Bought a new ELICA glace electric chimney few days back. Dealer as well as sales agent as usual boasted the company as if it is next to NASA in creating high quality products and far superior than run of the mill brands in market.
Funny though true, on installation the machine did not start. The installation person at noida Mr. Santosh spoke with sales manager Paras and somehow made the machine work(probably by giving an intial push to motor) and showed that it is working.
Being an engineer, I could notice that the motor is not running at rated speed and suction was next to nothing. I told him to take the machine back since it did not work. Both sales manager and installation rep insisted that let an engineer from service center come and check. They promised that if the problem is related to machine, it will be replaced(they were expecting a loose socket here and there)
I was skeptical that if I allow this, they are going to treat the machine as installed and will fix it under warrnaty, but in good faith I allowed him to leave.
Yesterday the engineer visited and declared that the motor is dead(frst day failure of a product on which they give 10 yr warranty). The service manager Mr Dilip bhatt offered me to replace the MOTOR but did not commit on replacing the whole machine, which in principle is moving away from what was promised and also was a dent on my good faith.
I dont deny that mine could be one in thousand story but if it is then ELICA should take the complete peice back and offer me a new peice(unless they encounter dead motors almost everyday and cannot do it with every customer).
For now, I rate their sales/service/quality to be below average.
Times of india brings out articles every once a while on consumer case studies. I plan to send my case to them with names of rep as mentioned above. I hope sincere and genuine buyers read my case and are watchful of such pitfalls.
I will keep this post updated if I am able to get a good or usual response from ELICA reps.