Apr 20, 2007 02:41 PM
6630 Views
Usually I give my car for service at Bimal Auto located at Whitefield. I have been doing that for last 4 years and have been fairly satisfied with the service they provided. Last month when my Baleno was due for its first paid service, I felt lazy to drive all the way to whitefield. instead I thought I will try out Sagar Automobiles which is next door to my office.
The difference was obvious from the moment the service engineer started to fill in the job card. At Bimal, it is obvious to you that they are following a well defined process - regardless of who is attending your car, there used to be a process they follow, but at Sagar I did not think they had any pre defined process. They simply asked me the complaints and filled in the card. They told me they would do a wheel balancing apart from the regular stuff, I agreed. The total estimated charges was around Rs.1200. I thought it was decent. He asked me to come and collect the car next evening.
So the next evening, I went there at around 5:00PM and asked for the car. The person at the counter called one service person and asked about it. Soon after, the service person came out from the shop floor, and told me that they are having some trouble with the car, and they will not be able to give it that day. Naturally, I was upset. So I started asking questions, then he offered to take me to the car. On the shop floor, I found my car hoisted on some kind of a platform, and one mechanic vigourously power-drilling into my Rs.25000 alloy wheel! I was shocked. The service supervisor explained "Sir we are not able to remove this wheel, looks like the previous place where you did the service have over-tightened it, now the screw-head is damaged, only way we can remove this(and remove the wheel) is by using a lathe and drilling this out"
I dont buy this'over tightening theory'. I concluded that some unskilled mechanic used a wrong sized wrench to unscrew, and damaged the edges of the bolt, and since the bolt is not protruding out because of my alloy wheel, they are not able to remove it. I did fight with those folks, but I realized I do not many options. I returned that day without my car.
to cut the story short - I got my car back the next evening. I immediately checked the front right side alloy wheel, and was happy that not much damage was done to it. I paid Rs.2450 service charges(almost double the estimated cost) and drove back.
I realized that none of the problems I had mentioned to the service engineer has been attended to. After a couple of weeks, I had a flat tyre. I opened the trunk and got the spare wheel out, and was shocked to see that the alloy on which they did all the drilling was there, they had taken out the spare wheel, fixed it so that I do not see the damage when I take the car from service. The alloy was really damaged by the drilling.
Bottomline: Think twice before giving your car for service at Sagar Automobiles
