My dad had bought a car from Sai Service in Goa. The people there really cared about the cars they sold and were sincere about after sales service. So when we decided to buy a Maruti car in Pune, we blindly chose Sai Service. We approached them and they were very courteous. They sent demo cars to our place – which is a good 25 kms from their office. They answered all our queries and followed up efficiently. We were highly impressed. We bought a Zen LXi, along with a host of accessories – including a Sony music system.
On the auspicious day of Dusserah, we took possession of our car and drove away happily. About 15 minutes into the drive and we realised that we could increase the volume of the music but not decrease it! We went right back to Sai Service. They apologised profusely and promptly replaced the music system. We tested it well this time before driving away.
The Zen LXi comes with Radial tyres. We had plans of fitting tubeless tyres. The Sai Service told us that they will charge Rs. 1000 per tyre for replacing radial tyres with tubeless tyres. We went to a tyre dealer in Pune and he told us that it would cost 500 for replacing all the tyres with tubeless bridgestone tyres. We had plans of fitting extra fog lamps. The Sai Service people told me it would cost Rs. 4000. Whereas, the actual cost is as less as Rs. 2000. We also realized later that the seat covers, we paid Rs. 2100 for, were actually available for much less outside.
Our problems with the music system were far from over. A friend had got a Sony music system for his car from the Sony showroom. We noticed conspicuous differences in the quality of sound in his car and ours. On further inspection we found that the speakers fitted in our car were DUPLICATE!!! We went to Sai Service and confronted them. After a lot of futile discussions, we told them we would be forced to approach the consumer court. It was then that he agreed to replace the speakers.
Another problem with the music system was that, every time we went over rough roads, the whole panel would rattle. As per Sai Service people, it is a normal thing and happens with every music system. However, we noticed that it happened only in our car. By this time, we had been to their service station umpteen times. When our complaints fell on deaf ears, we asked them to take back the music system. We thought, it would be better to get a music system from the Sony showroom. One of their employees actually said that we were harassing them. This made us furious and we demanded a meeting with the store manager. This man, got another technician to look into our music system and got it fixed. Ever since, the rattling has reduced significantly.
During one of our visits, our car got scratched in the service station. We asked the person servicing the car to apply brush paint on that. We even said we would pay for it. However, the supervisor made an issue of it. After much discussion, he agreed to do the job.
Besides this, we also faced some more minor problems. After the second service, they did not rotate the tyres. Tyres were supposed to be rotated for long durability. They accidentally cut the engine fan connection due to which, the engine temperature rose to max and the coolant spilled out, and they made me pay for that coolant as it was consumable. To prevent us from escalating this issue, they washed and waxed the car for free.
In short, right from the day we bought out car, are being tortured by these people. We now don’t go to them even for the “free service” offered by Maruti. Due to one bad dealer, the name of Maruti is being tarnished, We mentioned this in our feedback to Maruti. I hope some action is taken.