I took my Zen for regular servicing few months back to Mandovi at Wilson Garden. I didn’t have any specific issues as such. But the mechanic, after taking a test drive, suggested a clutch overhaul for better performance and mileage. Buying into his advice and continued coercion, I asked him to go ahead. What followed is a nightmarish experience. Contrary to his promise, my mileage suddenly dropped to 9 KMs/L, down 3 KMs. And I started getting getting unbearable petrol smell in the cabin. I took the car back to Mandovi the next day. He said a connector pipe is leaking and wanted me to change it. Still no change to the mileage and petrol smell. I am back to Mandovi after few days. This time he says the carburettor is clogged and that is the reason for all this trouble. So the solution is a carburettor overhaul. I still trusted Mandovi (poor me!). To put the long story short, nothing changed after six or seven visits to Mandovi spending about 8 grands. Fed up, I took the car to my neighborhood workshop (Gem Cars, Sanjay Nagar) and told them the issue. It just took 15 mins and Rs 150/- to fix the problem.
The moral of the story - At Mandovi, they find a way to extract money from you when you leave your car for servicing. And the end product is a worse car than what you left for servicing.
P.S. This time I serviced the car at Gem Cars at a total cost of about 50% of the avg cost at Mandovi. And I feel they have done a better job too.
Bobby.