bill of Rs. 8000. I was surprised to see the labor amount of Rs. 3000 as against Rs. 1500 that I was charged in the previous two services.

When I confronted the advisor he told me that the system automatically takes the amount and nothing can be done. I found out later that Maruti charges higher PMS labor for 30k service, but they also do some extra work which I still don't know.

Another thing I noticed was that they changed the engine oil Viscosity and used a different brand of oil in all the three times the car was serviced. Further, the amount was different too - it kept on getting higher and higher.

This is the engine oil brands and grades changed in the three services.

  • 10k 15w40 Rs. 1000rs Indian oil
  • 20k 5W30 Rs. 1800rs Indian oil
  • 30k 5W40 Rs. 2200rs Petronas

I opened the boot and found no replaced parts. I asked the driver/mechanic to send me the photo of the filters changed and he sent me only a pic of a fuel filter stating this was changed in your car.

I got furious and after researching a bit more found out that the fuel filter they charged me on the bill was different compared to the pic that the driver sent me. Please check the part number on the bill and the one on the photo I am attaching.

I went back the next day to the service centre which is less than 2 km from my home. Car has covered only 4 km since the service.

I asked the advisor of what they have done and instantly 4-5 persons came near my car and started discussing something. And at that time I was certain that I have been duped.

I asked them to open each and every part in front of me. I found out that they changed the air filter and the cabin air filter that's it.

Take a look at the engine oil after just 4kms of running and the date on the fuel filter mentioned. My car is November 2018 make and the fuel filter was the original one that was fitted from the factory itself. So now I asked Maruti these questions to which I haven't got an answer for the past 14-15 days.

The first time I got a call from Maruti representative, he dodged all the questions and just fixated on how I was charged rightly as per Maruti. In the end he kept his phone switched off and has now stopped replying to my email.

In short

  • They didn't have bill of the fuel filter that they claimed to have changed.
  • The part number of the fuel filter which is mentioned on the bill is not compatible with the Brezza and is costlier than the Brezza's fuel filter.
  • They didn't change the engine oil + oil filter.
  • They charged me 3k as labor charges and till date they haven't told me what extra work they perform for which they are charging 1500rs extra.
  • They poured 3.3 liters of engine oil from the 3.5 liter engine oil can, and they just took it back to the store room where I saw 7-8 cans lying with 200-300ml each. This way they can easily bill another customer for the engine oil and use the leftover engine oil in his car.
  • Used different grade and costlier engine oil in every service.
 
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