PUC lists my BS-4 Polo as a BS-3 car: Here's how I solved it

With the start of new type PUC being issued somewhere in 2020, I noticed that the validity of the PUC for the polo was only six months and the emission norms are mentioned as BS III

BHPian Brumby recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I have a 2014 Polo GT 1.2 TSI manufactured and registered in Nov 2014 in Thane, Maharashtra.

With the start of new type PUC being issued somewhere in 2020, I noticed that the validity of the PUC for the polo was only six months and the emission norms are mentioned as BS III. This also means that the registration records of my car with the RTO has wrong information regarding the emission norms.

I have a Swift Zxi (March 2012) which complies with BS IV emission norms and I get a PUC certificate with a validity of 1 year.

Until the new type PUC certificate was being issued, I had no idea that my car is registered as BS III with the RTO. There was no way for an owner to find the emission norms in the vehicle's registration certificate until new type of PUC certificates were started.

I reached out to the VW dealer service in my town to find which emission norms does a Polo GT TSI conforms to. As expected, they confirmed that the Polo GT TSI is a BS IV vehicle and there must have been an error on the part of the dealer or the clerk at the RTO while making entry.

The problem is that the dealer from whom I purchased the vehicle wrapped up operations by 2016 and the new dealer has no intention to help.

A lot of convincing was required to get the information regarding the emission norms compliance from them.

The picture below is the only information that the dealer has provided me, and it is not convincing enough to be presented as maker's confirmation about the official emission norms of my car.

Though I have put up an application with the RTO for correction in the records, I have a little doubt that the application might get rejected due to lack of a proper document from the maker confirming the emission norms of this particular make and model of vehicle.

Request you to please advise how should I proceed with getting the official records corrected in case in need to pursue further.

Here's what BHPian drsachin had to say on the matter:

This is a problem at many places in India. Although BS4 was applied in atleast 13 cities in India in 2012 itself. But RTO systems were updated in 2017 only when BS4 was applied nation wide. hence cars were registered as BS3 only despite being BS4 only for lack of options in the software.

In Noida, Ghaziabad all the cars registered from 2012 to 2017 were registered as BS3 only despite being BS4.

I too faced this difficulty while selling of my car 2014 Fluidic Verna Diesel. Most RTOs in India don't allow re-registration of BS3 cars while ownership transfer. Ghaziabad RTO accepted that all cars registered in Delhi NCR from 2012 onwards are BS4 only as it's mandatory as per Government orders, so their is no need for confirmation from anyone. Just write a mail to Lucknow head office and they will take around 2/3 months to correct it. In my case it took 2months to correct it.

Here's what BHPian Tgo had to say on the matter:

You are doing the right thing.

My friend had his Auraiya Registered car have these details corrected from Lucknow RTO after a lot of running around.

He had to obtain the factory PUC test certificate that is issued to the dealer for every new car and submit a copy of that to the RTO along with an application for correction.

Just wondering, if the dealer shut shop, who could help you out here? Maybe an RTI, but it has to be worded in a way that the RTO itself has the onus to find old records for when the car was first registered?
Maybe find a nice CRM from VW higher up in the escalation matrix, like an area manager etc. and build a rapport rather than framing it in a harsh tone.

Here's what BHPian Reinhard had to say on the matter:

I have the exact same situation with my Polo 1.2 GT TSI also. But then - I have worked out a solution so far with the PUC station. I could see that in their application (web-based) - the person had a drop-down for emission norms applicable to the car (I expected it to be read only and the norms to be downloaded from online registry. But - it was editable!).

The drop down had options - BS3, BS4, BS3/4. When I discussed and explained to the attendant - he agreed to select BS3/4 in the drop-down menu, and the PUC certificate that I got now - is valid for 12 months.

BHPian Brumby had the following update to share on the issue:

Did the PUC of the car last week and it shows BS4.

Really thankful to the Thane RTO officials to do the necessary changes and of course the ease of doing it in just one visit.

As per my recent experiences (Correction in address for my driving license, 15 year renewal of RC for my bullet STD and the BS3 to BS4 correction for Polo) Its much easier and convenient to deal with government officials than the private sector.

I prefer to by-pass the brokers and do things myself much against the advice of my better half, and the experiences so far have been pleasant.

Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.