I bought a Ford Ikon 1.6 ZXi from Automart in Oct 2006. The deal was a clean one and I received all receivables without much follow -up. The car turned out to be excellent and I ran it at 160 KMPH yesterday on Mumbai - Pune expressway. Besides the car is consistently providing me with a 12 KMPL mileage in city with AC on. It gave an average on 14 KMPL on Mumbai - Pune expressway. This is where the honeymoon ends. The certifed car needs to be serviced by Sah and Sanghi after 3 months or 5000 KMs and 6 months or 10000 KMs whichever is eralier. However, our Sah and Sanghi guys in Thane are loaded with attitude and consider the cars purchased thru Automart as their last priority.
I had 2 experiences with them and both of them left me with a bad taste:
1) I had a broken silencer pipe and approached Ford Motors. Ford people were genuine enough to show me the break as being a minor one which could be easily fixed by welding according to them. Since they did not do the welding part, they suggsted I approach a welder and get it fixed. This was my first opportunity to interact with Sah and Sanghi. No sooner, then I called Sah and Sanghi and told them that the car is purchased from Automart(which they asked as a first question), they informed me that it is going to be a paid service. I said fine and we decided to get the car done on the coming Saturday. I took the car to them they did a check on it.
One of their persons told us that the welding could be done but they need to wait for the chief welder to show up. The chief welder showed up after an hour and after taking a glance at the car, commented that the welding cannot be done. The manager also changed his stand and said it cannot be done. My question is why did they make me wait for 1 hour+ before giving me this news. I then took the car to another garage and they fixed it in 15 min flat.
2) My first service got due and as per the warranty on the car, the car needs to be serviced at pre-defined interval in order to keep the warranty intact. So, once again I called up Sah and Sanghi, and the guy who picked up the phone refused to accept the car on a weekend. I told him that I cannot afford to leave my car for servicing on a weekday and nothing of this condition was told to me at the time of purchase. He had no answer for it. I called up Automart and explained the situation to them. Mr Vijay in Automart, with whom I was interacting, intervened on my behalf and secured an appointment for me with Sah and Sanghi for a Saturday. Now I am unable to reach their manager for a time on Saturday. This is being a pure harrassment. Advise to Buyers: Please insist on written document for Quality of Service to expect from Sah and Sanghi before buying a car from Automart.