I have a Chevrolet Optra that I bought in March from Sundaram Motors in Bangalore. Right from the beginning, the entire interaction with the dealer was frustrating to me.
I bought my car through in my company’s name through a leasing company (GE countrywide). Most dealers in Bangalore deliver the car as soon as the leasing company confirms that they are working on the payment. In case of Sundaram Motors and a few other places (India Garage, etc.), the car is taken for registration and delivered only after the payment is made. In my case, the GE countrywide regional manager helped in making sure that the car is delivered on the day that I wanted.
As soon as the car was delivered, the sales person who I was working with left Sundaram motors. Within a week, my number plate broke and I demanded a replacement - though the plate broke when it was lightly hit, I suspected that the plate broke because the plastic was already straining due to the way it was screwed on. After a long fight, I got them to replace the number plate free of charge. Cost of the number plate was minimal (Rs. 100/-), but it didn’t stop either Sundaram motors or me from sticking to our stances.
As with any car dealer, the accessories section is a huge rip-off. What is unique about Sundaram motors is that the accessories section also lacks any skilled people. I had fitted the car with an MP3 player, which was hooked up through the standard radio/cassette player that comes with the car. The result was that the audio quality was very bad - it took me three trips back to the dealer to convince them that the sound was of bad quality. Their initial reaction quite shocked me - the dude just adjusted the volume/bass/treble to a low level and told me to get satisfied with this. But after three attempts, I gave up and ended up doing what the accessories guy told me - lived with it. I couldn’t find any spec of the speakers (sound power, manufacturer’s name, etc.) on any of the documentation of the car.
Now, after about 6 months of use, I drove in my car for its service (one needs to take an appointment for a specific drop-off time, at least 2 days in advance for the service). With a grand total of 4 cars waiting for attention, the service staff took all of 40 minutes to get to me. Then I painfully learned that ’’free service - including parts and consumables’’ was not really free and would cost around Rs.1K. The wheel balancing, alignment, weights, etc. are mandatory during this service, but are not free. I asked them if these are jobs that they are forcing on me - or whether they are really part of the first service. My argument is that if the first two services are advertised as free, then everything that is recommended for these services should also be free. The service manager told me that this is a gimmick from GM and that GM only pays for oil change.
Finally, when I was asked to pick up the car at 5:30 pm. Guess what, I had to wait patiently till 8:30 pm to actually pick up the car. Even then, they had only done the outer body wash (they are supposed to do a full car wash).
The staff at the dealer (sales and service) are courteous (never saw them being rude), but are not helpful or service oriented.
Most of the problems (unresponsiveness, exorbitant accessory prices, no accountability, etc.) are common to most large car dealers, but Sundaram Motors takes the pride of place among the baddies.
I’m quite satisfied with the car and its performance, though - that is the saving grace of the whole story!