With Royal Automotives you get cheated royally!
This is more a note of caution(than tips) for bangalore guys looking to buy a second hand car. I had a real bad experience with them and I just want to share with you all. I needed a good second hand car in a condition that could allow me to go for long drives. I landed up at this place and found one Ford Ikon 1.6(2000 model) which had done 50000 Kms and still looked in good shape. I test drove it and I didnt smelt a rat until I bought it(for 2.4 Lacs). Here is my list of woes.
The very next week on my trip to Shivasamudra the car broke down and didnt move an inch(and that when I told him that I need this car for long drives!). Later I found that the clutch plate was gone and the gear could not be engaged. I went fuming to this place and after much altercation they did replace the clutch plate cheaply but the TRUST was gone fore sure.
A few weeks later when I had to change one of my tyre I found that the spare is a rogue one and cant be used. I take it as my mistake as I didnt truly check the stepny before I bought the car but nevertheless, it speak volumes about the "honesty" of this dealer!
A hardly 2 months after the deal the silencer was no more silent and needed to be placed. I went to ford service station and thats when I found how untrustworthy "Royal Automotives" is. Fortunately it was the place where the car used to get serviced before I bought it and from the service records I found that the car has already done over One Lac Kms!
And a month later the car started to show signs of aging with lots of noise coming from all sorts of places(suspension, arms, bracket, etc) and rushed my car back to the service station and ran up a bill of whopping 50K.
If that was not enough in my next trip I was hardly out of bangalore when the engine coolant leaked and I had to tow the car back to the garage and got it fixed at a cost of some 18k!
After spending some 80K extra, now the car has been running ok for last 4-5 months(touch wood). I guess it would have been wise to have spend 50K more and bought the same configuration car from someone trustworthy like AutoMart.
FYI, Royal Automotives is located near BTM water tank. If you go towards banerghatta road from Silk-Board junction(Hosur Road) then you’ll find it on your right just before you hit the banerghatta flyover.