Games auto-parts thieves playing?. Review on General Tips on the Indian Car Market

Do you know the games auto-parts thieves might be playing?

Maruti Buyers Beware

Maruti Buyers, planning to purchase a new or true value Maruti, beware! You might be caught unaware. When you buy a new car or pre-owned vehicle, please confirm personally whether it has all the parts and accessories.

I have some shocking examples to indicate a likelihood of your being cheated during the vehicle delivery process. The loss may not be very significant at the initial stage but the outcome in future, far more unimaginable.

Thieves and Maruti Dealers

One of our relatives, Mr. Umesh Kaushik, Principal of Gayatri Vidya Mandir, Unnao(near Kanpur), purchased a brand new Maruti 800 AC on 27 October 2005 from a prominent Maruti Dealer- M/S MyCar Pvt. Ltd. at Jarib Chowki, Kanpur. He straight away drove the car to Lucknow and visited my place. While we were going towards a local temple to have puja, I noticed a warning light on the dash-board panel. Since I have a 1999 model Maruti 800 Dx and that vehicle does not have any such indicator in the dash-board panel, I searched the manual and found that it is an indicator of some problem with the smoke emission. So we decided to rush to a Maruti dealer M/S TS Motors at Lucknow. The engineers there confirmed the problem due to non fitment of  MAP Sensor that joins throttle body of the MPFI system. TS Motors’ works engineer told us that the part costs Rs. 10, 500. A retired army officer who was taking the delivery of a serviced Maruti Omni, told us that he had similar complaint when he took delivery of a true value pre-owned Maruti Zen from one of the leading Lucknow dealer at Faizabad road and when his relative reported the loss of air conditioner supposedly supplied with the car, the dealer charged them of negligence and alleged that it was stolen from elsewhere and asked them to file claim with the insurance.

the Games Auto-Part Thieves Play

My relative Mr. Umesh rang the Kanpur dealer panic. It was about 6 PM, when the attendant on phone number 0512 2521245 instructed us to visit showroom immediately because they were going to close it by 8PM. The most important thing to note was this that he was not surprised on what we reported.

So we hurriedly arranged another vehicle, in case we have to leave the new one at the dealer, to resolve the problem. Within the next two hours we were there at Kanpur amidst the mind boggling dhanterus festival traffic. As soon as we contacted the showroom, the boys were there attending the problem. The service engineer was smart enough to call some of his colleague from his cell phone and enquired about the missing part. Within minutes it was confirmed that the Maruti PDI Workshop at Panki(Kanpur) did not fit the sensor. The part was arranged later and fitted within next half an hour. The dash board panel warning was gone.

Scam or else…?

I contacted the manager there and told him the incident. The gentleman was apparently in shock and requested me to cool down. He assured me to take this matter with the appropriate authorities.

When we were coming out of the show room, an attendant tried to explain us that since the car was covered under insurance, even if something goes wrong then of course we could get the part back under insurance cover. it is the insurance company at loss, neither the showroom nor the customer.

Insurance companies are you listening?